A few days ago, I was driving down the highway when I suddenly became painfully aware of the fact that my car was running a bit low on petrol. However, as this is America, there are gas stations everywhere. So Thea pulled into the closets BP station and inserted the magic wand into her car before heading inside to talk to the nice little man who stands behind the counter and gets paid to take people’s money.

As I was exiting the gas station, a mildly-stunning black dude appeared from somewhere and held the door for me. Charming. I was touched. Well, I was almost touched. But I WAS appropriately grateful for his gesture of gentlemanliness, and I told him so. That apparently is not normal.

He looked at me hard, and then got a really big grin. “Are you single?”

I thought I heard him wrong. I thought he’d asked if I was ill, but I wasn’t sure, so I asked him to please repeat.

And then I wished I hadn’t.

What is up with this?! I can only speculate that the hands of Cupid’s clock have finally landed on that magical month in which it is suddenly appropriate for college girls to be randomly propositioned by unknown strangers in fast food joints and gas station parking lots.

I laughed, told him I was, and that he should have a wonderful night, and then I hopped in my trusty car and drove away. And as I drove, I thought of all the things that I could have and perhaps should have said:

“Are you single?”

“Well, yeah, because…oh, well I might as well just tell you. You remember Mike Tyson, the boxer? Yeah. That ear biting thing? He kinda…got that from me. Bad habit. Just haven’t been able to kick it. Most guys just…don’t understand that. So yeah, I’m still single.” (followed by a puzzled shrug)

Or I could have given him the clueless stupid stare look for a torturously long moment…and then said, “um, duh!” before turning and getting in my car.

Or I could have chuckled, shook my head a little bit, and assured him that if he would just brush his teeth a little more often, he wouldn’t have to resort to such desperate measures for finding a date.

But I didn’t do any of those things, because deep down, I labor under the delusion that social interactions ought to be governed by some undefined standard of normalcy, simply for the sake of not causing needless psychological damage to unsuspecting strangers...