Dial A for Awkward, by Doris

Last night I finally worked up the nerve to call Hunter Parrish. Rock had told me that email or texting was bad form, and HP didn't have my phone number, so I felt I had no other choice.

Rock, I love ya, but I'm texting or emailing next time.

As I've expressed before, I'm just not good on the phone with people I don't know. That doesn't apply to work situations: I can phone-schmooze with the best of them, when the occasion calls for it, because I have a specific purpose. Even at work, however, I prefer email.

But Hunter Parrish is cute, so I sucked it up and dialed his number.

I prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster for voicemail, so I could leave a message with my number and leave the ball in his court. No awkwardness!

And I almost got my wish.

Four rings...

"Hello?"

Shit.

Most. Awkward. Three minutes. Of my life.

I know I keep saying "awkward" and I want to yell at myself to get a thesaurus, but there really is no other word.

Remember, I talked to this guy at a bar for ten minutes. I have no idea what his personality is like. I don't even know whether he gave me his card to get away from me (although I don't think so, generally straight guys don't give you their contact info if they don't want you contacting them).

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is just as dorky on the phone as I am. Also, he was on his break from one of his three jobs and I think I caught him off-guard.

(That said, dude, why didn't you just screen the call? I almost always do that when I don't recognize the number, as does Rock.)

Mercifully, his break ended (at least that's what he said, and I was more than fine with that), but he said he'd call later in the week so we could set up a time to hang out.

Because he now has my number, the ball is in his court.

Honestly, his personality doesn't seem all that great--then again, we've interacted very little. I won't be heartbroken if I never hear from him again.

On the other hand, if I DO hear from him...

I'd totally hit that.

I mean, HE LOOKS LIKE HUNTER PARRISH.

A Lesson in Passive Aggressiveness, by Rock

2.0 was possibly going to visit me at work tonight. He didn't (which wasn't a big deal at all), and when he told me he wasn't via text, he said he would text me good night.

He didn't text me, and I got off after I was almost certain he was asleep.

So what did I do? I called him. He answered the phone very groggily.

"Hello?"

"Oh babe, did I wake you up?"

"Yeah..."

"Sorry! You said you would text good night and you hadn't yet, so I thought you were still awake and I could say good night."

"Oh sorry... I fell asleep a lot sooner than I thought I was going to. Did you have a good night?"

"Yeah but go to back to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow."

"Okay. Good night, babe."

"Good night. Sleep well."

Here's the thing. I don't expect a good night text every night or a good morning text every morning. That's psycho. But if you tell me you're going to do something, I expect you to do it. If you forget or something, I probably won't start an argument, but I will purposely wake you up "by accident" to prove a point.

I refuse to be the next person to make contact, but other than that, I won't bring it up again. It's not a big deal. I've made my point.

What is very funny is last night I promised to call when I woke up and then I slept in this morning... until he woke me up with a phone call. It wasn't explicitly stated, but I'm pretty sure he thought I forgot to call. So in the same day he did what he incorrectly thought I did.

I'm really good at being passive aggressive, and I own it.

Rock a few years ago? I would have started a conversation about all of this. Now I can just make my point and still sound sane and normal and caring.

Keyword: sound.