Tag: Coffee

Top tips to get you asked out by teenagers

I’m a twenty-seven year old gal who’s had more teenagers (or those freshly out of their teens) ask her out in the past six years years than, well, the entire time I spent as a teenager.

Now, in the sake of full disclosure, I was a pretty unfortunate looking person for a good chunk of my adolescent years – but even after I got hot as hell, I was still the one making the first move at the beginning of my relationships.

(This, I’m sure, is because people were so amazed by my overall transformation, that they were unsure as to whether or not I was the same person they used to know.)

I kid.

Kind of.

For serious, had I not had ovaries the size of basketballs, I would still be languishing in a sea of unrequited crushes, being tossed about by white-capped waves of sexual frustration.

I was a champ at asking people out (the two times I did it.)

Now, since I wrote earlier this week about how a twenty year old boy asked me out on skytrain last Saturday night, I’ve had quite a few friends ask me what exactly it is that I am doing to have this be a semi-regular occurrence in my life.

I didn’t have a coherent, non-self-deprecating answer at the ready, so over the past few days I’ve given this query some thought, and think I may come up with a probable (but perhaps totally erroneous)  hypothesis.

However, in the spirit of science, I’m forging ahead.

Ladies and gentleman, (but really ladies, because, well, I am one of you) may I present: 

Top tips to get you asked out by teenagers*.

*or those in their early twenties.

1.)    Ride public transit. Ride public transit all the live long day. Not once or twice a week – we’re talking multiple times a day here (and weekends too). Teenagers, for the most part, don’t have a ton of money, so if they need to go anywhere, they take the bus, or the skytrain, or subway, or streetcar, or what have you.

Duh, duh, duh, another rides the bus...

I ride transit all the damn time, so it’s inevitable that I’ll find myself sitting next to someone whom I could have babysat ten years ago, had I not  instead chosen the high school career of Safeway cashier. And because of this inevitability, it is in fact unavoidable that at some point one of them will strike up a conversation with me, and before I know it – BAM!

They want to take you me out to coffee (at bloody 7:45 in the morning.)

2.)    Wear quite a bit of colourful clothing. I notice more and more just how varied in hue and tone my wardrobe is compared to most of the other people who work down town. When I exit the train every morning, and the station is flooded by a stream of black, grey and brown, I am the bright red life boat, carried along by the push and pull of the tide.

1 coat, 2 coat, red coat...

I don’t necessary think that it’s my clothing per say that’s getting me asked out, but since I’m not afraid to experiment with, and wear a ton of colour – in addition to taking different risks with my outfits (wearing traditional mens clothing, and mixing formal with casual pieces) – my style seems to attract a younger demographic.

Teenagers in general like to make comment on my choice in clothing and, or colour palette.

Animal print and stripes.

Then they want to take me out to coffee to talk more about my fashion sense.

3.)    Read science fiction and/or fantasy books. My only caveat being – please, please for the love of pete, read good science fiction and/ or fantasy. None of this Sword of Truth/Sword of Shannara bullshazzle.

That will get you disqualified right out of the gate.

(However you’ll gain ten points if you read your sci-fi books on the bus.)

But to get back on topic: teenagers always want to talk me up about the books that I’m reading, but particularly if they are of these two genres. They want to talk to me about A Song of Ice and Fire (even back before it got all HBO-ed and coolified); they want to talk to me about Terry Pratchett; they want to talk to me about Richard Matheson. (Okay, so that last one’s more horror that anything else, but we’ll have to let that slide.)

Even Mr. Penguin wants to talk about Game of Thrones.

They want to talk to me about books and then take me out to coffee to talk about books some more.

4.)    Laugh to yourself. Whether you’re walking down the street, riding transit (seriously, RIDE IT!), sitting in a coffee shop, or waiting in line at the grocery store, be so completely lost in your own thoughts that you bust up your own gut like a busting thing.

I love to laugh. ALL THE TIME.

Older people will think your completely bonkers (and rightfully so) but teenagers want to know what’s so funny.

And they’ll want to take you out for coffee.

5.)    Quote the crap out of movies and TV shows. I was on transit once (did I mention that you should probably ride transit?), talking on my mobile, TO MY HUSBAND when I said, “that’s, just like, uh, your opinion…man” and the fella sitting to my right, spoke up literally, the second that I  hung up, wanting to talk more about the Big Lebowski (aka re-enact the whole movie for the remainder of our ride.)

