A second chance with a perfect stranger.

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On another thread I posted my uninteresting story about having missed an opportunity to make conversation with a perfect (that is, cute) stranger. I often comfort myself with the delusion that I will have another chance by which to correct my mistake. When I was at school, this was not entirely unreasonable. In the big wide world, it's bloody unlikely.

But has anyone here ever passed up such an opportunity, only to find it granted again? That is, have you encountered the same stranger a second time and made your move (or not)?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 23:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes. But the second time was really only about 45 minutes later and I was half-drunk and she turned out to be rather dud. She was really tall, though.

― Millar (Millar), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 23:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I liked your story, Amateurist. It made me wish I had more cause to take trains.

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 23:53 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes! Well, kind of. Met a girl at a party and she was more interested in my friend. Ten years later I met her again...and now we're married!
Awwwww.

― gaz (gaz), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 23:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess what I'm wondering is, were you seized with the same inaction the second time around? Am I just silly imagining that I wouldn't pass up the next opportunity? (While it was happening I kept telling myself things like, "If she moves to [x] seat I will talk to her. If she gets off at [x] stop I will talk to her." But I wonder if I would have let those deadlines pass without incident.)

Gaz, that is a great story. I think meeting someone at a party makes it more likely you will see them again, since it means you inhabit the same social milieu, broadly speaking.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 23:55 (twenty-two years ago)

But weren't you like at Facets or some art film house? You might see her there again, especially since she should have memorized the schedule by now.

This is the good thing about doing things you like. You run into people who share your interests. Sometimes it takes a few times and then you can be like, "I see you there all the time!" when you see them somewhere else. It happens a lot. I swear, God is so cheap with the extras.

― felicity (felicity), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 23:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Some time last year, I went out to see some lame bank in Hoxton. The support band was utterly intolerable, the worst dreck I'd ever seen. This couple come over and sit at my table. The boy (very attractive, in excedingly cute hat) almost immediately starts heckling the band and shouting out all the things which I've been thinking. The girl winces and shoots me apologetic glances and finally slopes off to get them beer. I grin at him, admiringly, but don't say anything. He rolls his eyes, smiles back at me and continues heckling. Girl comes back, they squabble and eventually leave in sulks.

I won't know it for another four months, but I've just met Hilton Betelgeuse for the first time.

― kate, Wednesday, 12 February 2003 23:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Another perfectly good thread...

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:01 (twenty-two years ago)

D'OH! I'm sorry! But it was on topic...

― kate, Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:02 (twenty-two years ago)

OK, I really shouldn't joke about it. I'm sorry. Why is it that saying that I don't want to talk to him or talk about him any more always makes me talk about him more? No, I mean it this time. Not talking about him any more.
-- kate (masonicboo...), Today 6:28 PM. (later)

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Felicity: it was the Film Center. I guess I will have to go to every screening of films by Russian mysticist directors and hope for the best.

Sadly, the people I see most often at FC screenings:

(1) Middle-aged white guy who looks like Bill Gaines, wears terrible sweaters. In other words, the guy I fear I will become.

(2) Skinny youngish Asian guy who is at every single movie screening in Chicago ever (even the ones that occur simultaneously), according to my friends and I. Scary.

(3) Senile old guy with a hunchback who yells out questions before and after every screening and always forgets the name of the movie he just watched.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh yes and

(4) Jonathan Rosenbaum

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey Amateurist - do you by chance know Brian McKendry?

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:14 (twenty-two years ago)

yes because dunedin is a small town

― ducklingmonster, Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Hey Amateurist - do you by chance know Brian McKendry?

No, is he the senile old guy?

(Tom, you're supposed to say: "I know who that girl on the train was! Here's her number!")

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:16 (twenty-two years ago)

It could have been worse. She could have been reading Saramango. Then you'd know for sure you'd never see her again.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:21 (twenty-two years ago)

or Saramago, even.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Since everyone on the trains is reading either Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, or some Christian self-help book, that is unlikely.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Are you talking the Purple Line, Blue Line or Metra?

