In the last two years in this program, I've earned a reputation as the consummate flirt. A title I wear like a badge of honor. I love to flirt. I do it all the time. I'll flirt with anyone - with anything. I'll flirt with a guy's dog, if it'll get me attention. But the trick is, I need a squad to really flirt well. I need to play off of a group. On my own, I'm awkward and self-conscious. In a group, I'm chatty and clever and brassy and charming.
I'm here this time, and most of my friends are gone. Nearly all of them graduated last winter... leaving me here, alone...
This would be bad enough... but today I discovered that my hotel is hosting a seminar for single women on "How to make a man love you" or something equally absurd. Tonight, my hotel bar is going to be percolating with spurned 30-somethings... and I don't have a squad to help me flirt with them. I've seen so many in the halls of this hotel already... each of them stalking around like panthers, their footfalls padding to the endless rattle of their biological clock. I'm in heaven - but I'm alone... so I'm in hell.
Oh how I wish my friends were here.
The flight was good. I sat next to a cartoonishly obese woman who breathed through her mouth through the entire flight, and who grasped my forearm whenever there was turbulence. Her name was Loretta. We spoke for a while. Nice older black lady.
I managed to flirt with her no problem.
We'll see what the night has in store. I'm off to pick up Laura.
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