One of the things I wasn't used to in my previous workplaces was the presence of so many women. I had several that I dealt with on a regular basis when I worked for Landmark Theatres, but NDC was like college all over again. There were so many beautiful women and I developed so many crushes. It was probably worse than college because I didn't get to date any of them.
I did try, though. When I was an LDA, there was a woman named Lilz from another team at Balboa. She seemed to like spending time talking to me when she was on her break. She had made indications that she would have liked for me to have been the LDA for her team because she didn't care much for hers, whom she would snarkily refer to as "Mr. Personality." I got the idea that maybe she had a crush on me. She told me that she spent Saturday mornings at the Mission cafe in Mission Beach getting breakfast with her friends. It almost seemed like she was inviting me. But I wasn't just going to show up and see if she'd let me join her.
I decided to see how much she liked me. Abed and I were going to do a show at Lestat's one night. I thought that if she really liked me, she'd come see me play. (But I don't think she was going to be really impressed with the music.) The day of the show, I suggested she come check it out. She said, "I can't. I have plans with my friends. Please let me know in advance next time." Hmmm... I know that most women, if they're into a guy, would gladly ditch their friends to see him play. I guess these were pretty solid plans. Or maybe she'd gotten cynical about guys.
So the next time we did a show, I told her about it two weeks in advance. She still couldn't make it. Dang it! Being a musician is supposed to make it easier to get dates! (But that's what this blog is all about.)
Her name is rather common, so I don't know what happened to her. I did see her a couple of other times after I stopped working at NDC, but that's going to come up in another post.
But Lilz was someone I was pretty sure liked me. Almost all the other women I liked didn't even know I existed. This was especially true when I was a regular dispatch agent. But then again, I had little contact with anyone else, male or female. I had a tendency to be a little stalker-ish. If there was someone I was attracted to, I would make it a point to walk by whichever cubicle they happened to be working at. I didn't know if they could tell I was doing that on purpose.
And sometimes, they could surprise me. I started noticing Mitz when everyone at Chesapeake had to work at Balboa for the weekend. She was in the cubicle next to me and we talked back and forth a little bit. I know she had a kid and was probably married, but she was really cute and had a great voice. We didn't talk much after that. I would see her from time to time. Once I was leaving at 7am and saw her in a car with her husband.
When I was training to be an LDA, she came up and talked to the person working with me. She asked a couple of questions of him. That was the closest I'd ever been to her. On Labor Day Monday, when I had to work, I was in the break room. She was in there talking to someone. Suddenly, she turned to me and said, "Hey, Fayd! Congratulations on becoming LDA! I know you'll be really good!" I was rather stunned. Wasn't she aware I was kind of creeping around her every once in a while? I guess not. In the end, it didn't matter. She stopped working for NDC soon after that and I never saw her again.
I have found her Facebook profile. She still lives in San Diego. It looks like she got married to someone else. And she's really into her pug. One thing I notice about her now is that she doesn't wear a lot of make up. By that, I mean she doesn't seem to use foundation. I don't recall if she had the natural look back then, but it's really apparent now.
At one point, my regular cubicle (and no one had assigned cubicles at Chesapeake) was right next to one that seemed to magically get better calls on it. (This was an odd thing at Chesapeake. There was a weird algorithm in which some stations didn't get all the calls. I remember that there was one prompt that always came up on a regular basis, but if I sat in a different row, I would never get that prompt.) There were these two really cute women who would try to sit next to me. I enjoyed this (even though I couldn't get up the nerve to talk to them). However, there was this guy who discovered the magic cubicle. He came in before them. He was loud and smelly. I didn't like him sitting next to me. I wanted the cute women. So I started putting up a sign that indicated the user was at lunch. He would come, see the sign and then look elsewhere. Then, after he found another cubicle and started taking calls, I would take the sign away and wait for one of the women to appear. Eventually, he figured out that no one was sitting there, removed the sign and started taking calls. (And I don't think he knew that I put it there.) I would then see either of the women coming in and look disappointed that the cubicle was taken. (My cubicle was also magical, and I was not giving it up.)
One of the women I had regular contact with because she also became a LDA. Sometime later, I ran into the other woman. I referred to her by name. She didn't remember me. "You used to sit in the cubicle next to me!" She still didn't remember. That hurt.
So for me, working at NDC was not a very good resource for meeting women. I mean, I met them. I just couldn't socialize with them. But there was one I thought I had a real chance with after I no longer worked there. As usual, she will be the subject of another post way later in the future.
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