I Did a Thing!
Today after church we had a mingle, so I dutifully went and collected my free food (mmm, donut holes). I was standing around chatting with people I've known for years, when I caught sight of a man I knew, but couldn't remember where I knew him from. As I continued to creepily stare at him, it hit me: THAT'S HOT MARKETING BOY.
Hot Marketing Boy, for those not in the know, is a coworker of my friend Emily. He works in Marketing and is, apparently, hot--hence the name. I've met him twice before. We randomly ran into him in the supermarket once, and then nearly two years ago I hosted a murder mystery dinner Emily invited him to (and that is a story that should be told. I thought for sure I'd written it down, but after 20 minutes of reading through 2017's entries, apparently I didn't). He's since had some health problems, so has been in and out of work for the last two years, so every couple of months I ask Emily if he's dead yet.
Oh, and remember NaNoWriMo from two years ago, when we wrote each other's love stories? ...Okay, maybe I should back up.
Scene: Summer 2017. July. Emily and I are throwing a murder mystery dinner, and as is often the case, we've run out of boys to ask to join us (WHAT EVEN ARE BOYS). Getting desperate, Emily suggested she could maybe invite her coworker, Hot Marketing Boy. Worth a shot, I said, so she did. He took his sweet time getting back to us, so she texted me in a bit of a panic, trying to figure out who to invite if he turned us down. Then in middle of our conversation, she messaged me to say Brad was in. "Who's Brad?" I asked, and the next message I got was this:
"AMY. I ANSWERED YOUR QUESTION BUT WAS IN SUCH A HURRY THAT I DIDN'T NOTICE THAT I'D SENT IT TO THE WRONG PERSON. AMY. I JUST SENT BRAD THE TEXT 'HOT MARKETING BOY.' MUST GO INTO HIDING AND NEVER RETURN."
I, great friend that I am, laughed so hard I cried and proceeded to tell everyone I knew about it. By that point we'd already been casually discussing writing each other's love stories for NaNoWriMo, so I knew I had to write Emily's story and that it was going to be based entirely off that text. Which is to say I wrote a love story about my friend, for my friend, involving her with another real live human being.
Which brings us back to today, when I saw Hot Marketing Boy at church. It took a minute for me to remember his real name, at which point I approached him, reminded him of our acquaintaince, and then proceeded to make small talk for several minutes. I know more about him than he knows I do because 1) Emily has told me a fair bit and 2) I WROTE A STORY ABOUT HIM and had to do some clandestine facebook stalking, so it was difficult to not just say "Oh ya I know that about you already." Do you know how hard it is to talk to someone you don't really know when all you can think is you once wrote a romance he was the hero of? DO YOU? I was hardpressed not to laugh or confess to being a creeper.
Aaaaanyway, I chatted with him and his friends for a few minutes, and kept trying to gracefully extricate myself from the conversation, but every time I opened my mouth Hot Marketing Boy was in the middle of asking me another question and I couldn't not answer so I spent way more time in their corner of the room than I'd anticipated. Finally, Hot Marketing Boy announced his need to leave, but steered me toward the 3rd person in the group and indicated we should chat since we're actually in the same ward together (Hot Marketing Boy was just visiting).
I couldn't just leave, because that would be rude, so I let the new guy chat with me. I'm pretty terrible at meeting new people because I quickly run out of things to say. I know what I like to talk about, and I'm not comfortable bringing up my geeky ways in the first conversation, so I usually say the standard "who are you/what do you do/where are you from" and then run like the wind, Bullseye. But he kept talking, and in a small talk twist asked what my secret talent was. Again, not willing to fess up to anything honest, I gave a lame answer and turned the question back on him. He confessed that when he was 12 or so he'd ended up playing in the Nintendo World Championship (....I think.......? The more I say it, the less it makes sense. It took place in Florida, and I'm fairly certain anything "nintendo" and "world championship" would take place in Japan, but maybe I don't know what I'm talking about...? ANYWAY), so I asked if he considered himself a geek. Not hesitating, he said yes, so I grinned in delight, because NOW we had something to talk about.
