Playa Play ON!!!

Sooo....recently I almost began dating...and by almost, I mean...just that. It's that classic story of the popular guy who only goes after the nerdy girl BECAUSE...he wants everyone to want him.


Case in point, I met Mr. Playa on the job, and I had no illusions or even delusions of wanting to date him. He didn't catch my fancy as being especially cute or anything, and I didn't think I caught his either, so we were cool. Our interaction was normal...he was a horn dog who made vastly inappropriate remarks at every turn of events, and I put him back into his place every time with a well aimed "No".

Like I said the interaction was cool.

That is until I made myself irresistible...accidentally. It basically came out during a conversation over lunch one day, that I was a virgin by pretty much every meaning of the word. No kissing, boyfriend, cuddling, sex and so on. He was intrigued. Moreover the fact that I didn't look anxious to change my status or even snatch myself a husband sent Mr. Playa into overdrive.

I literally watched as the wheels in his head began turning as he focused all of his energy on me. I could say that I felt any sort of way about this....but I did NOT. I mean I was a little apprehensive, a little excited and a little annoyed, but mostly I was bored. I knew before he did, his game plan, and I experienced the same feeling Bill Belichek must have felt during SpyGate...completely over prepared for the task at hand...and therefore like I said, bored.

I mean I had been the target before of guys and their boring games of presumed "cat and mouse". Not a ton, mind you, but enough to know that games like these were indeed boring, especially if I was uninterested in being caught. The guy would leave all sorts of moldy, overused cheese in a mouse trap...and I'd look at him like he was crazy to think I wanted any of it, or him.

And thus it began, so I thought, another game where I tried to let the guy down easily over my uninterest in whatever cheese he'd been using to catch his prey.

To Mr. Playa's credit, though, he actually set down cheese that I actually wanted. It threw me for a loop, but I accepted that maybe he was actually more than I had first suspected. He asked me actual questions and then waited patiently for me to answer them. He was affectionate... and I am a touchy-feely type of person. And then he expressed an affinity for my natural hair...I believed I had hit the jackpot...until I found out that the pot was full of fool's gold.

I mean, how is it, I thought, that a guy could be all over me...not in a lecherous or salacious sort of way, OK... sort of, but not really. Well...more in a "I'm giving you ALL of my undivided attention" sort of way, and then as soon as we're not in the same room as each other, it was as if I didn't exist???

At a meal at my home, where my girl friends were present Mr. Playa was so attentive to me that my friends thought our interaction "cute" and thought we made an adorable couple. Even after he expressed interest in one of my friends. I'd say it hurt, but it didn't. Can't explain why, but it didn't. I'm not sure if he was sincere or if he was trying to make me jealous, but in either case, I took it as a joke, and paid no heed.

Then came the ticker. I had an event that I wanted to go to, and seeing as I really got along with Mr. Playa, and we had great chemistry, I really wanted to go with him. So I asked him, last minute, but hey...I did ask. He said he'd call me back with an answer at a certain time, and then he called me later than that appointed time....or did he? Actually I believe I had to call him back and see what had happened, and he said that he'd had a bachelor party to go to. ..... ...... .... really....?

I wasn't mad, disappointed, but not mad. He showed his true colors and I hung up my infatuation with him right then and there. He was unreliable. Not in the fact that he wouldn't go out with me...nope, but in the fact that when I asked him if he'd like to go, instead of being strait up and tell me no, he had me placed in limbo until he thought he'd come up with a "reasonably" good lie to get himself out of the "awkward" situation. Unreliable.

When I relayed the story to a friend, she told me that she thought that his problem was that, he wanted me to like him and that was it. She was sorry to tell me thus, because she really had liked our chemistry and thought that he could handle my witty and sometimes biting humor.

I wasn't....sorry that is. His mind games were ridiculous in the sense that he craved my attention when we were around each other, but when we weren't, he didn't know I existed. In the time we dealt with each other, he never called me first, and only once did he remember to call me back in the time span that he said he was going to. His game, would have been to lead me on for as long as possible...and although I had not been prepared for his game strategy, I prevailed...unlike my Patriot friends.

When the final game came, I won. And not even intentionally. I was no longer invested or interested in Mr. Playa because I wanted someone who wanted interaction with me, even after I wasn't in their peripheral vision. I wanted someone, who would want me...so when we last worked together on a project, it was sad to see him look hurt at my lack of enthusiasm to be around him. I mean, he was still funny and charismatic, but he didn't hold water to the more loyal male friend that was at our meeting who I ended up spending more time around.

I mean, I guess I had always known about this game, I had been the subject of it before in college, but I thought the sport of it was usually only used by guys who knew that they could NEVER do anything with the girl in question. And maybe that was still the case here. After all, I wasn't going to be sleeping with him, but I had never had someone try so hard while in my face, only to turn that switch off when not around me. Maybe I had just never noticed it before, because, like I said, I NEVER wanted the interaction before this time. But sadly the results haven't changed. I'm still undefeated, and Playa's are still fighting for their spot as the first placed losers.