Challenge: Romance!
Phase I

     So those of you who know me have probably noted that i do not have what you would call a very distinctive romantic life.  (although, since i don't think i could exactly define just what a distinctive romantic life is, i don't think i will be able to help you and point one out as an example).  So let us say rather, a very abundant romantic life.  Girlfriend? What's that?   Those of you who know me very well, have seen interest on my part of a number of women over time, and not a lot of success.  Why might this be?  Well, right away you might assume that it is because of my abrasive personality, or because of my lack of beauty.  But i have managed to precede any such concerns.  For you can't be rejected for those reasons if you aren't putting yourself out and risking it.    

      My reasons for not attempting are myriad.  Many of them relate to being shy and self-esteem.  While a part of me knows that i can be a great guy, sweet, friendly, warm and wonderful.  This does not come through when i start to think about pursuing someone romantically, instead, i get shy.  I have become extremely successful at becoming close friends with women who i was interested in at some point, because i have the practically-useless-in-finding-a-mate ability to be friendly without coming across as a person with romantic intent.  I won't even begin to count how many close friends i have gained this way.  (don't get me wrong, i love my friends, it is just they aren't very helpful romantically).  I seem to be aware that when i am exuding self confidence and friendliness that i can be attractive, non-scary and even sexy-ish, but i can't seem to do this when it matters.  And if this is noticed, i am both incapable of getting any signals given and even less so of acting on them.  Thing is, i am capable of being this confident person at the weirdest times, a lot of the time actually, but not when there is romance in question.

  Right, so on to the challenge.  As a way of getting over this hurdle i put a challenge in front of myself just after New Years. By my birthday, next month, i was going to either have gone on one date or asked at least two women out.  So last night, Feb 24, i realized that i had not even met one woman that i would have considered asking out, let alone asked any out.  So upon discussion, shar has issued me another, simpler challenge.  I have to make eye contact and smile with 5 single appearing strangers before my birthday.  Right now, you are either thinking, 'how pathetic is that,' or, 'that's a good starting step.'  But for me this is a big and difficult thing.  Eye contact with strangers is difficult...here read what i sent someone on it...

but the reason that I don't make the eye contact and smile.

I consider myself, not to be, but to appear as a stranger as someone icky, ugly and unappealing. Or I don't really consider myself to be that in my frontal mind, but my inner mind seems to.   As such, when someone such as I makes eye contact and smiles, it comes across to me, as if Bernard [this really freaked out creepy guy we had come across] was walking towards you, made eye contact and smiles. It is only going to make you feel uneasy, weirded out, an unsafe. I can't go around doing that to strangers. I mean, they tried to teach us at school that when we see a single woman walking down the street after dark that we should cross the street so that she will feel safer. I never really subscribed to that wholeheartedly (crossing street in the middle in the dark is not that safe and I am lazy) but this is the same type of thing.

Chronicle

DAY ONE - Feb 25, 2000

At a small cafe, picking up breakfast. Saw an attractive Australian girl.  She was with someone, an attractive Australian male, go figure.  I was going to make eye contact and smile, i really was.  But she was with someone.  So i didn't.  But already i felt like i was failing in my challenge [shar has since ruled that women with partners are off limits for challenge, so it was not actually a failing]

ATTEMPT TWO

On the way back from breakfast i was so ashamed at the failure [this is pre shar ruling] that when i saw an attractive woman walking down the street i put my courage to the sticking place and tried to make eye contact.  She would have none of it though, she kept averting her eyes.  No eye contact could be had.  

I returned home discouraged and embarrassed.  but shar has informed me that the first shouldn't have happened anyways and that if they are not going to be willing to meet my eyes, that it can't be my fault.  So we are going to continue.

ATTEMPT THREE

So i spend the day sitting in front of my computer.  No chance of a meeting.  Working, working working....no eyes.  Then something happens.  There is a knock on my window.  I peer out through the grime and look.  There she is, a cute female is looking at me.  I make eye contact, she makes eye contact.  I smile, she smiles.  She waves at me. I wave back.  And if she comes back in 20 years i might ask her out, from my wheelchair.  Somehow i don't think shar is going to let me count this one.  And i have no problem interacting with strange children so i guess it doesn't help with the intent of the challenge either.

DAY TWO - Feb 26, 2000

I think i might be making progress already.  I am sitting at home this morning working patiently.  And i want to go outside, i am continuously trying to make up excuses good enough to warrant my leaving my work and walking down the street.  Not just to ditch my work either, i WANT to go down the street and try and make eye contact.  But i am not allowed. I must do work. 

