In the process of finding me: The handsome stranger and the barista
Over the recent years, I’ve grown to a very different woman than I ever thought I would. I stopped wearing the abay, and switched long skirts with high waist jeans, starting smoking hookah about a year ago. As I grow into the woman I vision myself to be over the coming years, I change things from here and there, adapt, and add things to my personality, fashion, mentality as well as appearance. I didn’t notice all those changes happening in me until today. I’ve been through the experience of the year, and here is what happened.
As I get ready to go to the coffee shop next door, I hesitated thinking that if I just went to the library -which is one block away from my house- I won’t have to spend money on coffee. But I ended up going to the coffee shop. As I walked into the coffee shop wearing high heels, long mate colored cardigan, and black high waist jeans with a black Vanz shirt tucked underneath. Before I reach the counter to order -my always to go to- plain ice coffee, my phone drops and falls underneath the counter, this could’ve not happened in any worst moment. Not that I care much about cracking my phone, it’s already cracked. What made this fall historic was that I was listening to my favorite Naruto Shippuden ending 40 and the volume couldn’t’ve been any louder. As I struggle to grab my phone, everyone gets a two-minute glimpse of my childish music. Over the counter, the barista tries to help me get my phone as he laughs. over the corner, a teenage boy screams with excitement, “Aye Naruto fan in the house.”
Five minutes later when I get my ice coffee, I sit across from this man who’s about to be an important figure into shaping me to a courageous woman, without ever knowing his effects on me. As I sit down across from him, while he sits there with his friend watching the world cup, he smiles at me. I think to myself, “Wow what a handsome man, but I bet he’s laughing at my embarrassment.” Over the hour encounter, I would often find the stranger staring at me, and whenever I catch his gaze he would smile and look away. I put my glass back on to examine his whole face, handsome features, rebellious afro, dark eyes shaped as cherry. I would find myself looking at him too whenever he took eyes off me. This becomes our favorite game, staring at the other when they’re not looking, and sometimes our eye would meet and we’d look away shyly. After couple maybe 30 times of our eyes meeting and me wondering when he’s going to approach me and ask me anything, anything, perhaps my phone number, the name of the song which embarrassed me or even the bathroom. During that moment I would’ve settled for any question or statement. However, he doesn’t and goes back to watching his game and I would go back to my reading. A while later, he takes his headphones off, get closer to me, and I can feel my heart beating as my hands start to sweat as my mind whispers to my whole existence, “Here it comes.” He looks at me and says, “Can you please watch our stuff, we want to go to the nearby masjid and pray Dhuhur.” Little disappointed as I agree to be their laptop and headphones keeper.
As he leaves I tell my friends about everything that happened, and Najma being the female she is, encourages me to ask him his number or give him mine. Over the 10 minutes he’s gone I try to gather all the courage in me as I try to find a way to ask this guy out, which is something I’ve never done. Being the pretty woman I am I’ve always been approached by men, and never had a trouble making a man ask me out. Knowing that I’ll never have the amount of courage it takes to ask a guy out face to face, I decided to write him a note. Not having paper, I cut a little piece of my small calendar and write, “I’ve spent about an hour waiting for you to ask for my #. If your single, give me a call.” And write my phone number on the back of the paper. I look at the paper still trying to find the remainings of some courage in an empty corner of my cold body. I decide to tuck the note under his laptop, first, check if anyone is looking, of course, I don’t want someone to laugh at my unfortunate, people have laughed at me enough today. After a minute, I change my mind and take the note out, but then convince myself that it’ll be a waste of my courage and that it’s 2018 and men are not close minded as some of them were. I do this about three times, taking the note out and then tucking it back again until I just tuck it and close my eyes as I read prayers for my lost dignity and shame. I wait for him to come, and as soon as I see him walking, I put my stuff away, and walk out as he apologizes for keeping me and thanks me. I flee as a criminal running away from his crime scene. On the way home, I talk to myself out loud not knowing what I’m saying, I just know that I’ve done something I’ve never thought I would, and I don’t know if I’m proud of me or not.
