More than just a pretty face…

Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?

This kind of thing happens to me all the time:  I’m out all day, running some errands, looking like who did it and ran because who am I going to run into getting my passport photo or picking up my dry cleaning.  I haven’t showered or put on clean clothes because, frankly, I’m gonna get all sweaty walking around anyway and I’ll do it when I get home.  Then, in the middle of my funky ass journey, some dude tries to holler.  Yesterday, some dude saw me at the bus stop, was overwhelmed by my beauty (I mean, who could blame him?), and decided to get out of his car and talk to me.  He started out with the usual public transportation talk: “Where does this bus go?”  Then the compliment: “You have such a beautiful smile, it made me come over here.”  Followed by the obligatory come-on: “So are you going all the way to Cross County?  I’ll get off wherever you’re going.”  Apparently I wasn’t as quick on the uptake as he’d have liked, because he made it known before returning to his car (yes, he wasn’t actually waiting for the bus at all) that he was going to offer to drive me wherever I wanted to go.

Really?

Before you think I’m ridiculous for being annoyed, that I should take it as a compliment that so many men find me attractive, realize that you can’t tell anything about a person by how they look.  I have a nice smile because my mother did, and my teeth are good because I have braces, but I could be a psycho (just look in my medicine cabinet) or a bitch (ask some guys I dated) or boring as hell (never!).  And the last time I checked, women who accepted offers they got on the corner charged by the hour…

I’m just saying, if a guy wants to date me he’s got to do more than just compliment me – I’m not that shallow and I don’t really appreciate it in other people.  And what happened to YOUR standards, Mr. Bus Stop Man?  Your only qualifications are 1) female, 2) pretty enough, 3) transportation-impaired?

Another such day, I was walking down my street carrying some dry cleaning and groceries.  It was about 2:00 PM on a weekday.  A man rode by on a bicycle, offered to help me carry my things, and invited me out to dinner.  I laughed and thanked him for the offer.  He then responded that he would take me “someplace nice”.  I told him to have a nice day and went into my apartment.  First I was amused that a man on a bicycle thought that he was in a good position to take me to dinner.  Me, an Ivy-League educated MBA is gonna swoon at some dude on a bike?!?  Then I got off my high horse and realized that it wasn’t the conveyance that annoyed me, but rather that I apparently looked to him like the kind of woman who’d just go out with any man on the street.  I should have said, “Fine, let’s go to Per Se; I hear the chef is using white truffles this season.”  Not that I’m a snob.  Alright, I am snobby about some things, but I did want to go to Per Se and I do believe you have to be prepared for what you ask for.  Just because I’m single, burdened by packages, and coming home in the middle of a weekday afternoon (read: unemployed), don’t expect to get off easy.

Recently, I was informed that men consider pulling a woman you met on the subway to be quite a coup.  Men of the World: I implore you to be more selective.  MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ride the subway every day.  Everyone rides the subway.  I’m so flattered to be considered one of the unwashed, commuting masses.  I should certainly accept a date from a stranger while simultaneously trying to avoid being coughed on by the guy next to me, or leaned on by the woman falling asleep to my left:  it’s such a romantic environment.

A friend of mine was riding the subway a few years ago, and was apparently approached for her phone number and a date by a “gentleman” sharing the platform.  She is quite pretty and if I were a guy, I’d hit on her too.  However when she declined his offers because, well, he was a stranger, he threw out this clever retort – “Well, DAMN!  Can I at least get some pussy then?”

What more can I say?