Doing It Right

I have a deathly plague that has me terrorizing all of my loved ones on a rotating basis, making sure to apprise them of just how miserable I am. I can not even fall asleep with any ease.

So one's mind turns to more pleasant times, those long gone days when one did not look like death warmed over and feel worse and was not in a state of high panic when it came to one's work. One's mind might even turn to a recent encounter with several men and the perfect example of complimentary, bantering, and harassing behavior.

My recent rip to Las Vegas involved what one might describe as much too much poker and at one such table there happened to sit three very different men.

1. A gentlemen of an indeterminate age past fifty was dealing for the table and sitting almost directly across from me. He launched into his spiel for the table after giving me a smile, a friendly, uncle sort of smile. Finishing up, he says 'If I'm looking at you it's your turn, unless it's you (he says to me) you I might look at just because'. I smile back, delighted. We smile at each other often, in complete charity with each other. He thought I was soo cute and hadn't the faintest intention or thought of getting into my pants and you know what? it totally showed. He appreciated me being young and cute, he could tell I was receptive to him being cutesy because I was smiling at him, and he was perfectly appropriate. I'm charmed.

2. Some time later at the same table, a young man on the other side of the table from me and I were involved in a heated hand of poker. The details escape me (I believe he won the hand) and afterwards he says something like "Sure, baby" possibly as a response to something I've said? It's casual, he's not hitting on me, he's not trying to put me down, he's not being dismissive, he's not being demeaning, he's being a tad playful and friendly without putting much emotion into it. I'm amused.

3. A third gentlement of about fifty is sitting next to gentlemen number 2. and takes his casual 'baby' as a cue to launch into baby this and that himself, taking it upon himself to give me a nickname and attempt to engage me in conversation I obviously don't want to have. This man has already been regularly yelling at the waitress (the obviously not at all receptive waitress) about her beautiful eyes. This guy's 'baby' isn't casual in the least, it has that over emphasized challenging tone to it. (What the hell am I supposed to say to shut him up without causing a scene at the damn table?) I'm pissed.

Impossible to confuse those three men and their ways of interacting. The key? Intention, paying attention to the woman's signals and what it all boils down to, respect.


Allright, now I'm off to nurture my deathly cold some more.