The FedEx Express guy
Remember that scene from ‘Sex and the city’ where Charlotte asked a guy out for the first time and how excited and proud of herself she was? That’s exactly how Lara felt when she gave the cute FedEx guy at work her phone number.
This is probably the first time Lara ever gave her number to a guy without him asking. She had seen him a couple of times and noticed he was very cute. At the time, her office had a different regular FedEx courier and this cutie would just fill in for the regular guy when he was sick or on vacation.
Then Lara realized she hadn’t seen the regular guy for a few months and this cutie would come to her office everyday at the same time. She figured they had probably switched routes and this attractive FedEx guy was the regular courier now.
There were so many things on her mind right now: saving up money for her move from Vancouver to Victoria, working on being a better person and getting through the loneliness of not having been in a relationship for over a year. But seeing that cute FedEx guy coming in her office at the same time everyday to ask if there was anything to pick up was the highlight of her day.
One day she thought, “Hey, I could give him my phone number. Why not give it a go? I’ve got nothing to lose.”. After all, she had sworn off online dating after a string of bad dates and short-lived relationships it gave her. She felt like the fact that those guys met her online alone made it harder for them to respect her and treat her as well as someone they’d meet in person. Sure, there were couples in successful relationships that met each other online. But how often does that happen?! Online dating is like the lottery. If you win, it’s awesome but the odds of actually winning are pretty low.
So that day when he came in her office, she mustered up the courage to give him her company business card that had her phone number written on it. He looked at the business card and looked back at her. She thought he got the point. The next day he called her personal phone to ask her if there was anything for FedEx pickup! That’s how she found out he misunderstood that she gave him her number just for business. So she said, “Can you please use my company number next time? You could use this number to ask me out or something.” Then he chuckled loudly over the phone and said “Thank you!”. No “Alright” or “I will”.
Later that night, he didn’t call or text. Lara thought she would just shoot him a text to make it clear that he could ask her out. The text said: “Just so we’re clear, I don’t give out my number to someone if it’s work related :)”
No reply. Oh well, maybe he wasn’t interested. Shortly after she came into work the next day, around 8:30am, she got a call from his number. She picked up and he said:
- Hey Lara! Sorry it took me so long to respond. I left my phone in my truck last night.
Lara went:
- That’s okay!
He continued:
- To be honest, I’d be asking you out if I wasn’t married. I think you’re really cute. I appreciate you giving me your number. It makes me feel better about myself. So I will see you in your office at the same time today for pickup, okay?
He was married! Why did she not check his hand?! And of course he was! The first cute guy she came across in months, the one guy she met in person, not online, that she gave her phone number to. With her luck, of course he was married! Even worse, now she still had to see him everyday!
Regardless, she was proud of herself. This was probably the first time in her life she directly gave her number to a guy! Lara was quite traditional for her time. She believed in dating cliches like not making the first move as a girl, letting the guy take the lead and the guy should pay for the first date.
Giving a guy her number was easier than she thought. She didn’t understand why she hadn’t done this long time ago. Imagine all the bad dates with the guys she met online she could have avoided! Knowing how simple it was, she would start doing it from now on. This was different from taking the lead because all she did was give a guy her number. Then he could decide whether to use it to ask her out or not.
He still came to her office everyday at the same time. She could feel the sexual tension between them. She blamed that on him. He seemed to get more comfortable now, a little bit too comfortable. He’d walk out of the elevator straight to her receptionist desk and lean on the counter, like this:
While other FedEx couriers before him would just be in and out, this guy would linger at desk and make small talk with her. Sometimes, he would just stare at her. It was starting to make her uncomfortable, partially because she was still attracted to him. And she knew he was attracted to her too. He told her she was “very cute”.
He wasn’t super handsome, but he was cute. He was tall with wavy light brown hair and tanned skin, he was even more tanned than her. He also had a deep voice and sounded a lot like her most recent ex, Bryan. She always thought Bryan had a nice voice. Another thing that she noticed was he didn’t wear his wedding ring! So even if she had checked his hand, she wouldn’t have been able to tell because this guy just didn’t wear his wedding band.
Before he told her that he was married, it had never crossed her mind that he was. She didn’t know why it never had. Anyone could be married! Perhaps because he looked like he was in his early to mid thirties, and most guys that age she had come across were single. In reality, it was actually quite reasonable for guys that age to be married. It was just the ones that had their online dating profiles available that weren’t, maybe they were the odd ones! She laughed at herself for thinking no one under 40 could be married in Vancouver. It was easy to think that though, Vancouver was notorious for having a hostile dating scene. It had so many romantic spots that would be ideal for dates, but also there were so many things to do on your own in terms of entertainment, which could keep someone from entering a relationship.
Sometimes she wondered what could have been if he was single. It would have made a nice meet-cute story in the age of Tinder and Bumble: the receptionist girl met the cute FedEx guy who delivered at her office and the rest was history.
Maybe this cutie being married was a sign. A sign that even when she took the courage to make something happen, it was not going to happen for her. Not here in Vancouver. In the 5 years that she had lived here, Vancouver had given her a lot of good things that were imperishable, but love was not one of them. Maybe she would find love somewhere else. And she was fine with it.
