Monday, May 4, 2009

Even in trying to study for midterms I manage to attract the oddest people to me

Yesterday, with the threat of a nasty German midterm looming over my head, I went to the library to study. As I walked into the library, a little old man looked at me and said something. I couldn’t hear him because I had my headphones on. I turned off my music and he repeated what he had said: “What are you smiling about?”
Now, I love spontaneously talking to random people about random things - it makes life more interesting - so it's no surprise that this simple question spurred on a 15 minute conversation near the entrance of the building. It went something like this:

“What are you smiling about?”
“Oh, I don’t really know. Today is just a good day.”
With a knowing smile he says “and by that, you mean your boyfriend is being good to you.”
“No…I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Good! A girl like you doesn’t want a boyfriend. You want a male companion. And I should know. I’m a marriage counselor. Take it from me. My wife and I just got married…55 years ago!”
(At this point in my head I’m thinking what the hell constitutes a ‘male companion’.)
The old man continues on and says "Let me ask you something, hun. What do you want out of life?"
I gave him the most honest answer I could think of. "I just want to be happy."
He laughs and says "Well with your personality, you'll get far in life. Here take, my card."
(this is where it gets creepy)
He reaches into his pocket while saying "send me an email and my wife and I will take you and some of your girlfriends out to dinner one night and I can teach you everything I know. Oh but don't let the staff here see you take this card from me. I've been thrown out of three churches for this sort of thing. They don't like me telling people they can be happy."
At this point I'm incredibly intrigued as to what could be on his card that would result in him being thrown out of churches, but if there hadn't been a ton of students walking past us I would have felt somewhat apprehensive about talking to this man.
He hands me his card and continues talking to me like he's not some creepy old guy hanging out on a college campus, preying on unsuspecting young women: "Believe me, its my personality and love for God that got me this far in life. I retired at 45!"
Oooh, this makes sense now. He's trying to sell his faith.
I take his card and put it in my pocket.
"I'm a christian man," he says. "How about you? Are you Christian? or Jewish?"
Damn, is my Jewish ancestry really THAT obvious?
"I'm spiritual, but I don't follow any religion."
He laughs and says "well I can teach you everything you need to know to succeed in life. Just send me an email. Bless you hun, I love ya."
"Alright...bye." I say, nervously backing away.

As soon as I'm a safe distance away from him, I take his card out of my pocket and read it. It has some short poems and lines on it concerning "True Love" and "Abstinence". Basically its a card full of Christian propaganda. I laugh to myself, making note to NEVER email this man. But that's when I realize...there's no email (or phone number or address or any sort of way to contact the guy) on this business card.
What the hell?

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