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:24 (twenty-two years ago)

The Piccadilly line evidently has a better class of literati than the Northern and the Jubilee. As far as I can see there are only three books you are allowed to read by law on these lines, currently: any old Harry Potter, that Tolkien about the dark towers or whatever, any old chicklit nonsense and THE BIBLE (you have to mutter to yourself when your read this, apparently). Listening to the stuff people play on their walkpersons, there seems to be much more mad variety in musical taste. Why is this?
(I was once on a Glasgow-London plane and the women next to me [who looked very much like AL Kennedy, book fans] was reading Gravity's Rainbow. I spent the duration of the flight agonising over whether to strike up a conversation along the lines of "that is my favourite book in the whole world" and worrying that this would make me seem like a scarycreepynutfreak. In the end my scarycreepynutfreak paranoia won out. Is there an etiquette to this kind of thing?)
-- Edna Welthorpe, Mrs (edna_welthorp...), January 7th, 2002.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

haha Amateurist, you plagiarist!

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:29 (twenty-two years ago)

No Felicity, it's the monoculture!

I much prefer the people reading the Bible proper to those reading Tomorrow Is a Matter of Choice: An 8-Step Action Plan for Today.

I take the Red Line.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:32 (twenty-two years ago)

oh right, I forget, you work in Evanston.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:37 (twenty-two years ago)

― gareth (gareth), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Doesn't it make you feel better tha some things are universal?

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 00:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Does a friend-of-a-friend count? I helped my ex and her fiancee move into their new apartment last September. Since I was cat-sitting their cat at the same time, so he wouldn't get freaked by all the moving furniture and whatnot, I spent the day moving crap around and unpacking their kitchen for them on less than an hour's sleep, so I opted out of the housewarming party that night, but as the party was starting up, I was briefly introduced to a friend of theirs -- making God knows what impression, but thinking to myself, "She's way too hot to be interesting."

Met her again at their Halloween party, discovered we had a lot of interests in common. Asked her out. We're talking about moving in together now ...

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Friends of friends, or housekeepers of friends, don't really count. I'm talking about people with whom you had no possible means of getting in touch with again, nor any reasonable expectation that you would see them again.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:29 (twenty-two years ago)

My better half is failing at supressing the urge to say "but that's what you get for judging people on looks alone."

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Never say never

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Felicity, was that to me? I'm not sure what you mean.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Closest thing I've got, then, is continually running into a really cute girl who flirted with me the first time I met her (she was clerking in some store, I forget what sort) and who I kept seeing at other places in the neighborhood -- I was dating someone else, non-exclusively, and only ever saw this girl when I was with the woman I was dating (who suggested I ask her out). So, second/third/fourth chances, sort of, but muddled by circumstance.

My better half is failing at supressing the urge to say "but that's what you get for judging people on looks alone."

Oh yeah, absolutely. It doesn't seem like the sort of thing I'd usually think, much less act (or not-act) on -- I have plenty of friends who are unquestionably attractive, so I'm not even sure what basis I had for the assumption. I blame the exhaustion of the moment.

― Tep (ktepi), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Sorry, Amateurist, I'm not trying to be insensitive. I just wonder what the qualities are that you may be projecting onto this person (knowing nothing about her besides her appearance) and how you would go about finding someone who actually had those qualities AND with whom you could actually get in touch.

Or maybe she was just especially cute. nabisco and I saw a really cute girl at the Rainbow one night. She had great shoes. Maybe you could go there?

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:37 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't imagine how you would decide whom in a crowd of people to speak to if you weren't constantly making inferences on the basis of how they wore their hair, their facial expressions, their clothes, their body language, their shoes, their reading material, where you found them, etc.

The girl I mentioned wasn't spellbindingly beautiful by any means. I was just intrigued is all (I would have been less intrigued, in fact, had she been spellbindingly beautiful, but that's another thread). My angst--such as it is, and it isn't really much--comes from my not having had the gumption to say hi to her rather than any special qualities I've projected onto her. In fact I haven't given much thought at all to what she might be like. I regret not saying hi because now I don't have an opportunity to find out.

