They call me the Rain Man of Love.

Today I accidentally rested my hand on a strange man’s behind for about 7 minutes. In my defense, I didn’t know I was doing it and it was very comfortable. Also, there were a billion people on the train and I was using his behind accidentally so as not to fall over every time the train lurched.

Yes, I just said “behind.”

Anyway, when I finally realized what I’d been doing, I apologized, took it off, fell into him, and then put it back. We had an unspoken agreement that feeling him up was better than knocking him over. Whatever, there are worse ways to start your work day. And again, it was very comfortable!

But this is on the heels of a conversation I had with CB last night where I told him that he’s lucky to be with me now and not when I was first learning how to interact with the opposite sex. Because, for real, I don’t know how I didn’t get diagnosed with some social disorder as a pre-teen. And if you think I’m exaggerating, just know this: even my own sister called me The Rain Man of Love for about 3 years at one point. We have a very close bond and never point out each other’s flaws. 

Who wouldn’t want all of this goodness? 
It’s a mystery. 

Ok, it’s not so much that I’m awkward if (a) I know you really well or (b) we’ve already established that we totally dig each other. It’s just all the stuff that comes before that really seems to throw me off. Or did. I’m totally down with how it all works now, so don’t hate the player. Also, don’t ask CB if that last part is true because sometimes he lies.

For example: when I was 13 or 14, I had a crush on a guy who played the french horn. I know, right? Who didn’t. Anyway, he was one of those dangerous french horn types who totally had a leather jacket when he wasn’t playing Mozart and I’m pretty sure he smoked cigarettes, which was just about the height of rebellion to me at that age.  

So obviously I decided that he should love me back and devised a really genius, fool-proof plan. I’d just go to where he went to school – you know, casually like people do - hang out and wait for him to come outside and then woo him with all of my skilz.

Inexplicably, that didn’t work out so well. I know, it’s really shocking.

I enlisted the help of a friend, who honestly must’ve thought either (a) I was way more skilled in this department than I actually was or (b) she’d be in for a good laugh. Either way, she was totally on board with the pre-internet stalking days of “casually” waiting around for someone for an hour so that you could bump into them. And we had a whole plan: he’d come out, see me, obviously be struck by the rom-com nature of this happenstance meeting, strike up a really witty conversation about brass instruments, and then we’d fall in love and have babies after he stopped smoking.

What actually happened went a little something like this:

Only three minutes 'til Wapner
 so let’s just sing this out so I can get home. 

French horn guy walks outside, sees me, and starts walking towards me. Friend jumps up and down really subtly in excitement. I get that weird, queasy feeling of love or food poisoning. French horn player approaches and says hello.

All normal up until this point, yes? Yes. Then I start singing “Two Princes” by the Spin Doctors at him until he walks away really confused.

What? Yeah. That actually happened. I actually started singing a pop song at him instead of talking like a normal human person. And, hard as it is to believe, he wasn’t charmed.

I swear to all that is holy, to this day I still can’t figure out what the f I was thinking.

When I told CB this story last night he shook his head, didn’t look at all surprised, and said “Seriously, what’s wrong with you?” And then he said a secret prayer of thanks to the Smoking French Horn player who totally missed out on all of this. He’s so lucky.