This weekend I atended a picnic organized by members of Couchsurfing, a beautiful young lady showed up accompanied by a young man. The man left shortly after, and one of the attendants did the same thing as in the last picnic: he blabber-mouthed her during hours on end. She was gracious about it for the first two hours, but I noticed—like last time—she latched unto me as soon as I asked her a question ("you have very good posture, do you do yoga or pilates?—Actually my mom drilled it me from a very young age").
She was a Lithuanian-Swede blonde with model-like looks, very charismatic and friendly. I was amused by my own reaction to her, I was very attentive and courteous and kept engaged in conversation, whereas usually I often allow conversations to die out if they bore me. After it got late we went to a bar, and the guy who accompanied her caught up with us there.
The annoying guy kept hovering about and participating in little bits of conversation (not listening, just chiming in with long monologues to which we wouldn't engage), and I told her it was amazing some people just don't get the basics of conversation, you're supposed to listen too. She said that social skills was something that she practiced deliberately because she was a shy child (and still is shy), and that she was writing a book about it.
"Oh really, I'd love to read it. I'm also constantly practicing my social skills because I feel they're not good, although some people make me feel like a social genius", I said, looking at the annoying guy. "Oh I'm still working on it, but I can show you a preview" she said. She opened a long ChatGPT conversation where she concluded it by asking to summarize everything they had talked about, and a nice summary came out. I was a little bit disappointed her idea of "writing a book" was prompting ChatGPT, but her stunning looks helped me put the disappointment aside.
Later on the guy she arrived with came to the bar and joined us in conversation. I asked how they knew each other, they said they didn't, I asked "Oh so you arrived together by coincidence?" yes, they said. Then they joked that they actually knew each other for years. I was friendly with the guy and asked him why he had arrived and then come back, it turned out it was the birthday party of one of his improv classmates and he wanted to attend. The three of us chatted a while before I decided I was tired and excused myself to go back home. She was a little bit taken aback, "oh are you really leaving?" she said, and that gave me second thoughts about it, if I had to articulate it honestly I would have said "Oh I didn't know you appreciated my presence, if I knew I would have stayed longer", but I thought there was no graceful way to recover from an already stated farewell and left, kinda reproaching myself on the way for the early bailout.
The next day (yesterday) I went with V. to a theater play. It was a monologue about an Argentinian writer who is in hotel in New York, writing a long letter to his wife about their relationship and how it related to his research into William Faulkner's affair and the letters they wrote to each other. The writer lamented the fact that—once the novelty of love wears off, everything becomes tedium. "Even with Faulker's imagination they can't keep the flame of love burning forever" the writer laments. The writer very much loves his wife but hates their routine.
As I biked back home a tall beautiful blonde caught my eye, I looked closer, it was Sandia, she was with a guy... the same with whom she had arrived the day before. She recognized me on the bike saying "oh what a surprise, Mark is here!", I got off the bike and said hello. They were coming out from a bachata dancing lesson. "Who is the dancer?" I asked, it was him. "Oh you have lots of interesting hobbies, improv and dancing, what else?" he brushed it off but added he sang and played the guitar. She said something along the lines of "Oh he used to serenade me when we both lived in Greece" and I was surprised "Oh I thought you had met yesterday"—Oh no we've been friends for years... I was supremely glad that I had not been cold towards the guy, if I had framed our conversation as a competition for her attention I would have been as annoying as the blabbering dude. Our 15min conversation on the street was all smiles and very good energy, I said farewell and made my way back home.
Later in the night Sandia texted me: would you like to attend an Internations event on Wednesday? We can practice our social skills. In the back of my mind I thought: "I won't even need social skills if I'm her company", then I tried to recall if I've ever been in a similar situation... the answer was no, I have not had a beautiful woman act like a social wingman to me. "Sure! Let's go" I answered. It shall be interesting.