HA. Compromise. Just made a hair appt for 5.  Less people on the street...but it is still a start.

ATTEMPT FOUR

As advertised, my first foray out of my apt of the day is to go to my hair appt at 5 o'clock.  I leave the house a bundle of energy and intent.   This can't be that tough after all, i will get one or two out of the way on this outing alone, maybe even 3.  That would show me and shar that i am not a lost cause.  Yeah.  (anyone here feel the encroachment of patheticism?)  So i walk down the street.  Best intentions abound.  Away i go. Bring them on.  Let me at them.   La la la.  My stylist is 4 blocks from my apt.  By the time i had hit 3 blocks i had yet to cross paths with even one female that fit the challenge criteria.  Man!  How am i going to win....wait, there is one...across the street...how cute would i have to be to command that kind of eye contact though?  
I have basically given up, after all, i didn't dress up for the haircut anyway and how good can i look if i am my way for a haircut to boot?.  Then there is a woman sitting at an outdoor cafe table.  I look directly at her...i don't even know why.  I wasn't thinking.  She is cute, perhaps 3 or 4 years older than me but this challenge is not about that.  I make eye contact, she makes eye contact.  With each other.  All i have to do is smile now, i told shar it would be easy.  Well the huge wave of fear that crashed over and all about me would indicate that it is not going to be easy for me.  In short i did not smile.  She did not smile.  I do not think her expression changes in the slightest amount (which is good because it possibly means that the fear was not transparent).  I am beginning to think that i might have imagined the whole thing, maybe there was no eye contact, maybe there was a blimp flying around behind my head somewhere.   But there was no smile so it is not as if it matters. Failure again.  But as i walk away i am experiences an huge adrenalin rush, it might just be a side effect of the wave of fear, but, it seems like it is because i had eye contact.  I really did.

ATTEMPT FIVE

Twenty minutes later i leave the salon, happy and confident, as i almost always am after i get a haircut.  When am i going to look better, after all, someone who knows how to comb hair has done it for me.  I am on the prowl again...every person i see is a potential person to make eye contact with. I am sure i can smile this time.  Maybe.  So along i go.  No problems at all.  Where is someone.  Nope that's not one. Her neither, she's with someone.  She won't look up.  
Wait, someone crossing the cross street, she'd be great, she's even cute.  Maybe i noticed her too soon, maybe i thought too long. As she came close, i realized that i could not get my eyes to come to bear.  They would not listen to me.  Damn it....i could feel her eyes, looking past my face was we approached, i could sense that if i looked directly at hers that they would pull hers towards me.  I could feel some sort of hidden secret come to my mind.  All i have to do is look into her eyes and she will have no choice, she will have to make eye contact.  And then she was past.  Because i was all busy revelating....no time for eye contact.  Failure again.  No eye contact at all.  But oh so close. It is almost like i know the secret now, i know what has to happen, it is all a matter of my doing what needs to be done.  So easy, how could i have missed it all these years?

ATTEMPT SIX

Is this really an attempt?  You be the judge.   I continue walking down the street...home seeming so far away at this point as my spirit has been trampled by my inability to make contact in Attempt Five, but my mind incapable of stopping from considering this new found piece of information that i might now be a master of.  I walk along in a reverie, keeping my eyes open i guess but really just thinking.  
I saw her from a ways away, she was cute, from the distance, i thought she might be as much as 40 and i thought that that was probably outside of the scope of the challenge, because i didn't really consider such a person as a serious case for romance for me.  I go back to thinking and not noticing.  All of a sudden she is right there in front of me, i am looking up, and there are her eyes, she is making eye contact with me.  But i am still in it, because of darting my eyes away furtively i hold it, i keep them there.  And then she is gone.  Wow.  No smile. Literally no time, i was so surprised at the eye contact that it never crossed my mind.  So now i have to practice my smile reflexes or something.  When i see women's eyes, i have to smile.  Anyone know any good eye-smile reflex exercises?  Also a failure.  But we are getting so much closer to an actual encounter that it is incredible (ok, ok, i may be taking this challenge a little more seriously than originally intended).

