The Light, the Heat

A while ago, my friends were trying to teach me how to make eye contact with people I don’t know, like at bars and parties and stuff. (IT TAKES A VILLAGE, PEOPLE).

They said:

  1. Look around.
  2. If you catch someone’s eye—someone you think is attractive—hold his gaze.

I said, “How long? Like one-Mississippi?”

They said a few Mississippis.

I said, “Then what?”

They launched into some complicated instructions about looking down, or away, for a few seconds and looking back.

With a half-smile. I forgot about the half-smile—the half-smile’s important, they said.

If he’s still looking when you look back, it’s a good sign.

I tried, but I kept forgetting to do step 1.

Occasionally, I’d stumble into step 2, and

Formal Sweatpants-eye contact
(I’m the coffee-thrower in this scenario, of course.)

I asked my friends how to do the whole eye contact thing, if I can’t fucking do the eye contact thing.

“Alcohol,” they all said. Blech.

That’s the problem with being a compulsive overeater. My drug doesn’t make me want to take off my pants and rub up on somebody.

My drug makes me want to take off my pants and watch Orange Is the New Black on the couch with the dogs.

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