I'll freely admit to being shallow in many respects (and unfairly so, since I'm hardly Cary Grant) but I think my (non)behavior here was on the up and up.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Amateurist, I am not making a negative judgment on you. But all of those, save context, are visual phenomena. If you find yourself in a crowd of people with whom you share a common context, why not make a comment about the context?

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:52 (twenty-two years ago)

The common context here was of course the (sparsely attended) Andrei Rublev screening. This wouldn't even have come up had she not been leaving that particular event.

When you say "make a comment" do you mean that I hadn't been talking about Tarkovsky on this thread? (An honest question, I am not being snippy. And I wasn't offended by your last post.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean why not ask her "What did you think of the film?"

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Although the question sounds rhetorical, it really isn't.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, of course that is the exact thing I would have asked her had I worked up the nerve! And in fact it was the exact thing I would have wanted to know, since my response to the film was decidely ambivalent. (Although I actually tend to prefer tense silences after film scrennings to blah-blah-blahing.)

I may sound like I'm approaching Hilton Betelguese-levels of unwarranted obsessing. I'm not, in fact. I was less interested in discussing this particular (trivial) event and your thoughts on it, than in hearing about similar experiences that ILXers may have had.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 01:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Fair enough. I don't really have these experiences. I prefer to let my strangers remain perfect, as they already excel at the roles they play in my life.

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Felicity, I was actually thinking something similar. The event was sort of satisfying in itself. I get bored and nervous on public transportation, so it was a pleasant diversion to imagine the ways I might approach this girl and all the various permutations of "What did you think of the movie?" I might pose to her. It also gives me something to do in the future when I attend screenings alone, lazily wondering if I'll see her again.*

However I know that kind of thinking ("Ooh maybe I'll see her again! And then I'll walk right up to her and--") is kind of daft and I thought it'd be amusing to find out if anyone here actually had a chance to enact that scenario.

* Note that this is an awfully defeatist, no tragic, way of thinking. I have friends who would have undoubtedly made more of this situation and who would not have been "satisfied" by the dubious pleasure of imagining any such benign scenarios.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:09 (twenty-two years ago)

KOZZIN LARRY, I LAUFF YOU SO MUCH

― BALKI (donut), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:10 (twenty-two years ago)

(Oh, if it were all about "looks," I'd be seized with the [frustrated] desire to approach someone every day. I work at a university; there is no shortage of good-looking people.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:13 (twenty-two years ago)

i only seem to get together with anyone at all, stranger or no, on the second chance

― minna (minna), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:16 (twenty-two years ago)

(Also, and this may clear things up a bit, in this case a big part of "cute" = she likes going to Tarkovsky movies alone on Saturday nights.)

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Minna, that's a different story. The story of my life! I like it that way. As Freud wrote, "The finding of any object is the re-finding of it."

― felicity (felicity), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Minna, do you plan it that way, or does it just happen?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow, Amateurist. I thought I was over that sort of thing, but if this Tarkovsky girl was good looking I would totally be obsessing about her too. And I didn't even like Andrei Rublev. It's the Saturday night thing that clinches it.

Worst case scenario: she is just genning up on arthouse cinema to impress some guy she is stalking.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:23 (twenty-two years ago)

she is just genning up on arthouse cinema to impress some guy she is stalking.

Not really so bad if you phrase it differently. There's a lot of things I'd never be into if I wasn't following the example of someone I was crushing on--or as often, discovering it "for their benefit" by some hopelessly obscure, hermetic formulation.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but I'm assuming the guy is not you.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but what I'm saying is: Good for her.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I missed such an opportunity, but when it was offered again in the following week I took the plunge. Result? Best sex of my life, bar none.

Followed by an amazingly pathetic relationship that was based purely on that one night of perfect sex (we never came close again) and his suddenly remembering his wife and then his being convinced that he had gonorreah and convincing a doctor of it and his being on antibiotics and the antibiotics not improving the discomfort and his visit to another doctor who told him that he didn't have gonorreah, had never had it, and likely was feeling so guilty for cheating on his wife that he had developed the symptoms from theat guilt. And me convincing him to go back to his wife and never contact me again.

