Shumaker, heartbreaker, life taker, don't you mess around with me

After the Has-Been Corner basement show on Friday night, I cruised around the party and made conversation with a smorgasbord of old friends. I avoided reciprocating the sultry glances of young brown eyed girls in favor of an exchange of lude anecdotes with the old gang. I made an admirable effort to be a reserved individual to the young female partygoers who glanced at me from over the bonfire.

As the night grew old, I found myself in the living room making conversation with a couple of young hispanic kids that found their way to the party. Despite all rationality, I engaged in a very limited conversation with one of these kids who spoke almost no English. In that same token, my Spanish is very limited. It was nearly impossible for either of us to make any sense to one another that night but it didn't stop us from having a puzzling exchange of words. Against all odds, I tried to ask him how to pick up girls in Spanish. I asked him how to say "what's your phone number, you're beautiful, and how old are you." Those seemed like the best pick up lines to learn. Unfortunately, he was unable to accommodate my request since he didn't know that I was asking him a question. Not long after our conversation fizzled out, I said my goodbyes and left. As I was walking out to my car I heard someone running up behind me. It was none other than the hispanic boy. He walked up to me, stared me in the eyes, smiled wryly and said "we go now, I come wif you." I was a bit caught off guard so I just cocked my head and said "huh?" He just continued to smile made a gesture with his hands urging me to get in the car and said "I come with you." It took me until then to realize that our entire bizarre conversation and my politeness to him was interpreted as some sort of flirtation. The kid was trying to pick me up! I told him straight that I wasn't interested and that I was "sorry." He was shocked that his advance failed. After I shot the poor kid down, he gave me a last sad, hesitant smile, turned and walked back up the street and up to the front porch of the house. As I drove off I saw that his head was hung low and that his friends were patting him on the back, consoling him. I had no idea that simply being affable to a stranger could get me mixed up in a situation like this. Despite all of my valiant efforts to avoid excess flirtation and lustful pursuits at the party, I ended up inadvertently breaking some poor boys heart.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that this type of situation isn't uncommon. On a daily basis each and every one of us sends someone else's hopes packing simply by avoiding eye contact with a stranger or by denying someone a reciprocal smile. Sometimes it's on purpose, sometimes it's inadvertent. People smash each others lustful advances, fantastic dreams, and romantic hopes every single day by not participating in someone else's holy moment. That's alright with me, though. We all loose in the end so why not prepare ourselves slowly?