Who, Me?

I've been thinking of asking out a chick that I work with. For some odd reason, she blatantly flirts with me every time I see her. Now, I'm sure that isn't a big deal for some of you dudes out there, but with my horrible self image, I'm always genuinely surprised when a woman gets flirty with me. Especially when it's an attractive woman, and this chick isn't too shabby in the looks department. Nope, not too shabby at all. I just can't figure out why she likes me. Shit, I don't even like me.

I guess I could ask her out. I mean, lord knows I'm craving some female attention in the worst way. But I did the whole "dating a co-worker" thing in the past, and it always ended up badly. It's just too difficult to be in a professional work environment with a woman you're banging. You have to pretend nothing's up, but the whole time you're working with her, all you can think of when you look at her is "I saw you naked last night." Kinda makes it hard to concentrate on the job, you know?

I dated this one co-worker a few years back, and it was just too weird to deal with. We fooled around at my apartment one night, it got a bit heated, and the next day I had to go into work with a huge hickey on my neck. I was actually pretty embarrassed about it, because it was really, really noticable and there was no way to cover it up. Now, had I been 13 years old, it would have been pretty cool to have an obnoxious-looking hickey for all the world to see. But I was long out of high school at this point, so it just looked... well, kind of pathetic. All day long, my friends at work kept ripping on me about it. "Hey Jeremy, nice hickey!" They didn't even know that I'd gotten the hickey from a girl who worked there--but everytime somebody brought it up, you could see her face flush red with embarrassment. Our relationship didn't last too much longer after that.

I actually saw her again recently. We happened to be in the same aisle at the grocery store, and we stopped and talked for a few minutes. It was a polite, innocent conversation--but still, you know what I was thinking in the back of my mind?

"Heh, I've seen her naked."

I don't know, maybe it's a guy thing. Although... I suppose it's possible that the whole time we were talking, she was looking at me and thinking;

"Heh, I've seen his package."

I wonder if women are like that, too. In a way, I hope they aren't, because the sight of my naked body is probably an image that's best forgotten.

So, as far as this new girl at work goes, I might ask her out. I don't know. I guess I have nothing to lose. Besides, I'm lonely... damn lonely. Even loners want some affection every now and then.