Moments: She’s Just Not That Into You

“Can I have your extra seeds?” That’s the first thing the woman asked when she entered the bagel shop, leaning over the counter at the men behind it as if it were a perfectly normal question. The men looked perplexed. But they gave her the seeds. Then she bought a bagel. And a coffee. And an orange juice. And she walked outside, carrying seeds, coffee, juice, and bagel, to join her friend on a bench.

As they eat and talk, the woman leans slightly toward her friend — a man — to show that she hears him, that she’s listening. She responds to all cues with the proper bit of laughter or facial expression; she nods as she eats her bagel. But her eyes express nothing but boredom: she doesn’t listen the way she pretends to.

They are an unlikely pair — the woman and her man-date — who sit together outside of the Olde Brooklyn Bagel Shoppe in Prospect Heights. The man is a stark contrast to the woman. Instead of the woman’s stylish-yet-grungy white tank top, he wears a purplish, too-clingy T-shirt. It accentuates his slight beer belly. Instead of her ripped light blue jeans, he wears grey shorts that do not quite fit. His grey rubber flip-flops contrast with her brown combat boots: shoes practical and impractical, respectively, for steamy day. The woman wears a hat over her funky shaved-yet-braided hair.

She appears resolved to enjoy the conversation. Her body is animated. Her eyes, however, hidden from him behind sunglasses, are not. Her eyes show that she is far away.