When I’m single, I hit on every woman I think is attractive. It’s good for them, and fun for me. Most of the time. No matter how tired/drunk/covered in blood I am, I do it. Why keep the women of the world from my presence? Doesn’t seem fair.
When I work too many shifts in a row (I’m a paramedic) I start looking at everyone as a potential patient. The balance of work, fatigue, and women should be carefully considered.
——————–
I was standing in line behind a nice young lady at a grocery store, dead on my feet after a zillion hours on the ambulance.
“You’ve got really nice veins…” I mumbled.
“Wh…What!1??eleven!?” she replied.
“No..uh..I mean…Your median cubital vein is perfect! If I had to, I could get a 14 gauge IV in there, no problem! Even if your heart stopped and your venous tone was crap. No, seriously – I could do it.”
“Oh my God!” she said. She’d started out bright red, but progressed to a most pale skin tone. Pale and diaphoretic as we say in the Meat Wagon business.
“Sorry. I’m really tired,” I sighed. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
I still feel bad about that whole exchange. I creeped out that poor girl something fierce. I’d been working my ass off for 24 hours. I am tall and like to lift weights. I’m not a beautiful man, even in the best light. At the time, my eyes were so bloodshot they looked like cherry tomatoes in my face, my hair was wild, sweaty, and greasy, and I had unidentifiable stains on my pants and boots.
If her dad/SO/the cops had showed up, I’d have saved them the trouble and kicked my own ass. I was half expecting to be called in to my supervisor’s office for a month after that, since my agency’s logo was clearly visible on my shirt.
Sorry, Grocery Girl. I really didn’t mean it like that. I was just really, really tired.
But….Nothing happened. I got a funny story, and she got a funny story (eventually it’ll be funny). One of the worst attempts at flirting in the universe resulted in no material consequences.
And I looked like walking Death at the time.
Why are you not flirting with women again?
Pill Red, Condition Yellow 
That was an awesome story Dog.
Truth be told, if a female version of you pulled up behind me and did that to me, id probably go all pale n crap too. I suffer from Vasovagal syncope. Used to be a drop of blood would drop me. Now it’s ‘only’ unstoppable arterial bleeding, ghastly broken bones, and any needles near my veins. Ya small list indeed. Oh well..
Still funny story! And keep flirting. Just do it after some sleep and some coffee.
“When I’m single, I hit on every woman I think is attractive. It’s good for them, and fun for me.”
THIS. exactly.
That, my friend, is why you need to keep blogging. You GET IT. That’s the most important line in the story. I will return your email shortly. I have some questions.
Your story reads like one of the parables that Jesus would recount.
I’m not really religious, but that is the first word that came to me when I read your post.
Ha, I remember the first girl I actually tried to hit on post-Game.
Still had the approach anxiety. Sat right down at the computer next to me in the college lab. I was on IRC at the time.
Very pretty. Sweet. Good voice. Sort of looked like a slightly sexified, more mature kindergarten teacher. Okay, so maybe a 2nd Grade teacher? She bugging me about her MS Word because she was trying to resize some images. Easy crap. Kept asking me about what pictures she should put on her project. Some sort of advertising thing. Probably knew I was business because I was dressed up business-casual for the job fair right down the road.
Eventually she wandered off and said goodbye. And then I was like “shit!” Told my IRC buddies I had to go see about a girl. I had not yet seen Goodwill Hunting (which btw is an awesome fucking movie).
Found her in the elevator. She had hit it off with my polish, more alpha friend. Felt threatened. When he left, I teased her a bit about her leg, because it was in a cast. She had hurt herself doing rock climbing. Hootttttttt. She made up some excuse about not knowing where a building was on campus so I volunteered to show her where it was.
I don’t know what happened after that for sure, but apparently I came off as a huge braggart by talking about my (slightly higher) grades when she was talking about her own grades, and then ragging a bit on the econ-sociology rivalry when she said she was a soc major. She ended up calling me a fucking asshole and started to leave.
My response. “Hmmmm…an asshole?”
Her’s: “Yeah.”
Me: “okay”
*continue walking*
Me: “You know the building you are looking for is that way, right?”
Her: “Yeah, I know”
Saw her a few more times that semester. Too afraid to approach her again beyond a little conversation. She seemed friendly enough.
Sorry Soc-Girl! You were dealing with a virgin 21 year old who knew nothing about anything. If you’re still around and single, I think you were very pretty, very smart, and had the best “meet guy” skills of any girl I ever met.
You should totally call.
Such a lucky girl to get a dose of Dogsquat in person. If she has any sense she’ll tell that story to everyone she knows. Hilarious.
I hope she laughs about it now. It was…err…not my finest hour.