Lunch with coworkers: Two bosses, two coworkers, one new person who just started that day, and myself. So during the course of the lunch, they find out I don't know how to order, they point out how I have no friends, the new guy has no trouble joking and talking with everyone, the other two coworkers (though younger than me) clearly have more life experience than I do. Some other even more degrading things happened, but I don't care to get into them.
This memory was kind of depressing for me, so I've included a picture of a dog wearing a business suit:
I would follow tha dog anywhere. Best multimedia presentation on here in at least 2-3 days.
My scenario would be a work party of some sort where I'm known by the people there as competent, serious but not without humor, generally poised, good in a crisis, and sort of a regular guy. Basically, with these people I've "passed". I have a status to maintain.
Then the music starts. Something up tempo. I know what's coming, and I quickly scan the room for predators. They're everywhere. I have no concern about the 3 couples who get up and dance, except to the extent that they're validating this silly practice.
Like an adolescent wildebeast at the watering hole, I try to hide in plain site by looking cool. I've never actually been cool (try being a wildebeast and being cool), but I read a book on the subject once so I figure I can pull it off. But they've seen me. An unattached male not only not dancing, but marking himself somehow as helplessly and hopelessly terrified of the idea. They circle, exchanging strategies.
I think about the few options I have, all crappy. How did I let this happen? I couldn't have predicted this when people cleared chairs away and a DJ showed up? I mean, I helped move chairs.
I could try to run for a exit, but if I don't make it the running would ruin my erstwhile cover of claiming a sprained ankle. But the sprained ankle idea only delays the inevitable until something slower plays. They saw me move the damned chairs, anyway. No, maybe bolting is the best choice. But I hesitated, and now they've blocked the exits. Cunning, this pack. I could fake a heart attack, or perhaps just have one. Quick, think heart attack. Faster. She's walking this way. I knew I should have eaten more bacon. And then.......a woman asks me to dance.
Once I think this happened specifically to humiliate me, but mostly these invites come from women who see a guy who looks like he might want to loosen up a bit. It's probably worse when humiliation isn't the woman's goal. God forbid she might actually have even a friendly interst in me.
