Fighting Your Fears: Triple Combo - Flower Girl

Today (2014-09-19), I hit a triple headshot on my "did for the first time checklist." It was: gift someone flowers, ask for a name first, tell random girl she's amiable (I like the word translation in Lithuanian more so from now on in English "cute" will be used).

Today was planed as the day off cause after an eye doctor visit I was not supposed to see anything (blind as a rabbit who doesn't eat carrots). Spent hours just walking in the sun, listening to audio books (activity I enjoy as it allows me to disconnect), relaxing.

While walking through a shopping center in a flower section noticed a girl and kept walking (I look at walking like a shark looks at swimming - you stop, you die).

But one of the voices in my head went "she's cute" and another replied "yea, as she is working in a flower shop it might be fun to ask for her suggestion of what to gift to a cute girl and then give it to her." The previous voice replied with "sure, sure, we definitely should do it", but you know in that tone were someone agrees with you, but deep inside they are praying you won't take them on their offer.

Fortunately, during the past year, the voice which tries to throw me out of my comfort zone received much more control.

"Wait, is this idea making you uncomfortable?" Putting a hand on my chest, noticing the heart beating much faster. "It does! Oh, I will have so much fun making you do this!"

As I had a few minutes, before circling back to a flower shop, the first voice started to try haggle his way out ("You know, I'm not feeling so well right now, maybe next time?") or bribing the heart into a heart attack, but all of it was met with a bored reaction "take the last deep breath if you want, but you're doing this."

A deep breath, and I start looking at flowers.

The girl: "Hello, have you chosen something?"

Me: "Hello. I don't know. What you would suggest to gift to a cute girl?".

Girl: "Uh, these are nice, and these, also this one."

Me: "This one looks nice, colorful. I will take it."

Girl: "Should I wrap them?"

Me: "Sure. I will pay with a card."

I think this is the part where The Universe came in with a bucket of popcorns and went "Oh, let's extend this awkward period where he is running all the terrible scenarios of how it could end."

Card payment problems..

Girl: "Can you pay in cash? We had some problems with card payments recently."

Me: "Sure. How much was it? Here you go."

Me standing like an idiot, waiting for her to finish with cash register and the second voice standing with a grin.

Translation is a bit rough from this point, but it's as close as I could get.

Me: "And let me gift these flowers to you." (✓ gift someone flowers).

Girl: "What?! Why?!."

Me: "Cause you're cute and my mind thought - Let's gift some flowers to this cute girl." (combo ✓ tell random girl she's cute).

I end up in goofy situations (don't ask for examples, because I will provide them), but I was starting to think of a much more comfortable things I could be doing right now, like running barefoot through broken glass.

Girl (while smiling, laughing and probably feeling much more uncomfortably than me): "**Random combination of: Really? Why? No. What? and a bunch of other words** Is this a prank or something like it?" [Oh come on! Stop extending this, just let me run to hide into some dark corner. Note: order hiding lessons from a cockroach].

Me: "No, a gift, for real."

At this point I think the voices in my head were starting a movie night as a new one went (in English accent) "Come on, we already have a combo, let's check off something else, ask her for her name!"

Deep breath, a shift in position to make sure I'm still standing.

Me: "What is your name?" (triple combo ✓ ask for a name first).

Girl: "**:insert name here:**"

Me: "Pleased, Andrius."

Could have tried to continue the combo and do something else for the first time, but as you should be careful with a cornered animal (he has nothing to lose so his reaction is unpredictable), it felt like a good time to allow the opening.

Made my smile bigger (research says: you smile not because you're happy, but you are happy because you smile. So, I try to walk around with a smile. I might look like an idiot, but I think it works), said "Have a nice weekend" and backed off.

Checked my heartbeat (reflection stage) which was more or less back at normal.. At this point my imagination (another daemon roaming in my head) tells "I don't think your heart was beating during that challenge" and a flash of red lights blinking, alarm sounds blaring, blood cells running in panic and a heart shouting "How is it going!?! I'm ready to give him a heart attack right away!" (OK, this video made me chuckle).

A pat on the head from a second voice followed by some wise words "Good boy. See, that wasn't so bad. After all, what is the worst that could happen?"

Posted in: Bucket List, Personal

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