The Turning Point: I Met Bus Guy!

So the GREAT news is that I met Bus Guy this week, officially. It was on Monday and my brain was having a hard time getting going thanks to a completely overbooked weekend. I’m standing at the stop, where it seems a lot of people are milling around, and notice Bus Guy walking over.

My initial thought is "shit". I’m not really in the mood to put myself out there, I haven’t even had coffee yet, but I’ve been trying to run into him for weeks and I can’t squander my opportunity.

I dawdle, though, and when a set of buses rolls up I’m thinking I’m going to miss my chance entirely. But then I get a break. Bus Guy ends up on my bus! He’s a few people behind me but instead of staying towards the front of the bus like he normally does he walks all the way to the back and sits kitty-korner from me. I seize my second chance moment and introduce myself. He smiles, we shake hands, and he introduces himself back. I was right about his name.

We didn’t do a tremendous amount of chatting, but that’s fine with me. Now that we’ve met I will be able to walk up to him and say things like, "Hey, what’s going on?", and then conversation will ensue, followed by a phone number exchange, dinner, etc. Or so I thought.

Here comes the BAD news. First, I was a little off on "our" bus time. Turns out it’s about 5-7 minutes after I thought it was, which could account for why I kept missing him. The time he’s actually there is a time which causes me to be late to my standing morning meeting and involves up to 30 or so other people standing around waiting and then cramming themselves onto the first bus that arrives. It’s the kind of bus scene I normally avoid.

Second, we don’t stand in the same area of the bus stop. One of us has to walk over to where the other one is to chat. It’s hard to walk over to someone without making eye contact, and that brings me to today’s issue.

We didn’t make eye contact. Catching someone’s glance can be tricky, at least without making it look like you’re staring them down trying to make eye contact (which I obviously try to avoid). This morning we probably wasted 5 whole minutes of potential getting to know each other time while he read a stupid paper and I drank coffee and tried to catch his glance. And then we didn’t even get on the same bus!

I’m a little disappointed, but I’m not going to abandon ship. I will endure the obnoxiousness of "our" bus time until we have a positive interaction. Besides, if I was right about his name I’m probably right about everything else :-)