Devil in a Blue ... Sweater (How women taught me to grab life by the horns)

I have left many opportunities on the table with regard to meeting women in the past, until the day I ran into a male acquaintance with a defective personality at a concert. I will call him “Tim” - because that’s his real name.

As I feigned interest in whatever Tim was saying, I interrupted him to point out a stunning blonde 10 yards away. While I was busy convincing myself that she had a boyfriend and was out-of-my-league, Tim was already introducing himself to her. Since the beautiful girl had a cute friend with her, I opted to walk over. Much to my awe, Tim was soon entering the blonde’s number into his phone. I convinced myself of another falsehood: that she had given him a fake number. A few days later, I learned I was wrong on this accord when Tim called to tell me about his amazing date with her. Filled with resentment in this life changing moment, I decided it was better to heal from the sting of potential humiliation than to spend days regretting inaction. I called my new paradigm the “Social Regret Minimization Principle.”

I recently did an internal audit of my successes since implementing this methodology and noticed that though I was taking more risks and sustaining far less regret, I wasn’t obtaining more life wins. Moreover, one noteworthy encounter bedevils me to this day. It was a regular workday afternoon when a few office colleagues invited me to sushi for lunch. We acquiesced on a place known for their mediocre fish.

This particular venue, the fast food of the sushi genre, is laid out with the sushi chefs in the center of the room, and a very large sushi bar around them. The bar – half the size of the restaurant – was surrounded by chairs packed in close proximity. Encircling the sushi prep area and bar, was a slow moving moat of water that facilitated the clunky journey of a fleet of wooden sushi boats chained together. The sushi was somewhat protected by a sneeze guard. However, I believe the opaque, Plexiglas buffer was more an obscuration to skew the appearance of the tepid fish. At any given moment, a third of the boats that passed were empty, with the remainder containing fish that a feral tabby would pause to lick. Word on the street was to avoid the moat altogether and order directly from the disgruntled chefs. Angry fish tastes better.

After being seated at the bar, my attention went from imminent food poisoning to the gorgeous, professional brunette in a blue sweater directly across the sushi bar from me. Reminding myself of my recent decree to never let an opportunity pass, I decided to create a tactic that would allow me to meet this woman, unbeknownst to both my colleagues and patrons in the packed restaurant. It did not take long to construct a scheme of which any Romeo would be proud.

Since I was sitting to the right of my coworkers at the bar; and, the circuitous water also flowed to the right, I would draft a barely perceptible note addressed to “Beauty in Blue Sweater” with a quick intro and my contact information. I would then fold it into a standing triangle and place it on one of the empty wooden boats, letting the canal and fate carry my vulnerable, but seaworthy declaration. Upon receipt, I would discreetly nod so she could identify her maritime suitor. Why I did not think of sending a spicy tuna roll or sake bomb with a private introduction via a server remains a mystery. 

I quickly discovered that the downside of avoiding future regret was the regret that comes much, much sooner.

I slipped my note on the next empty boat, somewhere between the discolored unagi and salmon roe schooners, watching it clumsily drift away. As the dinghy floated towards the abyss of potential rejection, my heart crept into my throat. I overwhelmingly regretted the launch. At the speed of a lumbering sushi channel, my fortune was sealed. Though my anxiety hit fever pitch within moments, I forcibly regained composure, appearing calm with my eyes affixed to the note.

My pulse hastened as my love-boat began to pass the approximately 12 diners that separated the hottie in blue and me. Then the unexpected: The memo glided right past her completely unnoticed. Filled with dread, this scenario had never crossed my mind, nor did I have a contingency plan. My note-on-a-boat was now completing one full bar rotation, passing another 10 diners as it came left around the bend toward my colleagues on the shameful homeward stretch. My coworkers spotted the message as it meandered by, and deduced by the hue of my face, to whom it belonged. My strained expression begged for their silence. A logical man would have removed the note altogether, cut his losses and avoided further disgrace. But this was no average brunette, and far greater men have imploded by poorer choices. 

I left my chips on the table, and bid my rickety skiff another timid “bon voyage.” This time it seemed every patron was now hungrily focused on the passing sushi boats. One-by-one, each diner noticed the passing note, and then laughed while scanning the bar for the author.

Committed to my innovative “no regrets” mantra, and fueled by the positive reactions of my anticipatory audience, I no longer tried to hide my participation. I was all in, and serious in my quest to meet this woman. In my mind, if nothing else wooed her, my self-deprecation would earn her adoration.

Pity would be my aphrodisiac.

Two of the girlfriends flanking her saw the note and urged her to grab it to appease the stares of inquisitive gawkers around the sushi bar. She begrudgingly snatched the note from the wooden boat, glanced at it, and stashed it somewhere without so much as a smile. She was visibly annoyed at being the center of attention. This was lunch kamikaze style. But sans the lingering tinge of regret.