Phan
04-25-2005, 10:44 AM
Some months back
I was shopping in the mall and stopped in a nearly empty clothing store, Club Monaco. I saw a cute little blonde in
the distance, and noticed her looking right at me. After a moment of eye contact, she looked away. Was she
interested? No, no doubt just an employee wondering if I needed help, I thought. I went on about my shopping and
left. Much to my surprise, I later saw her leave from the same store with another girl. Not an employee then.
Perhaps she'd just seen me looking at her...she was pretty cute, after all...and was wondering if I was some weird
stalker. Whatever; I put it out of my mind.
That evening I got on instant messenger, and a few minutes later
got a message from a girl whose IM name I didn't recognize.
"Were you just at the mall?" she
asked.
"Umm...yes...do I know you?" I was feeling a bit apprehensive.
"This is Jen. I saw you at Club Monaco
earlier, and I was blatantly staring at you trying to figure out if it was you, until you gave me a funny look and I
looked away."
It turns out she was a girl I'd talked to a little online a year earlier, and she somehow recognized
me from my single picture long before. She was now using a different IM name and looked nothing like her picture.
The moral? I was reading some posts of hit reports, and this event came to mind. What it told me was this: I'm a
very poor judge of interest and intentions in strangers, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. When determining the
effectiveness of pheromones, we are probably vastly under or overstating them, or a combination of the two depending
on circumstance. From my end I figured she either wanted to help me out as part of her job, or was worried that I
was some creepy guy staring at her. From her end she was "blatantly staring at me" and was too shy to approach and
ask if I was who she thought I was.
Let it be a lesson to you -- your judgement of the effectiveness of your
pheromones is biased and faulty. (or, at least mine is :) I'm probably of the type to underestimate them)
I was shopping in the mall and stopped in a nearly empty clothing store, Club Monaco. I saw a cute little blonde in
the distance, and noticed her looking right at me. After a moment of eye contact, she looked away. Was she
interested? No, no doubt just an employee wondering if I needed help, I thought. I went on about my shopping and
left. Much to my surprise, I later saw her leave from the same store with another girl. Not an employee then.
Perhaps she'd just seen me looking at her...she was pretty cute, after all...and was wondering if I was some weird
stalker. Whatever; I put it out of my mind.
That evening I got on instant messenger, and a few minutes later
got a message from a girl whose IM name I didn't recognize.
"Were you just at the mall?" she
asked.
"Umm...yes...do I know you?" I was feeling a bit apprehensive.
"This is Jen. I saw you at Club Monaco
earlier, and I was blatantly staring at you trying to figure out if it was you, until you gave me a funny look and I
looked away."
It turns out she was a girl I'd talked to a little online a year earlier, and she somehow recognized
me from my single picture long before. She was now using a different IM name and looked nothing like her picture.
The moral? I was reading some posts of hit reports, and this event came to mind. What it told me was this: I'm a
very poor judge of interest and intentions in strangers, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. When determining the
effectiveness of pheromones, we are probably vastly under or overstating them, or a combination of the two depending
on circumstance. From my end I figured she either wanted to help me out as part of her job, or was worried that I
was some creepy guy staring at her. From her end she was "blatantly staring at me" and was too shy to approach and
ask if I was who she thought I was.
Let it be a lesson to you -- your judgement of the effectiveness of your
pheromones is biased and faulty. (or, at least mine is :) I'm probably of the type to underestimate them)