ATTEMPT SEVEN   

Would you have thought i could get this many attempts out of one 8 bock return trip to the hair salon?  I didn't.  But then again, who would have thought i could try this many times and get this many failures.  Or, orange forbid, talk about it this endlessly?  This one is a simple one. I am walking along, lost in thought of the 3 encounters i have already had this exploratory trip into the confidence of eyes.  Then something amazing happened.  I felt something.  I felt my eyes being drawn.  A young woman, very attractive was searching my face with her eyes, she wanted eye contact.  That thing i had been talking about was happening in reverse.  And then she was past.  She was gone, i had noticed too late, i hadn't time to make the eye contact.  Nooooooo.  She was the cutest of the day by far.  And she wanted my eyes.   No time.  No time.  Why did we have to both be walking so fast?  Ahh well, she probably just thought she has seen my picture on America's Most Wanted or something.  Failure once again.

 

DAY THREE - Feb 27, 2000

So today i was thinking that there was nothing that was going to get me out of the house in order to see some eyes, make a romance connection (man that makes me want to howl, and retch, but mostly howl).  Too much work to do.  Then i remembered i was going to a movie this afternoon with J.  Yay. I get to leave the apt.  Eye contact ho!  And then after i thought some more and i talked it over with Shar...we decided that when i am walking along with a female that i am not allowed to go around making eye contact and stuff.   Because that is a little icky.  It doesn't matter that i am not with J, they don't really know.  So, i am not going to get to have any attempts....and yet...if you read on....

ATTEMPT EIGHT

Right.  So after some discussions with J about the humiliation inherent in such a challenge that i have set out for me, and being overly amused at my expense we ended up at Starbucks.  It was such a great walk, i had no stress,  i was not allowed to be looking into eyes and thus i was under no pressure to do so.  Although i did notice at times that there were remarkably few eyes for me to have seen.  So once i am at Starbucks and J is in line for her scone, i am standing away over by the wall.  I notice a woman coming towards me.  I am separated from J, i am ok.  I can make eye contact.  Of course as soon as i think that i feel incredibly slimy, wondering if all those gross men who are married and make eyes as single folk go through the same process.   But i am not married, or even attached...so i am free to play.
She is attractive.  I get prepared and have my eyes slide over her face.  I am ready, if her eyes come into line, she is going to get an eyeful and i can even feel the corners of my mouth tugging.  I am there, I know it.  But they don't come into line.  Right away i realize why, it is because she is too far away, she is looking for closer eyes. Her eyes are scanning the room.  (is this how you tell if someone is good for eye contact?)  She just hadn't got to me yet in her scan. No problem, i can scan again.  Once again, i feel that i have the power to draw her eyes in if i want them.  I scan towards her face and all of a sudden my eyes are going left.  I don't know why. I guess i had been ready the first time, but i had lost my nerve in between.  Her eyes are not drawn, she walks by.  Failure yet again.

ATTEMPT NINE

Once again i am back with J, but what i find myself doing is thinking of ways that i will legitimately alone for a few seconds.  Damn it, i want this challenge to be mine!  (no offense J, it was really fun with you too, it's just....)  So we get to the theatre and we go in.  I want popcorn but there is a line so i suggest we sit down first.  'I will come back after,' i say, and i may have said out loud that that way i could try again for eyes...but regardless, that was what my intent was.   (Orange!  I am glad that i am not attached at this point because this would just be disgusting otherwise)
So i leave J in the theatre and go for popcorn.  Everyone i see is with someone.  No problem, i am beginning to learn how to cope with not having chances even though i am ready to do it.  Well, as i go to get my straw something happens.  While i am there i have to wait behind a few people who are in the way. Patiently i stand. Wondering if these two girls and a guy are together.  One of the women leaves.  And the other two do not look together.  The girl bends down, opens up a secret cupboard (ok, not so secret, i am sure we all knew it was there....but still, have we ever thought to look in it?) and pulls out a big container of salt.  They guy wanted salt.  So i say out loud, in her general direction, 'cool,' she turns to me, looks me in my eyes and smiles. I return the smile.  Then i get my straws and go back to J.  Happy and rolling in adrenalin.
Only one little problem.  I don't know if it counts.  I mean, i initiated contact, i said something first, but she turned and looked in my eyes and smiled.  I did smile back.   Hmmm. i guess i await a ruling from shar on this one.  I will let you know what she says.

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!  Pathetic man scores one point in challenge. Only took three days and 9 attempts.  Yay!  Shar rules for ruling well!  Shar has also awarded me one bonus point for verbal communication.  However, i have no idea what i can do with a bonus point.  Anyone have any idea what i can turn in a bonus point for?  I would gladly exchange one bonus point for a date...if....nah...back to the challenge.

