The Other Phone Thing

Mental Rehab Post #34
Bad habits, annoying traits, things we do that we do and have been doing for ages for no good reason at all. You all do them. Okay, I do them too. And some of them desperately need to be fixed, as some are just not good for continued operation of this institution I call me. It's more from the closet of my psyche, and as they say the first part of working on an issue is realizing you have an issue. And boy, do I got issues.

I need to start calling people back.

I have a horrible habit. It is one that comes from a combination of a general overall aloof, a bit of self doubt and the amazing fact that it continues to happen again and again. To wit: If you give me your phone number, there is a 85% chance I will never call you. And if you call me and I miss it, there is a 50% chance I won't call you back. Oddly, I don't ever screen calls though.

Women frequently offer me their phone number. I have no idea why.

One night in a bar as me and one of my partners sat drinking good liquor, smoking cigars and talking cash money shit a young lady wrote her number on a napkin - practically unheard of in the age of cell phones - and molded her body to mine to make sure I got it. I don't think her number made it out to the parking lot. And she was cute too.

In college one of my junior partners called her buddy over and after we all got blitzed drunk I woke up with her buddy's phone number in my pocket, with no recollection of asking for it. I don't even remember the game of strip spades we apparently lost, which mean she saw me naked and drunk and gave me the digits anyway. Seriously, I don't think I look that great naked. What did I say to that woman?

Another instance, in fact I think I related part of it on this blog earlier, I had ducked out of studying a few weeks ago and found myself in the Castleberry district drinking away someone's birthday. I think I spoke to this woman for all of five minutes. She'd been sitting on a table edge revealing a generous portion of rather attractive thigh just opposite me for about a half hour and so at some point I got up, walked over and opened a napkin, then placed it on her lap to cover her, joking that she was being entirely too distracting. She laughed back and said that she'd worn the dress to show her thighs, they were damn good thighs and I could keep my damn napkin. The rest of our conversation lasted maybe two minutes. I didn't even ask her name. Yet as I was leaving she walked across the room and presented me with her card, put her number in my phone and suggested we hang out. Her number is still in there. And I still haven't called.

I am not a male model. Not even close. I am not rich. Working on it. I don't pretend to be either, although the male model thing should be evident fairly quickly. Immediately is probably a more accurate term. So how is it this keeps happening to me?

Don't know, don't care.

But I sure hope it keeps happening. Because one day I'm going to start calling.

I keep trying to figure out when I stopped trusting the phone. I'd had your typical youth phone conversations, with the classic sitting on the phone listening to each other breathe and other silly things you do, and I've seen the worst of it with breakups by phone and watched and listened as hurtful lies were told. You know, the usual. But I've always preferred face to face communication. A medium where I can see and gauge and react to the non-verbal as well as the verbal cues people give off. I mean sometimes you can feel a conversation veer off even when the words don't match up if you're in the same room.

Maybe it's because I'm not even aggressive enough in matters of a social nature.
There are a lot of reasons I guess, but I don't know most of them.

In any case I need to start calling people. And calling people back.

Barkeep. Hello, Barkeep. Barkeep. I mean to call for real, seriously. I lost your number...Barkeep?