Some of you have asked if UU Wendy had a hand in helping break my latest involuntary celibacy streak on May 26.

Unfortunately, no.

To review: I met UU Wendy at an introductory class at the Unitarian Universalist church here in Denver. If I had seen her in a crowded club downtown on a Saturday night, I would have said, "Wow, she's hot," to nobody in particular, and then hunched over my vodka tonic while entertaining fantasies of writing my initials in white letters on her tummy. But at church UU Wendy seemed friendly and approachable, and we chatted several times. One Sunday, after church, I asked her to have coffee with me.

"Well..." she frowned and looked at her watch. "Yeah, I guess I have an hour or so."

A less than enthusiastic response. But a win's a win, right? So we spent a pleasant hour sipping caffeinated beverages and comparing the weather in our home states. As we left the coffee shop, I asked for her number.

"Well..." she frowned again. "Uh, yeah, I guess so."

"Are you sure?" I asked, and smiled. This was not a rhetorical question.

"Yeah, yeah, sure," she said, and handed it over. This was cause for bragging on the next day's CNR post.

I waited three days, like a good Swinger, and called Wednesday evening. Answering machine. I called back a couple of hours later, and left a message -- a controversial strategy, I know, but I figured over the course of our several conversations and our half-a-date she had already decided whether she wanted to go out with me or not.

I ran to the phone every time it rang for the next week. But UU Wendy never called. I interpret this to mean that UU Wendy did not want me to call her. So I present this question for discussion: why would a woman give her phone number to a man unless she wanted him to call?

Perhaps I took UU Wendy by surprise. But if you're an attractive woman in your early thirties, and a man goes out of his way to talk to you, and asks you out for coffee, how thick are you not to realize that he's interested, and his next step will be to ask for your phone number?

More likely, UU Wendy is a nice person who couldn't bear to reject me to my face and hurt my feelings. But, ladies, if you don't want to go out with a man, you're going to have to turn him down sooner or later. The indirect rejection of screening my calls and not returning my message only prolonged my agony.

One would think that by UU Wendy's age, she would have mastered the Flimsy Excuse Technique: My number? Gee, I'm sorry. I'm really busy at work these days, and I'm not looking to date anyone. Or whatever. Just hand me some lame reason that allows me to say, "Oh, I understand," and save face. Sure, some men are clods and will press the issue, forcing you to progress to more explicit rejection strategies. But most guys will take the hint.

I'm more annoyed than angry. I'm thirty years old, for chrissake. I've asked enough women for dates to know that I'm not going to spontaneously combust if someone turns me down.

Right now you are wondering, "Well, with whom did Kilgore end his drought, then?" That is a subject for a future post.

+posted by Lawrence @ 6/18/2004 09:25:00 PM