DAY FOUR - Feb 28, 2000

Today was pathetic.  Note to self, there is not one woman who is going to be willing to make eye contact and smile on a Monday morning no matter who cheerful and smiley you are. In fact there is nothing better situated to make them think that you are entirely too creepy i would say.  I guess this is my way of saying that i did not meet anyone on my way to work.  All those people....sigh.  It was not until just before i arrived at work that i realized that it was Monday and it was not to be expected.  So i set my sights on the trek home.  I don't really think that unless i see someone that i don't know at all in the office environment that it is a good way to go.  So nothing at work.  I left the office to grab some lunch but i don't think i was even considering the contest at the time and i only hope that i didn't miss any chances.    

End of the day comes and i am on my home when i come to my senses. I had accepted a ride.   There was hardly a chance of my meeting any eyes when i am in a car driving along the road.  Well, maybe a small chance but really not much of one.  Sigh.  I thank B for the ride, but all of a sudden i was hugely disappointed.  Read attempt 9.5 below for the closest i came to getting some eye today.  So pathetic.

 ATTEMPT NINE POINT FIVE

I leave my house for the short round trip to take my movies back. It is raining, wet, cold and 5:30 pm, i expected that it would only be blind luck if i spotted someone.  Well i did.  I was walking along the street and i looked up and met the eyes of a woman looking out of a window at me.  I held her eyes and then i smiled. She smiled back.  Does it help you to be slightly more amused that she was about 68, looked every minute of it and had a very vacant look to her eyes.  I know she could see me, but i could not tell if she had any thoughts past that.  I don't know that she was not all there, but that was certainly what came across to me.  
But she liked me.  
Don't worry shar, i am not counting this one.  But that is the best i could do all day.  There was one other woman but she would not lift her eyes up off the ground and i was relieved.

Tomorrow is another day. I have not lost my energy or commitment to this challenge.  I had hoped that i could do better today.   I scored a point yesterday.  I almost decided to leave the house this evening to orchestrate the presence of eyes, but i have much to do and can't really afford the time.  And if it is creepy to have someone forcing eye contact with you on the street during the day, imagine it at night?  I guess a bar or a restaurant would have been fine for such a task, but i couldn't ditch the work. 

Here is to tomorrow.

DAY FIVE - Feb 29, 2000

So today was a good day.  I just thought i would get that out right at the start for those of you who are sad after reading yesterdays entry.  I hit a few revelations.  First off, i am, i think the worlds master eye dart reflex king.  Ok, that might be a little ego intensive, let's just say my eye dart reflexes are quite practiced.  I noticed something on the bus this morning.  I got on the bus, still on my challenge bent. After such a dismal day yesterday i was going to get something done.  I was certain.  So i see a couple of women on the bus that fit the profile (female, not out of acceptable age range, not scowling).  I get ready, i wait for the time to be right (how do i actually think i know when the time is going to be right? i don't know but let's just say i am trying to trust my instincts because, maybe i have some) i am determined.  Two times, i get ready, their eyes are there and then, just as their eyes are coming around to mine, boom, mine dart away. As it happens for the second time i realize what it is.  As soon as i get set up to meet their eyes, i stop concentrating on that and start concentrating on the smile that is going to have to follow.  And you know what? If i am not guarding my eye contact muscles with an iron will, they revert to instinct.  They dart.  With practiced and ancient ease, they dart.  

However...i atoned myself on the seabus.

ATTEMPT TEN

When i get to the Seabus, i spot C.  I go to talk to him.  I realize that i am not going to be able to do anymore eyes, because Challenge Romance is not something that i can do when i am with people it seems.  Something about the level of embarrassment.  I am saddened by this, but i am also happy.  Such an interesting dynamic.  Really.  However, after i talk to C for a little while and the Seabus arrives he tells me that he is waiting for the next one.  So he can read.  
I am happy.  I shall get to try again.  So I enter and sit down.  No one.  Not one person eligible by the requirements i have set.  Just before the Seabus leaves the dock, a young woman walks forward through the Seabus.  Perfect i think.  But she doesn't let her eyes wander, she only has room for where she is going to sit.  Somewhere behind my back.  She passes and i have not the slightest chance.  I was willing her to look over but to no effect.  (but i don't feel bad about this or my confidence to make someone look when i need them to, i didn't get that i could in this situation).  
Well, i, as per normal, fell asleep and woke up when we docked 15 minutes later.  I stood up as we docked and looked around.  The woman that had come in and not looked around was sitting at the same level as i was, just 15 feet away.  I looked directly at her.  She did not look up.  I kept looking, and i began to chant in my head, 'look up, look up, look up.  I was not thinking anything but that and concentrating on making my eyes stay.  And then it happens, she looks up.  She does, she looks up and directly into my eyes.  i was thrilled, i was making eye contact.  My heart started to beat faster and faster, she was not looking away (ok, ok, it has been like a quarter of a second).  Keeping my eyes there, 'i think, ok, why aren't i smiling.  It is time to smile.  Come on, smile!'  This isn't working, but then all of a sudden my mind picks up on how ridiculous it is that i am standing here looking into the eyes of an attractive woman, she is looking back and i am telling myself, i can almost hear the words in my head, to smile.  The irony was funny, and that did it, i feel the corners tug and i am doing it.  
I AM SMILING.  A half second after she had moved her eyes away.  Ok, all in all the whole process had taken about a second and a half, not too long for the eye contact...what was she going to do wait forever for something to happen?  So i looked away, smiling still, happy at my patheticness.  And then i looked over again, just before she averted her eyes, i could tell that she was checking me out.  She was checking me out!  My eye contact had made me enough of an entity for her to check me out!  Yay.