The sex was incredible, though. I literally couldn't walk the next day - my legs were like jelly. I kept falling down and laughing. It was amazing. *sigh* Pity he was A) married and B) so fucked-up and C) a liar.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Thursday, 13 February 2003 02:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Skipping 222 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

R not! She's a perfect stranger and this is the second image of her I see, so :-)

― StanM, Friday, 14 December 2007 07:39 (seventeen years ago)

AW, good job seizing your second chance, Stan!

― roxymuzak, Friday, 14 December 2007 07:43 (seventeen years ago)

I have said "Stan" too much, maybe.

― roxymuzak, Friday, 14 December 2007 07:43 (seventeen years ago)

I don't mind, go right ahead.

― StanM, Friday, 14 December 2007 09:17 (seventeen years ago)

So, I guess we are definitely "dating."

― roxymuzak, Sunday, 23 December 2007 15:58 (seventeen years ago)

nice one stan

― s1ocki, Sunday, 23 December 2007 16:13 (seventeen years ago)

I am not dating STAN!

― roxymuzak, Sunday, 23 December 2007 16:15 (seventeen years ago)

so have you yet or what??

― wanko ergo sum, Sunday, 23 December 2007 22:52 (seventeen years ago)

Fresh!

― roxymuzak, Sunday, 23 December 2007 23:10 (seventeen years ago)

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/06/16/fondue_graduate_wideweb__430x396.jpg

― gr8080, Sunday, 23 December 2007 23:26 (seventeen years ago)

He's older than me! Otherwise otm.

― roxymuzak, Sunday, 23 December 2007 23:29 (seventeen years ago)

three weeks pass...

he introduced himself to my sister and said he was my BF

― roxymuzak, Friday, 18 January 2008 16:37 (seventeen years ago)

i still havent had my 2nd chances.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Saturday, 19 January 2008 19:49 (seventeen years ago)

four months pass...

shit, this happened again yesterday. i loathe myself.

― mr x, Monday, 26 May 2008 10:24 (seventeen years ago)

life's short. just talk to her, ya jerk!

― dell, Monday, 26 May 2008 10:30 (seventeen years ago)

you guys are both human beings. deifying a crush is all well and good, but comes a time when it just becomes insulting to the other person

― dell, Monday, 26 May 2008 10:34 (seventeen years ago)

its too late. i was waiting for the train, this *stupidly* hot blonde girl who i sat next to flashed this humongous smile at me, so i was just like (softly) 'hi'. but then she went back to reading her paper. i thought she was with her BF (i dont think it was now) cos she was with a guy sitting next to her. but then she looked at me again while i sat a few seats away on the train but then i got off.

yes, i feel like i insulted her and passed up a pefectly good opportunity.

i seem to do this quite often though.

i dont know whats wrong with me.

― mr x, Monday, 26 May 2008 10:36 (seventeen years ago)

that sounds like an ambiguous enough situation, though, such that it's hard to read

― dell, Monday, 26 May 2008 10:41 (seventeen years ago)

big smile is nothing to sneeze at, though. hmmm...

― dell, Monday, 26 May 2008 10:42 (seventeen years ago)

true. it might have been nothing. but you should seize things like that even if its nothing. just to make sure its nothing. (and maybe see if it could be something).

― mr x, Monday, 26 May 2008 10:45 (seventeen years ago)

stuff's weird like that. i was at a bar a month ago, and this cute girl smiled at me, and i got weirded out b/c she was sitting next to this guy that i assumed was her boyfriend. i ended up talking to her, though, and it turned out that the guy was her gay housemate. things worked out well after that, so...it never hurts to go out on a limb or whatever.

― dell, Monday, 26 May 2008 10:51 (seventeen years ago)

There was a saying among my friends in college (introduced during a mandatory date-rape discussion session) that "a smile is not a season pass." Glad to see the ILX guys don't take it as one...but dudes, it's okay to say hi!

― Maria, Monday, 26 May 2008 11:22 (seventeen years ago)

"it's okay to say hi!"

glad to see.

but hey, passing up chances is character building.

