Flirting by osmosis.

Ben, a customer at my bookstore, hit on me Friday by staring at me at my cash register until I gave him my phone number. Seriously.

I mean, he just stood there at my register to "buy a People magazine," and I talked a bit to him. And the chat ended, but he kept waiting for me to say something.

We were past, "Hey, how are you?" and "Hey, that's my name, too," and "Hey, how old are you?" and "Hey, I want to read that magazine." And Ben just kept standing there, staring at me, and I said, "Yes ..." And he asked, "What?" And I said, "Yes, um ..." And he asked, "What?" And I said, "No, I just said yes." And he said, "Oh." Since that was going nowhere, I asked him if he wanted to ask me something, but he just kept saying, "No, um," and staring at me with this burning intent in his eyes.

So I wrote down my phone number on a post-it and handed it to him. And he said, "Thanks. I couldn't be sure."

And I smiled. But it seems unfair that he got away with my phone number since he didn't actually ever say anything.