The Day a Stranger Asked Me Out (on the train)

I read a little piece on the Internet that reminded me of a rather startling train encounter I once had.

One man has written to some variety of Agony Aunt, in the form of Auntie Yahoo in this case.

He writes:
“What can you say to a girl on a train?
im in london and every day i get the tube to work or wherever..but i always seem to see pretty girls on the train..they look at me i look at them, but never know what to say..then i or she gets off and i never see her again!! what can i say with out looking stupid, or freaking her out?


I don’t truly think about this sort of thing on the train. I mean, I simply fall asleep, or sit there and read. Or think. Predominantly, I think. About things in my life. From time to time, I observe a handsome man here or there. But mostly not.

But this summer, I was taking the train into London and a strange thing happened. As I disembarked at Waterloo station, a man in a suit let me pass before him when queuing to get off the train. He then walked beside me as we all strolled/marched (*delete as applicable depending on whether you are late or not) down the platform towards the barrier. The bottleneck began and we had to slow down to a more leisurely pace as the mass of people got denser.

He turned to me and said,

“This is going to sound a bit strange, but can I have your number please?”

I was verging on the dense here. I think I knew what he might be getting at, but didn’t dare assume that would be the case. So I asked,

“Why?”

The poor guy. He most likely hadn’t realised he had selected someone who would insist on him spelling out his every objective. He looked a little flustered.

“Oh, well, because I think you are really attractive and I’d like to go for a drink.”

Wow! That doesn’t happen?! So, I said,

“No, sorry, you can’t have my number.”

I think I tried to smile to alleviate the blow. I mean, I do have a boyfriend after all.

“No worries.” Said he. And we parted company.

Easy.

I wondered to myself, ‘he is extremely courageous to ask outright for my number.’ I felt some sort of admiration for him kick in. I would never have the nerve (and neither the inclination to be honest) to do something like that.

And then, the other side of the coin presented itself to me.

‘Hang on,’ I thought, ‘if he asked me out and has taken the rejection so effortlessly, how many times does he do that? Every day does he pick out some unsuspecting female in the hope that, by asking many, one just might be audacious enough and, most importantly, single, and say yes? In fact, I’m not special at all. He does that everyday!”

It did give me a slight spring in my stride it has to be said. Coupled with the fact that I was on my way back to London having being offered a new job. Well, that made for a good day.