And talk we did. In our 20 minute conversation we covered Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, Wheel of Time, Brandon Sanderson, favorite characters (he didn't have a WoT favorite character, which might be a serious personality flaw (or mabe a gender flaw? I'm discovering boys don't have favorite characters the way girls do), but he promised to think on it and get back to me), Marvel movies, and DC superheroes. I know he prefers Next Gen while I prefer Voyager, we both like Chris Pine as Kirk, and we're iffy on Deep Space 9. The OT are his favorite movies, and Empire Strikes Back is his absolute favorite. He knows I perfer the prequels and love Anakin. He's also watched the cartoons, and has read many much Star Wars books where I've read only one. We didn't get too into the Sequels, but neither of us professed an undying love for them. He likes the first several WoT books, is iffy on the middle ones, and loves the ones Sanderson finished. He's way into Stormlight Archive, which I won't touch with a ten foot pole until they're finished because 1) Brandon Sanderson doesn't write sequels, he just writes new firsts for new series and 2) Robert Jordan died on me; I'm not comitting to another epic fantasy until it's done or mostly done lest my author once again end up 6 feet under before the series is completed.
Oh! And Farscape! We talked Farscape! I don't think I've ever met another person in real life who likes Farscape!
It was the most delightful first conversation I've had in YEARS. See, I'm perfectly capable of talking if I have something to talk about, and finding common ground is super helpful!
At that point he had to leave to do his calling, so I wandered over to Sabina (who is in my ward, btw) and chatted with her and the small group of people she was with. The one guy lives in an old pioneer house which gave him vaguely wizarding vibes, so, since he's a story teller, he delved into the idea of what would have happened if the wizards and the Mormon pioneers met up and has decorated his house accordingly. (Yes, I have great conversations.) Then another guy showed up who apparently studied genetics in college, so the group launched into a discussion of epi-genetics, which I'm only about 10% sure I understood.
In addition to all this, I ran into an old friend and caught up with him and his sister, sat with the new girl I'm working on befriending (SO MUCH HARDER because we have absolutely nothing in common besides being in the same ward, but we're working on it) and talking Doctor Who with the girl who introduced me to it, because she is apparently in my ward now (I told her the harrowing tale of the year Matthew gave me weeping angels for Christmas, because I knew she would appreciate it).
All told, I spoke with over 10 people today, which has got to be some kind of record for me.
And since it was such a successful socializing event, naturally we have General Conference next week, which means I've got 2 weeks to once again forget how to speak to people, so there is a very strong likelihood this will all be a giant social fluke.
But it was a great social fluke. I went home and immediately had to call Eliza and Momma to share with them my socializing success, because yes, I report things to my family like I'm six and excited about what I did at school today, and I need this moment immortalized in case it doesn't happen again for another ten years.
Hot Marketing Boy, for those not in the know, is a coworker of my friend Emily. He works in Marketing and is, apparently, hot--hence the name. I've met him twice before. We randomly ran into him in the supermarket once, and then nearly two years ago I hosted a murder mystery dinner Emily invited him to (and that is a story that should be told. I thought for sure I'd written it down, but after 20 minutes of reading through 2017's entries, apparently I didn't). He's since had some health problems, so has been in and out of work for the last two years, so every couple of months I ask Emily if he's dead yet.
Oh, and remember NaNoWriMo from two years ago, when we wrote each other's love stories? ...Okay, maybe I should back up.
Scene: Summer 2017. July. Emily and I are throwing a murder mystery dinner, and as is often the case, we've run out of boys to ask to join us (WHAT EVEN ARE BOYS). Getting desperate, Emily suggested she could maybe invite her coworker, Hot Marketing Boy. Worth a shot, I said, so she did. He took his sweet time getting back to us, so she texted me in a bit of a panic, trying to figure out who to invite if he turned us down. Then in middle of our conversation, she messaged me to say Brad was in. "Who's Brad?" I asked, and the next message I got was this:
"AMY. I ANSWERED YOUR QUESTION BUT WAS IN SUCH A HURRY THAT I DIDN'T NOTICE THAT I'D SENT IT TO THE WRONG PERSON. AMY. I JUST SENT BRAD THE TEXT 'HOT MARKETING BOY.' MUST GO INTO HIDING AND NEVER RETURN."
I, great friend that I am, laughed so hard I cried and proceeded to tell everyone I knew about it. By that point we'd already been casually discussing writing each other's love stories for NaNoWriMo, so I knew I had to write Emily's story and that it was going to be based entirely off that text. Which is to say I wrote a love story about my friend, for my friend, involving her with another real live human being.
