Am I dense or are you a dunce?

Today was the first time I saw Muckraker in 3ish weeks. You will be happy to know I refrained from saying, "WTF is wrong with you? What, they don't have email in Arizona?" As Meg pointed out, this would probably be a bad move, and make him run away very, very, very fast. Which is not the goal. (Well, not yet at least. Time will tell... I may keep this maneuver in mind in case it should become necessary.)

I sat next to him in class today, which wasn't planned, but my friend and I were running late and those were the only seats left in the back. (Ok, ok, I'll be honest. If the room had been full of empty chairs, I probably would have sat next to him too, but this gave me no choice. Thanks universe!) He greeted me with a hug and we made a bit of small talk. At the end of class asked me to grab a cup of coffee with him.

I told him I had to hurry back to the office, so if he wanted to grab a cup of crappy dining service coffee I would do that, but I wouldn't hold him up if he wanted to go to Starbucks (which is only slightly less crappy than dining service coffee). My friend Jan conveniently made herself scarce and told me not to wait for her, she had to run an errand. (no, I didn't ask her to do this. What do you think I am, pathetic? Oh. Wait. Um.... Well, but at least I didn't ASK her to do that!)

I was kind of surprised actually that he asked me to do this one-on-one since his MO seems to do group stuff, so I was rather pleased by the invite.

Over coffee our topics wandered the gamut from "true love" (Because of an article I'd posted on facebook--scientists claim to have found proof of "true love" pathways in the brain. Of course, it turns out that he knows the scientist who did the research since he interviewed him for an article... I have to say, his trait of always knowing everything (in a rather off-hand manner) is both one of the things I like best about him, and one of the most infuriating. It's like, "For once I'd like to tell you something you DON'T know!" But I digress...), to families (and why my sister is dead to me!), and to how people don't always show their true feelings when they like someone...

(Seriously dude, if you just pulled my hair and called me "carrots" I would be much more clear about the whole thing, because this meandering.... I just don't know. Am I dense, or are you a dunce? So if you could just be more obvious? Or tell me to drop dead? Either one of these would be more helpful.)

He also said something that was rather infuriating... Ro has kind of said the same thing to me... but, well, it gives me pause... and makes me remind myself not to put on rose colored glasses.

Some other things he said made me think -- ok, yes, he's hinting he likes me, other times he said stuff that made me thing-- ok, he's hinting I should look elsewhere.


Given how acute and discerning my signal reading skills have been of late (see a few posts below), I put no faith in them.

I cut coffee short (because I really did have to -- ya know -- go do what they pay me to do).

When I got to my office I thought, screw it. After that coffee thing? I'm just going to go for it. I sent him an email asking him to dinner tonight.

He wrote back he didn't think he could because he had plans already, but those plans might be canceled. Later that afternoon he was in touch to say he couldn't do tonight after all, but could he get a rain check?

So, that's where we left things. I'll see him on Wednesday in class, so I guess I might have more to say then! (I also feel like this serial soap format of story telling means that my blog should be sponsored by Mr. Clean or something.)
* * * * * * * * * *

OH! Funny side note, one of my friends (who is in the class) wrote to me afterward saying, "How are things with Muckraker the Adventurer? Has he mustered up his courage to ask you out? HE is a big weirdo!!" (Hee. He really is, actually. I harbor no illusions about this.)

Second side note - I am a die-hard feminist, and I may be betraying the sisterhood in what I am about to say, but I can't help but feel what I feel:

He asked me to get coffee. If he liked me, I would have expected him to offer to pay. He didn't. This leads me to think that either he doesn't like me like that (or doesn't like me enough), or that he does but is too damn cheap to pay for a cup of coffee. This wasn't even a mocha-frappe-venti-peppermint swirl-skim latte or anything either-- just a plain $1 cuppa joe. Either way, not good all-around.

It might be wrong of me to expect that (probably it is), but that's the way I feel about it. I do gauge level of interest in whether or not the guy pays... Anyone have differing views about this?