Ok, so i don't get to count this one.  Because i didn't get the smile out while she was looking at me.  But i tell you this is the first time in this challenge that i had felt really good about myself.  I went to work in incredibly high spirits feeling really good about myself.  Maybe shar kinda knew what she was talking about.  Thanks shar.  

Nothing happened for the rest of the day.  Well, i discovered a few things; i have too much trouble when accompanied by a friend to do anything at all.   That having a friend come back from lunch to tell me that they had scored 3 points alone on the walk back is not nearly as funny as they think  And i decided that i would not be trying to make eye contact on buses anymore.  Because on a bus neither of us can get away.  If i creep someone out they are forced to remain there for the rest of their ride, uncomfortable, or orange forbid, they get off the bus to get away.  And what if i get all embarrassed and uncomfortable?   What will i be able to do?

Tomorrow is another day.

DAY SIX - Mar 1, 2000

I am afraid that you are going to be disappointed in my my friends.  Not only was today a day without points, it was also a rather boring day.  Since i have outlawed the bus, there goes half my journey to work.  And i spent the time on the way home talking to people i know.  So no hope there.  

ATTEMPT ELEVEN

So i am sitting on the Seabus, looking around for someone to meet eyes with.  Not really anyone.  I see 4 potentials but no one is really looking up.  The same woman from yesterday is there and i want to meet her eyes again, but she is sitting parallel to me and it would be very awkward to get into a position for that to work.  Then one of the women that i thought was not going to work, her eyes are wandering and i meet them.  And i think about smiling.  But i don't for some reason. Probably because i was not meaning to catch them when she did.  But it doesn't end there.  I kept trying, i meet her eyes 6 times during the short ride.  but each time it seems to be such a surprise that i have made it again that i can't smile. Eventually i give up, close my eyes and drift off.

Nothing happened to me on the way home as i met some friends and talked to them instead.  However later that night i am going to a movie with J again.  I don't really expect that much to happen, it is night, i am with a woman...but you never know.  So we are walking down the street.  She has just read my Challenge for the first time that afternoon and we talk about it for a while.  She suggests that making eye contact while with here is a good thing for my love life.  Because after all, if i am with such a good looking woman and other women can see this, then there must be something about me that is worth it.  I tell her that while this proves to me that her ego is about as big as Cincinnati that what she says is untrue but then am forced to tell her that the thing going against it is that we are often considered to be a couple by those around us and that makes it like i am on the prowl even  though i am with someone and that is not good.  She denies that this has ever happened.  She is blocking it.  It happens all the time.  She is unwilling to accept this    
We go to Starbucks again for coffee, mostly because she thinks it is the best place for me to find some eyes.  J is actually quite supportive and helpful in a way that i can accept and use in this Challenge, for this i am pleasantly surprised.  However the best i get at Starbucks is an admission from J that in terms of creepy i am nowhere near as bad as the bottle thick glasses wearing freak wearing a diamond ring the size of a bottle cap who sits there ogling women.  This makes me feel good actually.  Because that is what i was talking about in inset paragraph at the top.
So, we are on the way to the theatre and we are stopped by a Minister asking for money for street kids.  The first thing he says to us to ask us if we are a Married Couple.  You could hear J's loud, nervous horse laugh across the street.  (i was amused because she had denied it had ever occurred before).  The minister got all scared for my feelings at this and tried to reassure us that this was not an odd question and that i looked like a nice young man.  I was so amused by the entire subject that he could have called me a fat bastard and would have still been amused.  It didn't seem to increase the amount i gave him for his cost though.