― mr x, Monday, 26 May 2008 11:37 (seventeen years ago)

eh, one day you'll find such a love that your heart will all but explode...and then you'll eventually grow to resent each other...or best-case scenario, you'll have to watch each other get sick and die; that after you get to watch each other's parents get sick and die.

that might build some character.

― dell, Monday, 26 May 2008 11:51 (seventeen years ago)

dell, have you read smilla's sense of snow? you might appreciate its outlook on love...the cynicism and misanthropy are certainly bringing joy to my glumness! (if i weren't at work, and the book at home, i'd type out quotes.)

― Maria, Monday, 26 May 2008 12:24 (seventeen years ago)

no, i'll check it out, though. thanks for bringing it to my attention!

― dell, Monday, 26 May 2008 12:28 (seventeen years ago)

dell ive done that already. ;)

― mr x, Monday, 26 May 2008 12:41 (seventeen years ago)

normal people pull strangers on public transport the whole time, in my experience.

/not really

― darraghmac, Monday, 26 May 2008 12:43 (seventeen years ago)

one month passes...

fuck.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Tuesday, 1 July 2008 11:01 (seventeen years ago)

must start drinking more again.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Tuesday, 1 July 2008 11:01 (seventeen years ago)

titch!!!! did u blow your second chance?!

― roxymuzak, Thursday, 3 July 2008 00:15 (seventeen years ago)

A second chance with OS8

― Steve Shasta, Thursday, 3 July 2008 00:19 (seventeen years ago)

maybe a third chance with an increasingly wary prey

― omar little, Thursday, 3 July 2008 00:20 (seventeen years ago)

actually i didnt blow the second chance. i blew the first chance. hopefully a second chance to blow will come around soon.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Thursday, 3 July 2008 10:26 (seventeen years ago)

second chances to blow suck, sorry friend.

― strgn, Thursday, 3 July 2008 10:32 (seventeen years ago)

im pretty good at blowing these things in general, whether its the 1st or 2nd time is unimportant.

― titchyschneiderMk2, Thursday, 3 July 2008 10:49 (seventeen years ago)

i believe that's what's called "stinkin thinkin", titch

― roxymuzak, Thursday, 3 July 2008 23:42 (seventeen years ago)

To inspire you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXmLRHnoSAs

― roxymuzak, Thursday, 3 July 2008 23:43 (seventeen years ago)

i sung along with every word :)

― titchyschneiderMk2, Friday, 4 July 2008 09:33 (seventeen years ago)

five months pass...

broken up

― roxymuzak, Saturday, 6 December 2008 19:56 (sixteen years ago)

ha, and perusal of this thread confirms that this occurred on our anniversary

― roxymuzak, Saturday, 6 December 2008 19:56 (sixteen years ago)

hes mad about the animal collective leak huh

― deej, Saturday, 6 December 2008 19:57 (sixteen years ago)

that's what grady said too

― roxymuzak, Saturday, 6 December 2008 19:58 (sixteen years ago)

i am a gr80 sock

― deej, Saturday, 6 December 2008 19:59 (sixteen years ago)

http://blog.art21.org/2008/12/09/perfect-strangers-man-or-beast/
"In sculptor Kate Clark’s first New York solo show, she debuts animal portraits with an unnerving twist; her taxidermied bear, cougar, fawn and gazelles have human faces. Sounds like a recipe for kitsch, but the presence of the bizarre man-beast creatures is arresting."

GAH:
http://blog.art21.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/animal-composite.jpg
<embed src="http://blip.tv/play/Ad2oYY_SPA"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="390" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>

― forksclovetofu, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 17:07 (sixteen years ago)

My fiance's aspergish little sister would be into those.

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 17:20 (sixteen years ago)

― gabbneb, Wednesday, 10 December 2008 17:36 (sixteen years ago)

sorry roxy

― Tracy Michael Jordan Catalano (Jordan), Wednesday, 10 December 2008 18:03 (sixteen years ago)

s'ok

― rox qua rox (roxymuzak), Thursday, 11 December 2008 17:55 (sixteen years ago)

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