Dudes Say the Darnedest Things

Apparently it is my lot in life to get hit on at the library in the most ridiculous of ways. And that's fine and all--I have no MAJOR objections. I mean, there's worse places to get hit on. At least at the library, you know you're not dealing with a case of beer goggles (usually), and if the attempts to woo you get annoying or a little too X-rated, there are many large, square items that can be thrown at the individual's head.

The only overly-annoying facet of the Library Come-On is that it always (always) revolves around the library materials you are in the process of checking out, and it only serves to glaringly emphasize the person's complete lack of knowledge ABOUT said library materials.

Case in point from yesterday:

SCENE: I am standing in line to check out a couple dvds: Henry & June and Four Weddings & a Funeral. The dude in front of me is waiting for the librarian to finish retrieving the 10 or so dvds he's checking out. He notices me standing behind him and turns around to face me.

DUDE (obviously looking me up and down): How you doin'?

ME: Fine, you?

DUDE: Good... Good...

[Drawn-out 30-second pause during which Dude stares at me while I read the back of my dvd covers, I look up at him, he looks away, I look away, he starts staring at me again.]

DUDE (scoping out my dvd selections and apparently noticing the word "wedding" on my Four Weddings & a Funeral dvd): You getting married?

ME: Huh?

DUDE (enunciating as though I am a slow person): You... getting... married... soon?*

ME: Uh, no.

[Another extremely painful 30-second pause]

DUDE: You single?

ME: Uh, no.

DUDE (eyeing me suspiciously): You have a boyfriend?**

ME: Uh, yeah.

DUDE: So you have a boyfriend...

ME (looking around): Yes.

DUDE (stares at me and nods his head up and down slowly)

[Thankfully at this precise moment, the librarian returns to check out my dvds. I pray that she finishes up mine before the other librarian finishes up his, so I don't have to deal with more of this outside. Thankfully, the Book Gods are on my side, and she works fast.]

Noteworthy Moments:

*I love that Dude adds on the "soon" the second time he asks this question, as though, in the 2-seconds between the first and second time he asks, it suddenly dawned on him that, even if I AM getting married, as long as it's not SOON, he still has a chance of fucking the shit out of an engaged woman. Scruples.

**I also love (but am somewhat puzzled by) the fact that me telling him I'm not single somehow isn't enough for him. I am unsure of whether he asks this follow-up question a) to try to catch me off guard, in the hopes I'll stumble and be like, Uh, Wait! No! No, I mean yes! and then he can swoop on in and destroy me with my lies, b) because he wants to figure out whether I'm lesbionic, so he can at least FANTASIZE about some hot library threesome later on that night, or c) he's just slow.


I tell you this tale to stress again to all you library Don Juans out there: If you're going to mack on someone at the library, at least have SOME sort of cursory knowledge of the book or dvd you are going to use as your conversation-piece. I stressed this once before, after a lawyer tried using Dostoevsky to get a little something something going with me. But apparently word has not gotten out very well.

So please: Print this out, email it, whatever you need to do. Just SPREAD THE WORD.

Don't end up like Dude above.

You're better than that.

Hopefully.

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