On the way through the theatre, J and i were talking about this and a girl stopped me and asked me what he was selling.  I answered and J said that the fact that we had talked and that we had made eye contact and smiled at each other counted.  I denied this, saying that since she had initiated, that it was not a score.  Later in line for popcorn (J sitting alone in the theatre to give me increased chance, of course) i had a conversation, filled with laughter and eye contact with her.  But she was standing beside a guy who may or may not have been a date. So i don't think i can count that either.  But it is a good sign and good for my practice at least.

today, is another day.

DAY SEVEN - Mar 2, 2000

So today was relatively boring.  Not much went on.  One attempt as you can see below.  Too tired, slept to and from work pretty much the entire way.  

ATTEMPT ELEVEN

I get on the Seabus this morning an sit beside a woman i find really quite attractive.  She was not beautiful by traditional standards  but she had the best eyes, black and deep set, clear beautiful skin and a wonderful tightly shaped head and face.  She also dressed with enough character for me to know that she had personality.  I would have loved to sit there and talk to her for the entire trip. but i could not do that, obviously.   All right, all right...stop your mail, i know, it is obvious to me though.  So i fall asleep cause i am just bagged.  I wake up as we dock and go and stand at the doors.  I look to the right of where i had just been sitting.  She is there.  I decide i am going to try and get her to make eye contact. So i look in her direction for a while, waiting for any sign so i can bring my eyes to bear.  I keep them there, i concentrate.  Her eyes and face though, they just stay down.  I can't do anything about it.  So i give up.  10 seconds after i give i feel her eyes come up to meet mine. The nano-second they touch mine, they are gone, they dart right away.  Apparently the reflexes have stuck again.  The dread relexes have certainly not been subdued yet.

Tomorrow is another day and this is another weekend.  Let us see what we can do with the eyes of Calgary.  Sorry, no updates until Sunday night at the earliest. 

DAY EIGHT - Mar 3, 2000

Today i am apologetic, after all i went away for the weekend, didn't give you any updates for all that time and am only updating now.  What a maroon.  I am sure you shall forgive. Or at least in my mind you have forgiven me and as far as this dialogue goes you have no real way of stopping me from believing that.  So i am forgiven.  So it is Friday and i am on my way to another city.  My hopes high, perhaps my traveling charm will kick in and i will have little to no trouble finding someone to smile and eye with.      

So i am on a 9, or well, 11 o'clock flight (it was delayed) and am sitting in the waiting area with my book looking out for someone to eye contact with.  It makes me feel a little weird at times, waiting around on the prowl like this.  But as  i sit there i see a young woman that is sitting facing me a few rows up and over, i think that she is a good candidate. Or at least until i see a 35 year old guy come up and ask her a question. Which she answers, then i watch him try to flirt with.  I watch her politely decline this and he goes away. And then i watch him watching her in an icky/stalky kind of way.  I can see the glint of, 'i want and need to have sex with this young thing,' in his eyes over and over again as he watches from where he ended up.  Thankfully he was where she couldn't see him, but still, i had to watch.  It wasn't an unsafe feeling i got for her, he was just leering a lot, but it made be way to wigged out to play the game at all again for a while.

ATTEMPT TWELVE

After the plane landed i stood around in the baggage claim area waiting for my ride to show up.  While i was here i noticed a nice looking young woman doing basically the same thing.  she was sitting down and looked like she had been there a little while at least.  At this time there is nothing i would like better doing than to walk over and sit down and strike up a conversation.  this did not seem be be happening though.  I just couldn't do that.  I could, however, stand at a post and watch everything happening.  And as i watched, i happened, just happened, to swing my eyes past hers on a regular basis.  It was on no fewer than 4 times that i hit her eyes with mine before i finally did get the nerve to smile. But on the 5th time or so i was able to meet her eyes and smile.  I had twice managed to smile after our eyes had met, but this time i managed to make the contact and smile.  I was considering again going and sitting down near her and seeing if i could find a way to enter into a conversation when my friend appeared in the doorway and i was whisked away.  but, in case you missed i just got POINT NUMBER TWO.

The rest of the day was spent with my friend and pregnant sister in law.  And if i thought i wasn't going to be making eye contact, i so wasn't going to be making eye contact with my prego sis in law on my arm.  No way baby.

