I was out drinking with some a bunch of PR people last week after a media event I had to attend for work. I hate attending media events. It's like reporting on an infomercial. The atmosphere is always soul crushing, set in upscale hotel conference rooms or ironically sparse downtown discos. I had spent all day at one hotel trying to wring something interesting from the anemic press releases and smiling non-responses of PR people. As the sun went down I abandoned one hotel for another, this time ascending to a roof top bar for another couple hours of free hors –d'oeuvres and information dissemination. As the event wound down I engaged myself in a conversation with a couple colleagues and some PR people who entreated us to join them for drinks at a bar not affiliated with a hotel empire. It was a weeknight and I had lots of other work to get to at home, but I went along anyway.

PR people are a strange group, tasked primarily with crafting and controlling the message about a subject that they've had no real input in creating. They tend to be bright and motivated people, working long hours in a perpetual state of presentable cheer. It's almost like metaphysical philanthropy, though the pay is certainly better. As a writer, I'm usually the primary target of PR people. All those toothy smiles and dainty pigs in a blanket on silver platters are intended for me and my colleagues. I get to be patronized on a regular basis by people in expensive clothes.

So it was probably a trick of delusion and free beer when my eyes settled on a manic blonde with a bob and a pug nose. This must be what it's like for women to see a man in uniform. At 10:30 at night she seemed like she was on a schedule, like she had somewhere to go, something to facilitate. I imagine my attraction to a woman like this, the kind I could reasonably imagine switching from tennis shoes to pumps just before walking into the office, is some nascent cultural seed left over from my childhood. My formative years were spent in the 80's, ogling blondes on TV and in the movies. I also spent a fair amount of time fixated on soap operas. "Santa Barbara" was my favorite. Between Helen Slater, Cybil Shepherd, and Marcy Walker my childhood passion for flouncy silk business shirts and women conquering male-dominated industries was set.

 

For the first 30 seconds or so, this woman completely fit that mold. I was on the verge of breaking off the conversation I was having, arguing very passionately about videogames, to try and talk to her. She hadn't looked at me or acknowledged me in any way. It was my inner canine raising its wet nose and stiffening its ears. Then I pulled back on my leash. Hitting on someone in front of an audience of colleagues, and who is likely someone I'll have to work with in the future, is probably the worst of all the three-beer ideas I've ever had.

It's easy to create work crushes. Spending so much of your waking life moving in a contained population, in an office or an insular industry, it's hard not to gravitate to those that simply stand out against the background noise. It's tantalizing to take a few disconnected qualities and project a whole person onto them, and then sweep yourself away with a wispy idea. An upturned nose, a blonde bob, a black business skirt. Someone catch me before I fall.

Anyways, I'm saving myself for the cute woman in engineering with the excessive amounts of ear rings and a taste for buttered bagels on bagel Mondays. I'm pretty sure she's in to me.

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