(When I am eighteen it is deemed necessary for me to buy a car. I buy one from a neighbor that is over twenty years old, but in good enough shape to get me back and forth to college. The car won’t start after a long day at school. My school has a driver assistance program for simple fixes. I call them, and within fifteen minutes a van pulls up. He tries to jump the car, which doesn’t work. The battery isn’t dead, so I assume the starter is having problems. I resign myself to calling a tow truck. I walk to the main entrance to wait for him. When he arrives, the tow truck he has brought is far too large to make it to the top floor of the parking garage.)

Tow Driver: “This one is too big. I’ll call my partner to bring the smaller truck.”

(While he is doing that, I notice a very pretty female student, who has gotten a flat tire in front of the garage. I offer to help. She grabs the jack and spare tire from her trunk and I go to work. My tow truck driver is now standing on the bed of his truck, screaming directions angrily into his phone for the smaller tow truck driver. It is comical, and the pretty girl and I both have a laugh. It is then that I notice that one of her lugnuts is a wheel lock, and I will need the special tool to get it off. This tool is usually kept near the spare.)

Me: “Do you have the adaptor for your wheel lock? It should be in the trunk where the rest of this was.”

Pretty Girl: “Oh, yeah. I didn’t know what that was, so I didn’t grab it.”

(She tries to open her trunk but it is locked. She goes for the drivers door… which is also locked.)

Pretty Girl: “Oh, no! I locked my keys in the car.”

(Sure enough, all the doors are locked, and the keys are on the front seat.)

Pretty Girl: “I think I am just going to call my dad; he has my spare keys and will be able to fix the tire.”

Me: “Are you sure? I would be happy to wait with you until he gets here.”

Pretty Girl: “No, that’s all right. I think your ride is here, anyway.”

(Sure enough, the second tow truck had showed up, so the two drivers and I piled in and made our way to my car. The original driver asked for my keys, sat in the driver’s seat, and tried the ignition. Nothing. He then tried again, this time mashing the gas pedal to the floor a few times, causing the car to start up with a roar like I had never heard from this car. Having never driven an older car to this point, giving it a little gas had never even occurred to me. I was on my way home five minutes later. So, to sum up, I paid over $200 to have another grown man teach me how to start my car. It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I realized my other mistake: I had been assisting a very pretty damsel in distress, and I never even thought to ask for her number.)

(My husband is a contractor for a rental company. He usually gets called to do repairs and repaint and whatnot between tenants. When he needs an extra set of hands, I usually offer to tag along and help out. This particular day, I’ve been watching him cut and replace the wooden trim on a door frame, and now he’s filling in the cracks with caulk, using his fingers and hands to get into the creases.)

Me: “Man, you are always playing with your caulk, aren’t you?!”

Husband: *smirking at me* “Got to make sure it’s smooth. Only way to do that is by rubbing my caulk with my hand.”

Me: “Looks messy. You’re going to get your caulk all over everything!”

Husband: “Good point. Maybe I should go back to playing with my wood.”

(We both start laughing. Then, the rental agent, whom my husband has been working with for nearly 15 years, calls.)

Agent: “[Husband]! That job done yet? I’m not paying you to stand around, yankin’ your noodle!”

(My husband walks into our bedroom, naked, and slithers up into bed with me.)

Husband: “So, I was just in the bathroom trying to poop, and I thought, ‘What do most guys do while they’re trying to poop, but can’t? Probably watch p*rn. Hmm. I’m going to go have sex with my wife, instead!’”

Me: *finish ringing up the customer’s items* “Ok. That comes to $67.47”

Customer: *leans in very close and looks over his shoulder and whispers* “Hey, man. Can I get a discount?” *proceeds to give me a wink*

(I lean in equally as close and look over my shoulder and whisper…)

Me: “No”.

Customer: *smile fades from face*

Me: *unenthusiastic stone-faced wink* “$67.47, please.”

I’m an asexual woman, but back when I was in college, “asexual” wasn’t really “a thing.” I just ended up telling all my friends, “I don’t date,” as a personal rule.

One of the boys who was in theater with me had a very strong crush on me. The two of us practically built the theater department, so we were always hanging out together and were pretty good friends, but he was always trying to convince me to go out with him. He would buy me gifts even though I had told him I didn’t date and didn’t have the money to reciprocate the presents.

One day he told me his brother was trying to sell a rare draft script for the first Star Wars movie ever made. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, and I would have flipped to have that script or even just a photocopy of it. I even said as much to him. Unfortunately I didn’t have the money his brother was asking for, and the script sold online.

Fast-forward a year. I could tell our friendship was cooling because he was getting frustrated that I still wouldn’t go out with him. The last time it came up, he handed me a birthday gift: a pair of gold and ruby earrings. I don’t wear jewelry, so I had no idea what they were worth, but all I thought was that he had to have spent far more than what his brother asked for that Star Wars script! I stared at the jewels and then looked at him, finally saying, “Um, my ears aren’t pierced.”

He took the earrings back and we never really hung out again. He did finally move on, get a girlfriend, and get married. I have never broken my rule about “not dating.”

The moral of the story is: If you’re trying to get someone to go out with you especially by giving them presents, maybe take a cursory review of the three years you’ve been friends to notice that she doesn’t wear jewelry or have pierced ears, but is fanatically obsessed with Star Wars and would have felt obligated to go on a date if you had just given her that incredibly rare artifact you somehow had access to!