Shouzer

This is the story I promised to write in my last post. I have been a bit hesitant to do it because it could open up a can of worms. I’m probably just being paranoid though so I’m going to go ahead and do it. This story takes place back in Thailand…

I used to take taxi money back to the finance department 3-4 times a week. Normally, the TTs handled this responsibility, but mine went directly home quite a bit. I was just trying to be nice, and frankly, it was easier than saving it in my wallet until the next time I saw them.

The finance office at Fun Language was in a little room about like a closet, and in it, sat 3 finance girls and an old man who ran the financial show. One day, I came in to drop off the taxi money as usual. The old man pointed to one of the girls that I never talked to and said, “She needs to speak to you.”
So I looked at and asked, “What do you need?”
She got very embarrassed and told me he was joking. I pretended to be confused, but inside, I was going, “ohhhhh.”

I kicked around the idea of asking her out for a week or so, but it just wasn’t feasible. The only time I saw her was in that office, and I did not have the stones to waltz in there and ask her out in front of all of those other people. To make matters worse, I didn’t even know her name, and I had been working there at least 6 months. I was past the point of being able to introduce myself without looking like an idiot. In hindsight, I see some better ways to approach the situation, but part of my charm is being completely inept. And by charm, I mean comedic value.

I sort of forgot about all of this. Life went on. I continued to teach, and I continued to go to the finance office and drop off money. There was little to no chatting going on when I went in there, and I always kept it brief.

A few months later, this TT comes to me and informs me that someone in the office is “impressed” with me. I honestly didn’t know who she was talking about. I thought of the girl in the finance office, but there were a few other possibilities as well. She was probably the strongest, though. I blew it off. What was I supposed to do, go around asking girls if they were impressed with me? I can see that conversation going smoothly.

A week or so later, this TT comes back and asks if I have figured it out. Of course, I haven’t. This time, she narrows it down to one of the 3 girls in the finance office, and she has a present from this admirer. It’s a Cadbury chocolate bar. I love chocolate. This was a strong move from the moderately secret admirer.

By this time, I knew it was her, and I had found out the names of all of the girls up there. (I went there often, and they all knew me. It was getting embarrassing to not know.) Once again, I have no idea how to proceed. I viewed this maneuver as a bit juvenile, and I didn’t see a good way to ask her out. The same problem stood in my way as before. I didn’t have the guts to walk in the finance closet and ask her out in front of her peers.

The TT came back to me again with another chocolate bar from the finance girl. I started to think about it, and I was attracted to this girl. I decided it wouldn’t be bad to give it a go with her, and her juvenile moves and opened up a route for me. I sent a note through the TT with my phone number on it. I felt like a 5th grader. A few hours later, she texted me. We started texting, and then I called her. We went out with the TT tagging along for moral support. That went pretty well, so we went out for ice cream at lunch one day during work. The relationship just sort of progressed from there. The finance girl’s name is Gun, and she became my girlfriend in that story in case you missed that.