During lunch I decide to run over to the Sephora a few blocks away from the office, grab the stuff I’m out of, and start heading back. I’m walking down Pine when I notice this guy turn the corner and start walking in front of me. He’s wearing a red shirt that’s like a couple shades lighter than what I’m wearing (still a pretty dark red) and my brain starts running through allllllll the algorithms…. I wanna say something, omg should I? What would I say? Is that creepy? He’s wearing airpods surely he doesn’t want to be bothered, what if he has a significant other, I don’t want to intrude. I keep walking and he stops at 6th like he’s going to cross towards Pike and that’s it. I kept walking down Olive minding my own business until I stopped and turned around to decide how intrusive I was feeling. He was looking down at it phone and I was all yeah that’s the culture in Seattle. He looks up and turns in my general direction, I turn around immediately and start walking towards 7th, he starts walking in my direction! I cross 7th towards 8th, he crosses the intersection and starts walking down 7th. Hooo sheeeit.
I backtrack and start walking down 7th and I’m behind him being all creepy and indecisive. We’re standing next to each other at the intersection waiting for the light to change and he’s looking the other way (north) so I look at his backpack trying to figure out an excuse to talk to him and notice some shiny paper in the mesh pocket. I ask him if it’s origami paper (my follow up question was going to be where he got it from), he takes his airpods out and is like shiny paper? Then takes off his backpack and pulls out the shiny paper and explains they’re temporary tattoos. They seem like the kind of thing you’d have for music festivals so this is what I start assuming. He mentions the young people are into that sort of thing and I’m like “cause you’re not a young people?” and he pulls something else out of his backpack and reaches for my hand like he’s going to shake it, this thing looks like those metal sculptures that move and change shapes in the wind except it goes down your arm! It went from his to mine, then I returned it the same way. He explained he does improv and these are conversation starters… that worked.
We’re walking the same direction now and he asks if there was anything else I wanted to ask, dude is reading me like a book. And I don’t remember if I said I had a couple questions earlier or not. I don’t even remember if I said I was on the fence even though that’s why I kept going back and forth for a few blocks. I said I was omw back to my office and asked him if he’d be interested in getting coffee sometime. He’s been very friendly this whole time and tactfully mentions he has a girlfriend and wasn’t sure if that was a factor or not but otherwise would be interested in coffee, I don’t actually remember the verbatim but that’s the gist of it and I was like ohhh I don’t want to intrude. That’s cool. He asks me what I do and I mention being a techie in Seattle (knowing some non tech people in Seattle aren’t too happy with the industry here) and he asks what does techie in Seattle mean? So I say I’m in information security down here and he asks if that means physical or logical and then I knew he knows the industry. I mention logical, answer a couple more questions, and then he tells me he’s also a data scientist. Ugh, hot.
Then this middle aged guy and his elderly mother come up to us asking if we live here because they’re lost. They mention Pacific Science and I start explaining how to get to the Pacific Science Center and where the best place to stand is to get an Uber in this intersection and then at the last minute the guy says Pacific Place which is one block over and I’m like oh shit, have them turn around, point to the AMC theater sign, and tell them to go to the sign like they’re going to the movies and that’s Pacific Place. Idk why he said Pacific Science first cause that’s half a mile away and far on foot, I almost sent them in the wrong direction. ._.
The guy made a comment about my knowledge of the area being impressive and I mentioned how I used to live in the area before moving north. I asked how long he’d been in Seattle and he was approaching 4 years, I mentioned coming up on 3. So then I ask about exchanging info and am wondering what’s the best method, he asks how I keep in touch with friends and I’m all social media… text, signal… I mean you’re the data scientist. I ask if it’s too intrusive to exchange numbers and he says no so I hand him my phone and he texts himself “hi Phil!” before he crosses at 7th, and he asks in the cross walk what my name is and I yell it while texting it to him. We walk in parallel across the street until I turn right. Either he was going to the gym at the apartment I used to live in or he was going to another building and we work for the same company. And he texted me a hello back a couple hours later and Idfk what to do with it. My cards were all on the table and meeting outgoing coffee friends in a fairly reserved environment is great but ermahgerd! Thank fuck I wasn’t slummimg it and looked cute af.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.