My former roommate, Jesk, had a friend in law school who we'll call Joba. Joba was a perfectly nice fellow - very smart and also, tall. It was obvious to everyone, including Jesk, that Joba had a sizeable crush on her. And while she enjoyed his company as a friend, she was not in any way romantically interested in him.
Unfortunately, Joba, for whatever reason, felt unable to declare his love outright - and therefore, Jesk was unable to let him down gently. Instead, Joba would just hang around near Jesk, acting like her boyfriend and cockblocking her endlessly at parties and the like.
This went on for YEARS and frustrated Jesk to no end. FINALLY, Joba asked her to go to a movie (but still in ambiguous, non-romantic terms). Jesk fell on this opportunity like a starving dog and said she'd love to go to the movie AS FRIENDS, RIGHT? BECAUSE I LIKE YOU HAS A FRIEND, ONLY A FRIEND.
Joba responded "Of course only as friends, don't flatter yourself" [I paraphrase] and basically acted like she had suggested he was asking her to shit in his mouth.
While his complete denial of his crush on Jesk was still annoying to her (and me, because I had to hear about it endlessly), he did back off after that, which was nice. Don't feel badly for him - his mad dating skillz clearly improved after this incident. I see from stalking him just now on Facebook that he just married a really good looking young lady. Kudos, Joba. Kudos.
Anyway, I was thinking about this story of failing to declare intentions and the anger that results the other day when Emmy Lou and I were enjoying a walk on a rare sunny day in our neighbourhood.
As we drew near the JJ Bean, I noticed a fellow across from the coffee shop looking shifty. Kind of noodling around like he was talking to himself, nothing particularly weird. But because Emmy likes to stop and sniff regardless of my proximity to shifty people, I decided to cross the street so as to not get involved with whatever was happening.
A few minutes later, we reached a park and lo and behold, Shifty Guy was there, walking up to towards us on the path! "Ah well", I thought, "It's a lovely day and shifty guys enjoy the outdoors too." We walked a little farther and then headed down a different path. A few seconds later, I noticed that SG had changed his trajectory and was now headed over to our side of the park.
Huh.
Since my passive aggressive avoidance techniques hadn't worked, I decided to just wait for SG to come over and make his move. He did come over...and then, standing about five feet away from us, he pretended like he was looking for something behind a park bench.
"Okay," I thought, "fine. You had your chance to...whatever your plan was. Now screw off."
Emmy and I slowly made our way back across the park and SG stayed on his bench. Then, he moved to a bench closer to us. And then, he moved to an even closer bench. And then, as we headed back into the neighbourhood, I saw SG get up off his bench and start to follow us.
By this time, I was annoyed and also, a little creeped out. What the hell was going on here?
We came around the corner onto Commercial again and I made Emmy Lou's day by allowing her to sniff a garbage can while I stood there, facing the corner SG would be rounding shortly. He did come around the corner and we made eye contact. I just stood there and stared at him. Emmy tried to eat a gum wrapper and choked a little. He saw me, blinked away and then, as he walked by me, he actually TURNED HIS HEAD all the way to the other side of the sidewalk, like he was pretending I wasn't there staring at him.
Then Emmy and I started following him.
SG kept walking to the end of the block and then went around the corner across from the JJ Bean, where I'd first seen him.
Then, because I was nervous SG would follow us home, I took a fairly circuitous route back to the homestead, stopping frequently to make sure no one was following us.
Emmy didn't know what she'd done to merit so many random sniff stops, but she took full advantage of it.
It's been a few days and I'm still annoyed by a) how menaced I felt in broad daylight in my own neighbourhood and b) how because SG, like Joba, didn't declare his intentions, I didn't get the opportunity to end things on my terms.
Also, I still can't decide what his motivation was. Did SG want to:
- Talk to me about Jesus
- Ask me for money
- Suggest we get it on
- Check to see if I was someone he'd previously gotten it on with (hint: no)
- Take money from me without my consent
- Teach me a lesson about avoiding shifty guys by following me around
- Practice his suspect tailing techniques for the police academy (Grade: F)
- Pet my dog
- Ask me for money for Jesus
I'd say "History will decide" but the reality is that I'll probably just punch this guy in the nads if I see him again.
