You Are Your Own Cockblocker, My Friend

The last night of AWP, I was hanging out with Rob. He's the managing editor of a publication also, and he likes to make his own crafted books. During one of our conversations, I told him that I love Boston, the city where he lives, because that is where my favorite restaurant is located. I also told him that my favorite animal is the elephant and I have a mini elephant walk in my kitchen. He leaned back and carefully looked at me, a look that I have come to recognize as a "wow, you're kind of nuts" look. My sister gives me this look whenever I expound on my huge crush on Al Franken. He's goofy, smart and funny. Whenever someone gets me to laugh I get an automatic mini-crush.

"You collect elephants?" Rob said. "That's cute, because I do too."

All my life, I have never met a man who was interested in the things I was interested in also. I kind of imagined what life would be like if I had married someone just like me. I pictured afternoons filled with crafting things out of paper and string and traveling on expeditions where we brought home intricately carved wooden elephants. I guess it's never happened because they say "opposites attract" not "people living parallel lives attract."

Because of my insomnia, I was afraid to go to sleep and not wake up for my flight, so my brilliant idea was to stay up all night. This is something I pretty much do on a regular basis. Toward the end of the night, there was another girl there who kept asking me if I needed to go pack. I kept saying no, and in my delirious sleep-deprived condition, it didn't occur to me that she wanted to be alone with Rob.

At one point, Rob left to go to the men's room, and this girl leaned over to me and said, "Plue, do you know what a cockblocker is?"

I was extremely sleep-deprived at this point, so I couldn't hear very well, plus I wasn't really registering what she was saying. All I kept repeating was:

"What? What did you say?"

Then Rob returned, and half an hour later, I thought to myself, "Ohhhhh...cock...blocker..."

Yes, I know - totally delayed reaction...totally plue.

That was a really aggressive thing to say and it embarrassed me. I was embarrassed for the girl because I think she's strange, and embarrassed for me because I didn't even GET IT. And now she probably thinks I'm dense - which I am, so I guess she's right.

I thought back to when I was dating, and if I liked a guy, I would just turn to him, put a hand on his arm and say, "Hey, let's go take a walk." And by walk, I mean, "Let's go make out around the corner."

"That's because you're cute," Peter said, "For some girls, everything has to be aligned and just so, or it won't happen. Like, maybe if she was the ONLY girl around, and this guy FELT like he might be even a LITTLE horny, she might be able to get some."