yoakemae | 夜明け前

Being the geek that I am, no one ever expects me to *cough* flirt (or to flirt WELL) with guys. In fact, they only expect me to be uber-impervious to population XY, having crushes or so. Well, sad to say, I *am* pretty impervious to crushes in the sense that I don’t fall in love or something the minute I see someone fit (i.e. Zac Efron – sorry, girls) and that I personally don’t take it as my “duty” to flirt with every guy that comes my way.

…at least, I have a rule: Don’t “flirt” with people I don’t know.

I think it really depends on what you classify as the dirty deed – some people do it with coy stares, the kind of stuff you see on the silver screen and all. On the other hand, pre-teens (they grow up SO fast) I’ve spoken to will say that flirting is when a guy gives a girl excessive compliments – yes, I’m quoting verbatim(!)

Moi? Well, I usually don’t tend to do the (dreaded) deed with people I don’t know. To me, flirting’s just exchanging very playful and fun banter with good mates – it *may* border on slightly suggestive stuffo (only with the close ones), but it rarely does happen. As for new people that I meet, I’m just usually friendly around them. There’s no need to start getting “flirty” until you know them better, IMO. And physical flirting? Overrated…(for now at least.)

So it came as a surprise to my friends and I when I ventured out of my comfort zone yesterday. Let me bring you up to speed:

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Now our boarding house has a custom where we rent DVDs from Blockbusters every weekend for our movie nights – and usually they’re picked up by any boarder in the house who happens to be going down to town and won’t mind picking the DVDs up. So a few weeks ago I went down with Sidi to pick a selection of 4 DVDs – if I’m not wrong, He’s Just Not That Into You and Bride Wars were in there. So once we were done picking, I brought them to the counter whilst Sids went to have a look at the clearance CDs.

In the meantime, however, I just beamed at the attendant behind the counter and politely wished him a good afternoon. Whilst he went to get the actual discs to place inside the dummy boxes (anyone who’s been to Blockbusters or rented DVDs will get my drift), I noticed that him and the other attendant were in some weird clothing get-up: red and white football kit, complete with shorts, knee-high white socks and all that jazz.

Thinking that the outlet must’ve been supporting Manchester United at some football match, I just happened to quip – “Is there some big game going on today?” Result: I got a wink and a smile, with him explaining how Blockbusters were running a charity drive (I think it was for Child’s Play or something…and that the odd clothing was part of the publicity for it. “Care to donate?” he asked me.

So I paid for the DVDs with the house funds – and rummaged for some change in my own purse. I walked out with just £2 less, but hey.

Now yesterday, it just happened to fall on my to do the DVD-collection duty again, so after a bit of kit hunting for my upcoming hike, I made a beeline for Blockbusters (again) – picked out the week’s selection, and went to the counter.

Lo and behold, I spotted the same football-kit attendant who was kind enough to explain what went on in Blockbusters to me a few weeks ago. I’d recognize that dark, roguish hairstyle anywhere.

So when my turn came, I duly handed my selection over and asked for another DVD that I couldn’t find. Whilst he was sorting out the boxes, I just quipped – “I see you’ve lost the football gear this time!” He was mildly surprised, but I got a smile back and – (le gasp!) a remark I’m very much used to hearing – “Yup. And somebody’s awfully cheery today! ;)”

From what I recall, the short convo after that (you can’t really talk too much if you’re behind the counter at Blockbusters, duh) went like this:

“I know I am. Got ‘told off’ for it though.”
“Oh…why’s that?”
“Well. My mates were like, ‘MJ is DEAD – life’s not worth living now, and YOU’RE happy, Ari?’”
“Ha! Aww yeah. Was a bit gutted when I heard that…loved his tunes, he was an icon.”
“Well, that’s how I got up on Thursday morning – I was just sound asleep in my dorm, and my mate just bursts in screaming ‘MJ JUST DIEEEEED!!’ – geez, there goes my snooze time.”
“*chortle* Well…you must be happy for another reason though.”
“(deadpan) Aww, how did you guess?”
“C’mon. Being happy despite MJ’s death…takes someone very very ignorant about him to pull that off. He’s too well-known. You’re happy because of something else.”
“(deadpans) Sure I am. Hard not to be when you get 2 pairs of £30-each top notch hiking shorts for just £16 total. That’s just 1/4 of the price.”
“…you’re not serious! You, doing #D of E?”
“Oh yeah. Next Sunday.”
“You didn’t strike me as the type! xD” (note: I was wearing a cutesy summer dress then – yes, venturing outside my comfort zone in more ways than one. :P)

The convo petered out after that, but I walked away happier – knowing that I put a smile on Craig’s (yes, that’s his name – employee nametag haha) face for longer; as I was nearly out the door, I heard a happy sigh and his voice saying – “Man, I love this job now!”

Verdict? For what people dub as a “game”, that so called chat-up session was pretty enjoyable. Oh Ari, God forbid…!

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PS// # D of E is the Duke or Edinburgh’s award where part of the scheme requires you to do an expedition. Yes, hiking.
PPS// Speaking about work – Ari’s mighty excited about her upcoming summer internship.