day 21: excuse me, sir, do you have a significant other or love interest?

mission:

• gift someone flowers to gift to their lover.  aaaaaaoowwww.

i’ve been toying with doing something with flowers for a minute, but i already gave away that i was thinking about doing the checkout clerk idea.  so, yeah.

riding the bart train home i have an epiphany (ok it was actually a really basic idea but i’m slow):  i am going to get flowers to give to a stranger!  yes!  first i think i’ll give em to a dude to change it up.  but then some lame dude might feel super emasculated and just plain not be feeling it.  and that would suck and make me annoyed :D  didn’t wanna give them to a woman (sorry fellow womenfolk – too predictable).  i decided i would give the flowers to someone to give to someone else.

i figured it was the perfect opportunity to get someone to sort of “pay it forward” – essentially setting them up for their own act.  what?!  two birds with one stone?!!!?!?!!

i’m actually a genius, fyi.

i decide i am going to approach various men and ask them if they are involved with someone.  wow, that was an easy way to put it – yesterday, though, i was experiencing major brain wrackage trying to figure out what to say.  outlined is seher’s internal dialogue:

what to say, hrrrmmmmmm…

“do you have a wife?”

nah, but then people have girlfriends.

“do you have a girlfriend or wife?”

man, but what about the in between ish? ok…

“do you have a girlfriend, wife, or crush?”

what the hell kind of question is that, seher?  what if someone has moved past the crush stage and actually not gotten rejected?  i guess that’s called dating.

“do you have a girlfriend, wife, or lover?”

mmmm.  maybe a little too forwardly worded.  uhhh, ok – please note you are being a heterosexist right now, seher.  hmmm…yet another wording challenge…

“do you have a significant other or love interest?”

that sounds so stale, generic, and boring.  bah.  but i guess that’s the point.  well, not the point.   but, generic and gender neutral.

i get off the bart at 24th mission and realize i don’t even have to go to safeway for flowers!  there is usually a lady sellin em right at the corner.  score.  and indeed, as i swoop around near the bus stop – i see my lady.  i grab a bunch of sunflowers for $5 :)

now came the fun part!  i got to catch various men off-guard with a seeming pick-up line…and then, with some super steezed out bait-and-switch action, give em flowers for their lover!!!  wooooooo.  amping up for social awkwardness in t-minus 5, 4, 3…

ok.  it wasn’t really that serious.  but, maybe in my active imagination, it was.  if i was in the right mood, i woulda milked that ish and approached several dudes.  but alas, i wussed out.  still, i didn’t want to make it too easy.  i’m at 24th and mission and i’m eyeing the fellas around me, thinking on what grounds i’ll discriminate today to pick my subject.  kindness profiling.  word life.  times is rough.

i decide against questioning folks at the bart station as i see the 49 bus pull up.  i figure i can multitask, continue home and inquire captive bus people :D  hahahah, they’ll have nowhere to run from my randomness!!

i look around and all i see is women in the front.  i see a young man maybe a bit older than me towards the middle.  not sure if he speaks english well (a lot of folks on the buses in the mission don’t, from what i know), but thought to give it a chance anyway.  i’m coming right at him and i can see him ‘what-the-effing’ inside.  one of those holding poles are right at his seat.  as the bus starts moving, i saunter over, grab the pole and swing to a halt right in front of him.  ok, maybe not exaaaactly that…but something like that.  shoot, maybe i did do that.  my memory just consistently fails me.  ju donno me!

“hey, sir.” i smile

“do you have a significant other or love interest?” i ask

it’s such a formally worded and pointed question, it is sort of even an odd way to hit on someone.  dude is taken a back, but manages to spit out a fumbled, “err, no.”

i immediately divert my attention away from him (he’s probably severely perplexed) at the smiling man two seats away from him.  probably thinking to himself something to the effect of, “ohhhh, these young single ones.  never know what they’ll do for a little lovin!”  i smile at him and ask him if he’s single / does he have anybody?  he laughs lightly and he says he does.  i ask him what the exact relation is.  he says he has a wife.  in response, i hand him a bouquet of sunflowers and tell him, “these are for you to give to your wife.”  he already saw me carrying the flowers and whispering sweet oddities to dude next to him, so i don’t think he was tooo surprised at my gesture.  nonetheless, he smiled :)

i handed him a minicard and told him i was doing 30 random acts of kindness in 30 days.  said there was a website where i recorded my experiences.  he asked me if he should go on there and leave a comment.  i told him he didn’t have to do that but could visit the site if he wanted to.  again, interesting how people assume that i am seeking something in return.  still, was nice of him to offer :)

i make my way to the front of the bus at this point.  a woman my age is grinning and darts a couple glances towards me.  i sit down.  “hey, did you just give that guy flowers?” she asks.  “yep,” i told her, handing her a minicard – “i’m doing 30 random acts of kindness in 30 days.”  she looks down, reading the card, nods her head and gives a big smile – “i love this kind of stuff!”

too shy to look around and catch the reactions of any other bystanders, i smile quietly to myself the rest of the way home.