So later this evening i was going to go to a bar and meet two women that i had met online.  They were friends from Marigold.  I was pretty nervous about this, i was going to meet woman that i had not as of yet met, they might hate me. They might love me.  They might be scared of me.  Any number of possible things.  You think i have trouble smiling and women i don't know, i was going to have a conversation with women i don't know.  So i enter the bar where we are to meet and the first thing my friend that i had brought with me for support does it so say to me, 'find them, i have to go to the can.'  Charming.  So i am in a bar that is a hundred yards long and then there is a corner. and the whole thing is fairly full.  So i look from the door.  I go 20 feet and look some more.  This was made more difficult by the fact that i don't really know that well what they look at.  All the pics i have seen look a little different.  Well, i am all the way down the first set and around the corner when i see two girls and a guy sitting at a table (there was supposed to be two girls and two guys, but i didn't let this throw me).  I see one of the girls mouth the words, that's him.  As this happens i make eye contact with her and smile.  I seem to have no trouble doing this, i might know her.  She takes this as a good sign and waves.  I am in. i go and talk and spend a great evening.  I don't think that i can count this as  a point though, because she was, after all, there to meet me.  I guess if it turned out that it was not her, that i might be asking her for a point.
During the rest of that evening this same girl tried to get me to make eye contact with many women in the bar, but i was facing away from the floor and was able to to dodge her tries to make me a success at love.  I do thank you A, it was very well intentioned and helpful, but i just can't do such things with help, it almost seems.  

DAY NINE - Mar 4, 2000

Day Nine was spent entirely in the company of friends and i never even came close to making contact at any point.  Most of it was spent in homes of friends. I think i came across one single woman all day and i had been given such a bad opinion of her, i could not have tried for a good impression and a smile if i had tried.

DAY TEN - Mar 5, 2000

Today was much the same as yesterday for luck.  Only i got out more, i was just late for everything and didn't seem to have time to do much.  However...one of the girls that i had met on friday was an artist.  Her preferred medium is to take a nude model, paint them and then moosh them up against a canvas to make a body print.  I spent a lot of time with this person i had just met on this day.  And at one point i was talking to her, standing there in the nude as she painted my body.  As i was doing this i continuously managed to make eye contact and smile (in spite of my discomfort at the situation).  I even held up a long and rather interesting (to me at least, maybe i was just babbling, who knows) conversation.  She knew about my challenge and tried to convince me that i should get a point for doing this, eye contact and smiling in such a situation, but in the end she was someone i sort of knew and thus don't really think it counted.  I guess if she had not had a boyfriend and if i had asked her out or something then i would have agree that it does count.

So later this day i take my flight home and as i indicated i was late and always running and didn't get a chance to make anything happen.

DAY ELEVEN - Mar 6, 2000

Today was an amazing day.  I am on my way to work.  Yes, yes i know, it sucks to be back to work after a cool weekend in Calgary.  I was walking down the ramp to the Seabus and had just missed the one.  This means i get to meet a couple of hundred disembarking passengers from the one i missed.  As i am walking, fairly disgusted with my weekend performance i decided i am going to try as hard as i can for a few along the way.  For the most part i get no reactions or eye contact.  It is Monday after all.  Something i had actually forgotten from last week when i had been so disappointed, otherwise i would not have tried.

ATTEMPT THIRTEEN

Ok, it has been 3 days since my last attempt, how am i ever going to make it with this kind of pathetic dedication?  As they walk towards me i make a point of moving my eyes from eligible to eligible woman, willing them to look.  I can't believe how many i tried and failed.  Finally i get one woman to look up, she meets my eyes and i should smile, but right at the instant that i am going to, two things happen.  The first is the fear, the fear hit, i might have been able to get over that, but the woman looking at me has this scowl in her eye. No way am i attempting this.

A few feet later though, i manage to meet the eyes of another, even cuter woman.  But after the disappointment of the last attempt i can't smile, i just can't i try. i can't.  As soon as her eyes are gone from mine though, i smile.  i am surprised that i was so pathetic and just find it amusing.  So i am still smiling when her eyes come back (we had made contact at a about 10 feet walking towards each other)  and i am still smiling at the end of this eye meet.  She didn't smile back but i have talked this one over with the judge and she says i get a point.  And i did hold the smile through the eye contact. THIS IS POINT THREE.