Which brings us back to today, when I saw Hot Marketing Boy at church. It took a minute for me to remember his real name, at which point I approached him, reminded him of our acquaintaince, and then proceeded to make small talk for several minutes. I know more about him than he knows I do because 1) Emily has told me a fair bit and 2) I WROTE A STORY ABOUT HIM and had to do some clandestine facebook stalking, so it was difficult to not just say "Oh ya I know that about you already." Do you know how hard it is to talk to someone you don't really know when all you can think is you once wrote a romance he was the hero of? DO YOU? I was hardpressed not to laugh or confess to being a creeper.
Aaaaanyway, I chatted with him and his friends for a few minutes, and kept trying to gracefully extricate myself from the conversation, but every time I opened my mouth Hot Marketing Boy was in the middle of asking me another question and I couldn't not answer so I spent way more time in their corner of the room than I'd anticipated. Finally, Hot Marketing Boy announced his need to leave, but steered me toward the 3rd person in the group and indicated we should chat since we're actually in the same ward together (Hot Marketing Boy was just visiting).
I couldn't just leave, because that would be rude, so I let the new guy chat with me. I'm pretty terrible at meeting new people because I quickly run out of things to say. I know what I like to talk about, and I'm not comfortable bringing up my geeky ways in the first conversation, so I usually say the standard "who are you/what do you do/where are you from" and then run like the wind, Bullseye. But he kept talking, and in a small talk twist asked what my secret talent was. Again, not willing to fess up to anything honest, I gave a lame answer and turned the question back on him. He confessed that when he was 12 or so he'd ended up playing in the Nintendo World Championship (....I think.......? The more I say it, the less it makes sense. It took place in Florida, and I'm fairly certain anything "nintendo" and "world championship" would take place in Japan, but maybe I don't know what I'm talking about...? ANYWAY), so I asked if he considered himself a geek. Not hesitating, he said yes, so I grinned in delight, because NOW we had something to talk about.
And talk we did. In our 20 minute conversation we covered Star Trek, Star Wars, Firefly, Wheel of Time, Brandon Sanderson, favorite characters (he didn't have a WoT favorite character, which might be a serious personality flaw (or mabe a gender flaw? I'm discovering boys don't have favorite characters the way girls do), but he promised to think on it and get back to me), Marvel movies, and DC superheroes. I know he prefers Next Gen while I prefer Voyager, we both like Chris Pine as Kirk, and we're iffy on Deep Space 9. The OT are his favorite movies, and Empire Strikes Back is his absolute favorite. He knows I perfer the prequels and love Anakin. He's also watched the cartoons, and has read many much Star Wars books where I've read only one. We didn't get too into the Sequels, but neither of us professed an undying love for them. He likes the first several WoT books, is iffy on the middle ones, and loves the ones Sanderson finished. He's way into Stormlight Archive, which I won't touch with a ten foot pole until they're finished because 1) Brandon Sanderson doesn't write sequels, he just writes new firsts for new series and 2) Robert Jordan died on me; I'm not comitting to another epic fantasy until it's done or mostly done lest my author once again end up 6 feet under before the series is completed.
Oh! And Farscape! We talked Farscape! I don't think I've ever met another person in real life who likes Farscape!
It was the most delightful first conversation I've had in YEARS. See, I'm perfectly capable of talking if I have something to talk about, and finding common ground is super helpful!
At that point he had to leave to do his calling, so I wandered over to Sabina (who is in my ward, btw) and chatted with her and the small group of people she was with. The one guy lives in an old pioneer house which gave him vaguely wizarding vibes, so, since he's a story teller, he delved into the idea of what would have happened if the wizards and the Mormon pioneers met up and has decorated his house accordingly. (Yes, I have great conversations.) Then another guy showed up who apparently studied genetics in college, so the group launched into a discussion of epi-genetics, which I'm only about 10% sure I understood.
In addition to all this, I ran into an old friend and caught up with him and his sister, sat with the new girl I'm working on befriending (SO MUCH HARDER because we have absolutely nothing in common besides being in the same ward, but we're working on it) and talking Doctor Who with the girl who introduced me to it, because she is apparently in my ward now (I told her the harrowing tale of the year Matthew gave me weeping angels for Christmas, because I knew she would appreciate it).
All told, I spoke with over 10 people today, which has got to be some kind of record for me.
And since it was such a successful socializing event, naturally we have General Conference next week, which means I've got 2 weeks to once again forget how to speak to people, so there is a very strong likelihood this will all be a giant social fluke.
But it was a great social fluke. I went home and immediately had to call Eliza and Momma to share with them my socializing success, because yes, I report things to my family like I'm six and excited about what I did at school today, and I need this moment immortalized in case it doesn't happen again for another ten years.