Beauty and the Ball-less

I'm not the ballsiest person in the world. In fact, I'm pretty much the complete opposite of ballsy. I think I've asked a girl for her phone number twice in my whole entire life... and I can't really remember the first one. Maybe it was too traumatic or something.

If girls come to my house, I'm more confident. I have a reason to walk up to them and introduce myself. I can say, "Hey, I'm Calvin. I'm one of the guys who lives here. Are you in our ward? Who are you here with?" or something of that nature. I never walk up to girls in ANY other situation and introduce myself like that. Never. I don't dare. I honestly fear rejection that much. The only thing I fear more is confrontation... of the feminine kind.

So all of the roommates went to see Zombieland on Monday night. We'd been talking about seeing it for a while, and finally decided to skip FHE and go see it as a big group of manly men. We got to the theatre about 45 minutes early because Jake was sure he knew when it started, but he was way off. They were cleaning the theatre when we got there, but we were able to get in and get our seats about 35 minutes before the movie started.

After sitting there for about 5 minutes, I decided I was going to get a really gay-sounding and gay-looking Movie Meal. You know... those kids sized boxes with a two-swallow drink, a handful of popcorn and a bite-sized Airhead for $5? Well, as I'm walking out of the theatre I pass a group of girls who are on their way in to see Zombieland. They're all pretty cute, but I notice one girl with dark hair (Brunette) who appears to really be checking me out. To be honest, her friends might have been cuter, but I didn't notice any of them because it was THIS girl who appeared to be interested. After I passed her, I decided to do one last over-the-shoulder glance just to check out her butt as best I could in a dimly lit theatre. Instead of checking out her butt, I totally catch her looking over her shoulder at me. Busted.

While I'm out in the lobby buying my cozy little personal snack, I start to get nervous. I realize I'm going to be walking back into the theatre and will probably see Brunette again. Will I pretend I'm not looking for her? Should I obviously look for her and then smile when I finally see her... assuming she's also looking for me? I don't know. But what I DID know is that I suddenly didn't want my Movie Meal anymore.

When I got into the theatre I noticed that Brunette was sitting with her friends two rows in front of my roommates. She and I make eye contact again and then she looks at her friends. As I approach my roommates, I notice them all looking down at the girls and then back up at me. As I sit down and rest my morsels of deliciousness on my lap, I hear the girls busting up laughing and trying to sneakily peek over their shoulders at us. My ego deflates slightly as I realized Brunette was probably more interested in Lance or Aaron or Nick or something. Then Jake leaned over and whispered "While you were gone, that brunette was telling her roommates how sexy you were."

Brunette had no idea that she was sitting in front of my friends. She must have thought I was there with a date or another group of friends sitting elsewhere in the theatre. I wish I could tell you that I was excited. I'm sure there WAS excitement mixed in there somewhere in the middle of my dominant emotion... which was petrifiedness.

The whole movie, Brunette kept turning around to look at me. Without fail, as soon as she looked back at the screen, either Jake on my left or Lance on my right would tell me that I absolutely must get her phone number after the movie. I wasn't really able to pay much attention to the movie. It really kind of blew cause it looked like everyone else was enjoying it.

After the movie ended and credits started to roll, the pressure started to build. All of my roommates were telling me to just go down and talk to her. I was stalling on purpose, but I sincerely wanted to experiment a little bit outside my comfort zone.

Just then, all of the girls stood up and started to walk out. Jake pretty much yanked me out of my chair. I shook him off and said something like, "I need to do this on my own guys. " I took three deep breaths as I watched them round the corner and start walking down that ramp toward the theatre exit.

I walked quickly behind them, but as I got closer I realized how embarrassing it was going to be to initiate a conversation with Brunette while all of her friends were standing there listening. I wasn't able to catch them until we were out in the hall across from the restrooms. I cleared my throat when I was about 8 feet or so behind them. One of the blond girls turned around and saw me. I smiled. She tapped Brunette on the shoulder who then turned and saw me smiling. Then, just like in the movies, the other girls kept walking while Brunette stopped to wait for me. It was like poetry. This is what I said, as closely as I can remember, "I've never done this before and I'm sure that sounds lame, but my friends could tell I was checking you out and it appeared to them that maybe you were looking at me as well. Well, really I decided that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I let you walk out of here without me talking to you and maybe getting your phone number or something so we can hang out or go on a date sometime." Brunette smiled and said, "Of course." She reached into her bag and got a pen and wrote her number on her movie stub. I said, "Thank you so much. This is awesome. Sorry it took me so long." I started to turn but then she said, "Who are you going to ask for?" I said, "What?" Then she said again, "When you call that number, who are you going to ask for?" I realized that I hadn't even asked her name or told her my own. "I'm so sorry. I'm Calvin." I stuck out my hand like a freakin' missionary. "I'm Marie. Talk to you soon." Then she turned and walked away.

I heard someone say, "Nice!". I turned around and saw all of my roommates standing just outside the theatre door like a bunch of idiots. But I got her number.

Calvin