ATTEMPT FOURTEEN

If this isn't enough i get another chance later on the way home.  This one, is by far, to me, the best one.  I am on my way home, on my way to the Seabus and i see a woman waiting at the traffic circle for her ride.  I am thinking as a i approach that this would be a good person to try.  As i am thinking this, i can't decide, i am pretty sure that i don't need to do it, after all, Shar had awarded me a point for my efforts of the morning.  
As i get closer, still undecided, my eyes, on their own go up to her face.  As they hit her face, her eyes come out and meet mine. I am making eye contact, without forcing myself to, without aiding myself. It just happened on its own.  Guess what happened next.  You got it, without any prompting or forcing, or thinking i am too pathetic for not doing this, i smile.  A natural good natured smile.  And she, get this, she returns my smile, holding my eyes.  Then our eyes break and i walk by.  
Stop the world, i want to stand on top of it.  Why didn't anyone tell me about the feeling of elation you can get when you get the eye contact and you get the smile?  Why didn't anyone tell me about how good this can make you feel about yourself.  I just got a nod of approval from a complete stranger.  This is, without a doubt the first point that i just feel that i deserve, that i made in the actual spirit of the competition.  Wonderful. Amazing.  THIS IS POINT FOUR.

DAY TWELVE - Mar 7, 2000

I think that might just be a factor of getting two points yesterday and being on such a high from only needing one more point in the next two weeks to do all right.  But today i had nothing happen.  

Tomorrow is another day.

DAY THIRTEEN - Mar 8, 2000

Today was a good day. I didn't think when i started today that it was going to be a good day, but it was in the end.  I as unsure about the day because as i went to work in the morning, not only did nothing happen, it also seemed like i was ready willing and able to rest upon my laurels.  (where are those btw?  i am sure i must have a very attractive set of laurels, but i wonder what they look like).  I had 2 weeks in which to make one more eye contact and then i had finished my challenge successfully.  I didn't really look at that and think, well i don't have to make eye contact ever again, rather i think i was just thinking that i could afford to have a break from it.  For a day at least.  So my trip to work was eye free.  I looked, but didn't try hard.  And yes, at this point it is still work for me to find and pick eyes and then put mine out there so that i can pick them up and see them.

ATTEMPT FIFTEEN

I am on my way home, by way of Shar's house because i am taking care of her flying rat's while she away.  This is a better way to go with the challenge as well, after all i have to walk through the middle of the downtown core, with all the people associated with that.  And there were a huge number of people, and you know what?  I found myself still trying to make eye contact, to make things happen.  I think i am beginning to internalize and importantize (ok, ok, i know that is not a word, get off my back, it captures my thoughts nicely) eye contact.  It really does seem less creepy.  I have to thank Shar and attempt fourteen for that i think. Maybe i am not the type that scares people, or maybe people just aren't scared as easy as i think.
So i am on my way to the little ferry across the bay to my house. As i stand there and await the ferry, i am watching the people sitting in it inside as they come up to the dock.  I see a woman, maybe 35, fairly attractive. I am not trying to make eye contact, i am just people watching.  But i see that she is watching out. I think that with the merest flick of my eyes i could capture hers.  And then without thought or purpose, i do just that.  When i get her eyes, surprised, i have to smile, because i am doing these things without nearly as much effort as it has taken in the past.  Wow.  THIS IS POINT FIVE.

In case none of you who are actually reading this crap have noticed that means i have successfully navigated and completed this challenge.  Or to use a slightly more arrogant terminology...

I WIN!!!

Since that day i have actually rested on my laurels and i have not made eye contact since.  It is now day fifteen.  But i am trying more than i used to pre-challenge and i do intend to make a more serious attempt at it.  

Because you see, the challenge was just the start. I am still on my way to romance.  Shar and i are discussing what the next level of the challenge needs to be.  Anyone out there have any opinions or ideas?  Send me a note and all your ideas will be taken into account.

DAY FOURTEEN - SEVENTEEN - Mar 8-11, 2000

I am no longer counting the attempts because i don't need to. i have surpassed this challenge. now the the immediate thing to do is to maintain my new found courage that keeps me trying to make this eye contact. Really, i need to.  Or else all is lost.  Or someday, in 59 years i will be sitting in my rocking chair thinking, i remember that time way back in 2000 when i had that challenge and i come this close to having a love, but then i ruined it by crawling back into my shell and hiding my head.  So i am trying.  I really am. honestly.  

Of course i say this and yet, since i won, i have not made eye contact again. but i am going to dammit. you can't stop me. even they can't stop me.  Romance will still come my way if i run around putting my hands over women's ears and holding their heads while i make them look into my eyes right?  Yeah, romance with a big guy named bubba at the jail.  (have you ever wondered at the hard time people named bubba must have growing up in school and such?)  

anyways, i shall keep you informed.