And then he wanted to go to a coffee shop, to re-enact our re-enactment – just in case we missed a part!

Yowzers.

He was pretty surprised when I declined, citing the fact that I was, you know, a married woman.

Which brings me to my last point:

6.)    Wear a wedding ring. First, teenagers don’t look for wedding rings, so they are basically a moot point. Second, the longer I remain married, the more teenagers ask me out. And third, most of the teenagers who’ve asked me out haven’t cared when I told them that I am forever removed from the dating scene.

Ring around the rosie...

They all want to convince me of the reasons why I should no longer be married.

Over coffee, of course.

So there you have it ladies – six, very simple tips on how to increase the number of your youthful suitors.

But, let me finish off by saying this. Don’t wait around for someone else to make the first move. If you like somebody, go-go-gopher it.

It’s always better to know, and heck, if they like you back? Well, there’s no better feeling in the world.

Seriously, I’ll tell you more about it.

Tea anyone?

Sunglasses at night

So I says to Mabel I says: Going to work in the dark and leaving work in the dark is definitely a bit crap. 

I find myself heading out at lunch time, just to breathe some fresh air, (fresh life!) into my lungs and bask in the limited-time-only daylight that seems to be available only between the hours of ten in the morning until two in the afternoon.

Working within this time frame makes me thing that whoever in charge of allotting Vancouver’s daily sunlight ration must also be affiliated with the Swiss consulate (as they seem to keep the same hours.)

It’s quite a trip looking out the window as I exit my office building and see the moon, shining down on myself and all the other commuters at 4:26 in the afternoon.  It makes me want to yell out: “JUST BECAUSE I LIKE THEM, DOESN’T MEAN I EVER AGREED TO LIVING INSIDE A PHILLIP K. DICK NOVEL!!!”

COME ON.

(Or Heinlein, or Asimov, or Herbert, or – okay hopefully you get my drift).

That tiny dot on the left? THE MOON! At 4:30pm!

The one plus to this perpetual darkness?  The view walking to transit in the morning can be utterly breathtaking.  The sky is engulfed by a brilliant mosaic of blues, and greens and oranges and purples – like the most beautiful bruise you have ever seen – and Mount Baker stands stark, back lit, like an American Mount Doom, looming in the foreground.

One view to rule them all.  One view to find them.

[Please sir – may I be an elf?]

Okay, in all honesty I really shouldn’t gripe.

There is something almost romantic to getting up, and getting out, in the early a.m.

The world is quiet, still.

Because it is so early, each person who is up, are themselves quiet.  Although they move, they exude, are even defined by, a pristine stillness, becalmed by the early hour.

We are awake, but are still, very slowly coming alive – stretching our arms, wiping away the sleepy cobwebs in tandem with the molasses-slow sunrise as it heralds the official break of day.

Standing on the metro platform, our breath is a thick fog that hangs suspended in the morning chill; no one talks, no one looks at each other.

We are like living statues, meditating on the start of the day (or perhaps just counting down the minutes until hot java will surge through our system and jolt our brains into activity.)

This sunrise took my breath away (sorry for bad quality!)

I actually don’t understand those who prefer waking up later and therefore staying at work later – why would anyone want to leave work at a time when it doesn’t just look like night, it actually is night time?

Blargh.

Even if the daylight has faded, I would prefer to have the afternoon and evening to myself – go to the gym, prepare dinner, read, spend time with my husband and cat, go for a walk, watch a movie – all in the same night if need be.

I can’t imagine accomplishing any of these things, let along all of them, if I was leaving work after eight o’clock at night.

Plus I really hate doing laundry anytime after seven o’clock – eight MAYBE if I’m really pushing it..  I get this crazy anxiety that the clothes won’t have time to dry properly and everything will end up moldy and smelling like the boot bin at one of the Annapolis valley Frenchies.

(a.k.a. THE WORST EVER.)

Also, I am paranoid about the neighbours having a conniption about the late hour of these washing exploits.

Having worked shift work for two years, I am familiar with very early mornings and very late nights (that I suppose should also be classified as early mornings.)  I know about sleepiness on both ends of the tired spectrum and I promise you, that if I was forced to chose between the two, I would pick early mornings ten times out of ten.

So Mr. Morning Sauron! Bring on the 6 a.m. starts!

I’ll name my first child little Vanilla Bean Gamgee  if need be.

…