So tonight Vic and I talked about our respective weekends. And I told her about my mom's visit and my resulting clean apartment, Steven, about the lovely dinner I had at Larry's and about watching the horrid BUTTERFLY EFFECT with Marley.
Vic talked to me about reading, hanging out with her ex-husband and doing her taxes.
Then, I told Vic about what I did yesterday.
Spending time with Ronald at the mall, I ran into this other boy, a 19-year-old sales clerk named Mitchell who reads Chuck Pahlaniuk and is really cute with brown hair. I was walking through the Discovery Channel Store with Ronald when Mitchell looked me in the eye and stopped me, asking if I was "the guy from the bookstore." I told him I was. And we started talking, while Ronald wandered somewhere looking at something or other.
Mitchell showed me some caller ID globe they had at his store. I asked him if he had one. He said he used his cell as his primary phone. I told him I did the same thing. Then, he got me some 3D glasses. Then, he showed me some books. Then, he showed me the DVDs. I told him that I didn't want to keep him from his actual work, and Mitchell told me that it was no bother. (When we spoke in my bookstore a couple months ago, we spoke like old friends for several minutes. I don't know why. He looks geeky cute and friendly.)
He was being a really attentive salesperson, telling me that he's 19, he's not going to school right now and that he's not read Palahniuk's DIARY yet. He said he hasn't been in my store in a while because, after work, he says he just wants to leave the mall. I, for some reason, checked out Mitchell's butt, then I told him that he should start reading again. I don't know if he's gay. He could just be friendly. He laughed at my jokes, which means I'm funny or he's attracted to me. His co-worker kept watching him talk to me.
Another customer came up to the counter at the Discovery store with a thing called the "Executive Punching Bag." Encouraged by Mitchell and his co-worker, that customer started to pummel the bag a little. I saw the customer do this, decided that my yellow belt in Choi Kwang Do would help me impress Mitchell and asked if I could "have a go" at the punching bag. This is when Ronald walked up to me again, eager to see what I would do.
So I hit the punching bag, barely catching it with my fist. Mitchell and Ronald just watched me. I said that I could do better, so I tried again. I took my stance, and I slammed my fist into the punching bag with a side swipe I learned in my martial arts classes. The punching bag echoed the impact, and two other displays fell off the counter and crashed to the floor.
Remind me never again to use my martial arts skills to impress a boy.
I apologized and then, laughing, put my head on the counter.
Ronald said Mitchell was laughing too. But my head was on the counter, so I didn't see it.
"Actually, that happens a lot," Mitchell said to me.
"Really?" I asked. "You're kidding ..."
"No, it happens a lot," Mitchell said.
Sometime around this incident, I said, "I like talking to you."
"I like talking to you, too," Mitchell said.
"Maybe sometime after you finish with work, we could chat someplace other than your store or my store," I said to Mitchell. "Maybe we could get something to eat."
"Yeah," Mitchell said to me.
Then, without giving Mitchell my number or a way to contact me (because I don't know if he's gay - though I felt safe enough about that to ask him to dinner), I told him that Ronald and I needed to go to Hallmark. So we left. (I turned around as we were leaving to see what Mitchell was doing - to see if he was looking at me - but he and his co-worker were laughing.)
Ronald and I were talking about it as soon as we left the store.
"Did I just do that?" I asked him.
"What? Ask that guy out?" Ronald said.
"Cool," I said. "So then it was clearly me asking him out?"
"That's how it seemed to me," Ronald said. "Do you think he's gay?"
"I'm not sure," I said to Ronald. "It doesn't matter. What am I doing asking out a 19-year-old boy, anyway?"
"What's wrong with that?" he asked. "He seemed to like you."
"I'm 27 going on 28," I said, wondering if I should apply for a NAMBLA membership.
Ronald, who's 18, still didn't think there was anything wrong with it.
I was asking Mitchell on a date, whether I should or not. I wonder if Mitchell knows I was asking him on a date.
Ronald told me he laughed at my jokes.
I didn't even mean to walk into the Discovery Channel store. It was just faster to walk through it than around it.
In the midst of telling Vic about this and about Steven and about the phone tag and about the lack of enthusiasm that followed up that initial meeting, I was lighting the candles in my apartment, and I was having great difficulty in doing so.
The candles are old, and it's gotten harder to burn them. You have to dig out the string to light, or you have to actually stick the match in the wax if you want it to light. You can't get the flame started as easily. You wonder whether it's worth the effort.
Vic, telling me that my metaphor was painfully obvious, said that if you try to light the candle too much or too often or through faulty effort, you just end up getting burned.
Vic told me not to mess with the 19-year-old because I couldn't have a lasting relationship with him. She said I was too warm-hearted to be able to just sleep with him - and that, if I did just have sex with him, I would set a bad example for gay men. She told me that what to do, as a proper mentor, would be to leave him alone. (I replied to her that I didn't say anything about being a mentor.)
This is all very silly, pointless and amusing. I like worrying about this in the middle of the night, debating the ethics about this with friends.
Mitchell seemed nice, and he had a really cute butt. And he smiled when I talked to him. And he looked me in the eyes.
Oh, lustful infatuation is so fun sometimes. Until you start realizing that you're getting closer in age to the creepy old man in the bar ... and further from the age of the cute, young thing you once were.
Tonight, though, I was able to light both of my old candles - and keep them burning.
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