Being Friendly to Strangers
I usually go to the same Thai place for lunch, about once a week. Outside of having really good food, there's a large window in the restaurant from which you can watch the cooks cook your food while you wait. It's a neat operation, with chefs using woks over an open fire. I always watch them cook and I order the same dish so I can tell when it's being prepared.
One of the chefs is stationed closest to the window so I started giving a friendly nod, but he has no way of associating a dish to me. Today, mine was the only dish being cooked and he was the only chef, so he did a quick point to the wok and motioned to me, and I nodded. Then he started smiling and adding more items to the wok. After he prepared it, I gave a thumbs up and waved then went around the corner to pick it up after it was packaged.
This is all cool and I like being friendly and yeah, I see this guy all the time, but I get a little freaked out when I'm nice to men I don't know because talking with someone briefly or making eye contact and smiling seems to invite attention that leads to being asked out on a date. In the past when I've been friendly - not flirty, just friendly - the guy would nine times out of ten eventually ask me out. It's so awkward so I usually just remain aloof. I left the restaurant feeling a bit embarrassed and running the interaction over in my head to see if anything I did could be misinterpreted as flirting. I want to be nice, I want to say hi, but I don't want to head into where he comes out of the kitchen one day and asks my name and asks me out.
At the last restaurant I went to regularly, the waiter knew me and my friend Paulette by name, knew what I ordered and always gave us free food. This is totally cool. We would ask him about his studies and be friendly in a really genuine way. Then he asked me and my friend out (not together, on separate occasions). Both of us felt awkward and embarassed and didn't go back.
One of the chefs is stationed closest to the window so I started giving a friendly nod, but he has no way of associating a dish to me. Today, mine was the only dish being cooked and he was the only chef, so he did a quick point to the wok and motioned to me, and I nodded. Then he started smiling and adding more items to the wok. After he prepared it, I gave a thumbs up and waved then went around the corner to pick it up after it was packaged.
This is all cool and I like being friendly and yeah, I see this guy all the time, but I get a little freaked out when I'm nice to men I don't know because talking with someone briefly or making eye contact and smiling seems to invite attention that leads to being asked out on a date. In the past when I've been friendly - not flirty, just friendly - the guy would nine times out of ten eventually ask me out. It's so awkward so I usually just remain aloof. I left the restaurant feeling a bit embarrassed and running the interaction over in my head to see if anything I did could be misinterpreted as flirting. I want to be nice, I want to say hi, but I don't want to head into where he comes out of the kitchen one day and asks my name and asks me out.
At the last restaurant I went to regularly, the waiter knew me and my friend Paulette by name, knew what I ordered and always gave us free food. This is totally cool. We would ask him about his studies and be friendly in a really genuine way. Then he asked me and my friend out (not together, on separate occasions). Both of us felt awkward and embarassed and didn't go back.