Just When You Thought The Game Was Over…..We Go To Overtime
While I was not yet ready to give up the chase for Sara, I had pretty much run dry on ideas for what I could do to grab her attention. She had not responded to my last message, just like all the others, and I could not think of a good way to communicate with her that wouldn’t come across as creepy. Her sister had given me her phone number, but I won’t call her without her permission, that would really be odd. I don’t know where she lives or works and I seriously doubt it would be wise to show up at either location unannounced. Now, I had considered a more laid back, comical approach to the whole thing, but I ended up editing out any lines of wit or humor in my final message to her, cutting it down from 700 words to just over 200. Yeah, I talk a lot. So a week had gone by and I was ready to throw in the towel, or at least retreat and regroup, and then this happened.
Facebook has become the outlet for my thoughts. If I need to share what I am thinking, I throw up a random, cryptic message as my status and hope the right people notice. I started posting messages meant for Sara long before I ever actually approached her. Of course, while some people commented on them, she never said anything so I didn’t even know if she saw them or not. I know long ago, before she knew I liked her, she would occasionally comment or ‘like’ something I posted but months had gone by without her saying or doing anything. So, I was listening to some music yesterday and one of my favorite Jack Johnson songs started to play. “Better Together,” is arguably one of my favorite songs, one of his best, and, it so happens, a song I know Sara likes. Years ago, when the world was still obsessed with MySpace one of the features available was the ability to post songs that would play as your page loaded. I often had random junk, like a White Stripes song that was popular at the time, but Sara posted “Better Together,” and that was one of many moments that I knew without a doubt that I really liked her. Yesterday, I decided to post the opening lyrics to the song before I left to go to the gym. “There’s no combination of words I could put on a postcard, No song that I could sing, but I can try for your heart…” I did not honestly expect anything and it even slipped my mind while I was working out and I had been planning on posting something different when I came home, but when I opened the page, I found Sara had liked the post. I was thrilled. I didn’t know what to think, but I was happy that I had finally gotten a response out of her.
Now, of course, I didn’t know how to progress. I had started to accept she wanted nothing to do with me, but then she did that. My feeling was, even if she likes that song, which I know she does, clicking the ‘Like’ button will only encourage me to continue chasing her. She could have ignored it, but she chose to make it known that she read it and she liked it. She must know it was meant for her, so how should I go about responding to this?
I thought a lot about what I could do and I talked with my friend who has been offering bits and pieces of advice along the way. He agreed with me that she wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t want me to continue, so what course of action should I take now? At first, I thought ignoring the post for a while would work, as she did the same to my messages, but what would that prove? I decided to take a simple approach. Well, I formed a little plan, that seems simple enough, but it may take some luck. Step one of my plan is to now send simple, one line messages about things I know she likes over the next two or three weeks. I am only going to send maybe one a week and I won’t ask her to respond to anything, just read them. Last night, before I went to bed, I send her a message saying, “Hey, I remembered you liked that Jack Johnson song, it’s one of my favorites…I know it used to be your MySpace song a long time ago…I really like Jack Johnson….calms me down after a long day.”
I know she read it this morning and she hasn’t written anything back, but I did not expect her to. Now, I will wait a few more days and send her something else similar to that. Unless she responds before, I won’t do any more than send these one liners. My hope is that I will trigger something in her to get a response, but if not, step two of my plan will involve talking directly to her. How will I pull this off, you ask. Well, I was invited to a post Thanksgiving party at her sister’s house. Initially, I thought I would be better off not going as it could be incredibly awkward to see her after receiving no responses to my messages, but the fact she clicked that Like button gives me a glimmer of hope that I can still pull off some magic. Depending on what happens over the next few weeks will determine what I say or do if I do see her at this party.
My hope beyond hope is that once given the chance to talk to her face to face, I might actually have a shot at asking her to a movie or something like that. There is a movie coming out right around Thanksgiving that I think would be good to take her to. It’s a comedy so it should not be terribly awkward, but who knows, this may be harder to pull off than I would like it to be. The two obstacles I have to overcome are my fear of going to this party and the possibility that she won’t show at the party either.
In the meantime, I guess I guess I will have to continue posting message indirectly aimed at her in the hopes she responds to them. I should probably hold off until tomorrow or the next day, but maybe I can think of something good.
Here we go again….
30 Years And Counting 