This Is Another Kind Of Valentine

In which I am stupid and A- is extremely understanding.

I kind of hate Valentine’s Day but in what has somewhat become a blog tradition, I take the opportunity to tell the whole world why I love my girl.

Hey do you guys know what flirting is?

Because I do not.

Does this appear to be flirting to you?

To me it looks like two people talking.

This also appears to be a picture of two people talking.

Seriously, I do not even recognize flirting when it happens to me. Apparently it does happen to me with some level of frequency, at least A- says so.

According to her, it happened last week and I didn’t notice.

We went to an event here in town. It was fun and cold and there were a lot of people there and also a great deal of booze. We had fun. We chatted. We shivered. We drank vodka infused hot cocoa to quell the shivering and then this guy came up and started talking to us. And talking. He was super friendly and extremely excited to meet us, like weirdly excited for a Minnesotan.

For those of you who have never been to this state, these people don’t get really excited over anything that doesn’t have the capacity to end in a Super Bowl ring. Given the Viking’s record, that means they don’t get excited over anything.

This guy was excited. it kind of went without saying that he isn’t from around here but he said it. He also made a point of saying that he was staying in a near-by hotel, and that he was generally very physically warm, and that he would be in the bar.

A- says that all of these things were signals. Apparently, we were supposed to pick up those signals as an invitation to come up to his room? I don’t know.

All of this was obvious to A-. I, on the other hand, thought were having a nice, albeit somewhat strange, conversation. Luckily, I didn’t flirt back.

Because I do that sometimes. Because I don’t know when I’m being flirted with. Because in this aspect of life, I am extremely stupid.

I just think I’m having an interesting conversation with a new person while the whole time I am giving the totally wrong message to the interesting person. Because in this aspect of life, I am extremely stupid.

As a result of this massive blind spot in my understanding of, you know, human people, we have had to make some rules.

When A- says someone is flirting, she is right. End of file. If I can’t recognize it happening, I don’t have any basis for an argument against the idea that it was happening.

When A- says my friendly conversation is being read as flirting back, she is right. End of file. The reason is the same.

At those times, as with last week, she patiently explains to me when the hell is going on and  all the things I missed. She doesn’t get jealous. She doesn’t assume that I’m doing on purpose.

She does laugh quite often because I’ll admit it’s hilarious. I am, frankly, a brilliant woman who not only fails at one of the most common aspects of social interaction, she doesn’t even know that it’s happening.

Like I said, she is extremely understanding. Love you A-. Happy Contrived Romance Day. I love you all the other days of the year just as much.