Down the Street
I was walking near the Cathedral Social Hall the other day and saw a man walking the other direction talking on his cell phone. He paused long enough to ask a question:
"Are you looking for a woman?"
The way he said it, I thought maybe someone had just run across the street or ducked into the bar and he was going to direct me to her. If he was talking about a stray dog that he had just spotted, it wouldn't have been at all strange, but asking about a person in that fashion seemed strange.
"No."
He seemed slightly confused by my answer, so, as I passed him, I glanced around. Maybe there was someone lurking around the corner or just across the street. Nope. No one else around.
My next thought was that was that he was having a really bad conversation with his girlfriend and just wanted to pass her off to someone else so they could deal with the problem. He didn't really seem that angry though and it seems unlikely that anyone would just give their cell phone to a complete stranger to finish a fight.
Perhaps he just desperately wanted to set up a woman he knew and was asking every random man he encountered as he walked down the street. I can almost envision a scenario where his girlfriend is out with her sister and she won't let him come over unless he brings someone to keep the sister company.
At that point I realized that perhaps he wanted to arrange a "date" with a "special friend" and would only want a "small token of appreciation" in return, but that was an odd location for that sort of encounter, so I dismissed it and instead spent the rest of my walk contemplating whether I should have lied to the stranger or told the truth and found out what he was actually suggesting.
"Are you looking for a woman?"
The way he said it, I thought maybe someone had just run across the street or ducked into the bar and he was going to direct me to her. If he was talking about a stray dog that he had just spotted, it wouldn't have been at all strange, but asking about a person in that fashion seemed strange.
"No."
He seemed slightly confused by my answer, so, as I passed him, I glanced around. Maybe there was someone lurking around the corner or just across the street. Nope. No one else around.
My next thought was that was that he was having a really bad conversation with his girlfriend and just wanted to pass her off to someone else so they could deal with the problem. He didn't really seem that angry though and it seems unlikely that anyone would just give their cell phone to a complete stranger to finish a fight.
Perhaps he just desperately wanted to set up a woman he knew and was asking every random man he encountered as he walked down the street. I can almost envision a scenario where his girlfriend is out with her sister and she won't let him come over unless he brings someone to keep the sister company.
At that point I realized that perhaps he wanted to arrange a "date" with a "special friend" and would only want a "small token of appreciation" in return, but that was an odd location for that sort of encounter, so I dismissed it and instead spent the rest of my walk contemplating whether I should have lied to the stranger or told the truth and found out what he was actually suggesting.
