“Go talk to her,” the Voice in my head prodded me.   The Voice was smart.  It knew that I wasn’t seeing anybody, she was sitting alone, and the Voice swore that it saw her glace in my direction.  The Voice insisted, “She’s checking you out, dude!”  I didn’t know what to say, but she did look familiar, so I could use that as my ‘in,’ my ‘ice-breaker’, my ‘line.’   So, I checked my hair (yup still there) and walked confidently over to her.

“You know, you look so familiar.  Have we met before?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so.” She replied coldly.

“Do you work for (company where I work)? I tried again.

“No, I do not.”  She said, emphasizing each word.

Panic struck me.  She was looking at me like I was on fire, literally.  “Bail! Bail! Bail!” the Voice screamed.   This was my own personal Vietnam.  I went in with no exit strategy.

“I guess you have one of those faces…” I offered.

“Bravo!  [Slow sarcastic clapping]  Way to charm her!”  The Voice in my head moaned.

“No, we’ve never met.”  The tone of her voice told me the conversation was over, so I said, “Oh, OK.  Bye.”  Then I did the slow ‘walk of shame’ back to my place against the wall…on the OTHER side of the room.

I think that every man can identify with this story, at least every guy that I know.  I’m sure that guys with Brad Pitt looks and Bill Gates money... probably not so much.  Getting shot down, or more precisely, ‘going down in flames’ has happened to me before, and it will happen again, but each time I get rejected I’m never prepared.  It’s so humiliating.  Most women don’t know this feeling of rejection, but it is a rite of passage for dudes.  If getting rejected is so painful then why do I keep trying to interact with other human beings?  I would have to say… trying to avoid dying alone is up there as a reason.

Seriously, my rejection by the woman at the other side of the room was her loss, and if she had been friendly, we hit it off, and became a couple; we would probably wind up breaking up and hating each other eventually anyway.  So, you see, there’s an upside to all this!  Too bitter?  Let’s just end with this:  it was her loss, and there are plenty of fish in the sea.  Besides, never mind her, there was this other woman down the hall from where I was standing, and the Voice in my head…