About That Again # 02

What made you do that?, he asks, trying not to appear too eager or too curious.

I thought, why the hell not?, I reply, and I want to help women feel better about their bodies.

I am tired of having to answer the same question over and over again, from different people, all the time.

Your skin is so smooth, he attempts at flattery now, and you have a nice derrierre.

Thank you, I say politely. That is about all one can say in response to these kinds of compliments.

We are in the National Museum, and I am sitting beside him in John Silva's workshop on Grant Writing today. He is passably attractive, but he appears too desperate for comfort. There is a thick, white band of skin around the base of his ring finger - married and hiding it, I think - and when he sees me looking at his hand, he folds it into a fist and pushes it under the table.

The usual small talk ensues - who are you what do you do is it your first time here? etcetera - and I find that I am bored out of my mind. I want to sit elsewhere (and I eventually do, after we break for coffee, next to the wonderful Dr. Kimberly Pascual, COO of Operation Blessing, a Christian NGO that does medical missions in war-torn or disaster areas like Afghanistan, Iraq, Banda Aceh and Leyte). John (Silva) winks at me, and I pretend to gag. The man, oblivious, still does not get it. I proceed to ignore him for the rest of the afternoon.

After the workshop, he comes up to me and asks if I'd like to "touch base" (NGO language for making connections between causes and advocacies) with him sometime next week.

No, thank you, I curtsy, I'm rather busy this month.

Please do not attempt to pick up smart women using old, stale tactics (especially if you are married, you bastard) because they are hip to your tricks and they will shoot you down in a heartbeat so that you are left with one ball waving the air, and the other withered and limp and very, very sad.

On another note: where are all the decent men? Have they evaporated off the Earth and founded a new colony in another galaxy?