At home, I pray and ask Allah to keep this man away from me if he’s bad for me in any way and to make him closer if he’s any good. I pray that he doesn’t get the note if he’s a bad person. And I tell my mother to pray for me as she watches me walk around the lunch table back and forth. On our way to class, I tell Najama about what I did, and I joke about how my reputation will be dragged through the dirt if he’s happened to be a married man and shows the note to his wife, and she exposes me in Shaax corner – a Somali ladies page on Facebook.
Hours later, as we walk out of class and into the parking lot of the college campus, I get a text from an unknown number and my heart skips a beat. Over couple confusing text, and as I cuss at myself, at the note, and at the stranger man, I come to realize that the note never reached the right person. The handsome stranger never got the note! And instead, the barista found it as he was closing the coffee shop. This man who knows me well, and made a couple of comments about how beautiful my style is or how well I did my eyeliner and had given me free ice coffee in a couple of occasions. To make matters worse for me I also realize that he knows who I am from the Naruto reference he uses as he gives advice about how to best ask a man out over a note! Well let’s just say that my beautiful days at that coffee shop are over, and I’m over here laughing at me, at the whole situation, but through it all, I was able to be my hero and reach a level of confidence and courage to which I’ve never thought I will. I also come to understand the ways in which prayers protect us. How fragile our heart can be when someone looks into our eyes. And as I write this to laugh at it decades later, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to ask another man out in my life.
As I get ready to go to the coffee shop next door, I hesitated thinking that if I just went to the library -which is one block away from my house- I won’t have to spend money on coffee. But I ended up going to the coffee shop. As I walked into the coffee shop wearing high heels, long mate colored cardigan, and black high waist jeans with a black Vanz shirt tucked underneath. Before I reach the counter to order -my always to go to- plain ice coffee, my phone drops and falls underneath the counter, this could’ve not happened in any worst moment. Not that I care much about cracking my phone, it’s already cracked. What made this fall historic was that I was listening to my favorite Naruto Shippuden ending 40 and the volume couldn’t’ve been any louder. As I struggle to grab my phone, everyone gets a two-minute glimpse of my childish music. Over the counter, the barista tries to help me get my phone as he laughs. over the corner, a teenage boy screams with excitement, “Aye Naruto fan in the house.”
Five minutes later when I get my ice coffee, I sit across from this man who’s about to be an important figure into shaping me to a courageous woman, without ever knowing his effects on me. As I sit down across from him, while he sits there with his friend watching the world cup, he smiles at me. I think to myself, “Wow what a handsome man, but I bet he’s laughing at my embarrassment.” Over the hour encounter, I would often find the stranger staring at me, and whenever I catch his gaze he would smile and look away. I put my glass back on to examine his whole face, handsome features, rebellious afro, dark eyes shaped as cherry. I would find myself looking at him too whenever he took eyes off me. This becomes our favorite game, staring at the other when they’re not looking, and sometimes our eye would meet and we’d look away shyly. After couple maybe 30 times of our eyes meeting and me wondering when he’s going to approach me and ask me anything, anything, perhaps my phone number, the name of the song which embarrassed me or even the bathroom. During that moment I would’ve settled for any question or statement. However, he doesn’t and goes back to watching his game and I would go back to my reading. A while later, he takes his headphones off, get closer to me, and I can feel my heart beating as my hands start to sweat as my mind whispers to my whole existence, “Here it comes.” He looks at me and says, “Can you please watch our stuff, we want to go to the nearby masjid and pray Dhuhur.” Little disappointed as I agree to be their laptop and headphones keeper.
As he leaves I tell my friends about everything that happened, and Najma being the female she is, encourages me to ask him his number or give him mine. Over the 10 minutes he’s gone I try to gather all the courage in me as I try to find a way to ask this guy out, which is something I’ve never done. Being the pretty woman I am I’ve always been approached by men, and never had a trouble making a man ask me out. Knowing that I’ll never have the amount of courage it takes to ask a guy out face to face, I decided to write him a note. Not having paper, I cut a little piece of my small calendar and write, “I’ve spent about an hour waiting for you to ask for my #. If your single, give me a call.” And write my phone number on the back of the paper. I look at the paper still trying to find the remainings of some courage in an empty corner of my cold body. I decide to tuck the note under his laptop, first, check if anyone is looking, of course, I don’t want someone to laugh at my unfortunate, people have laughed at me enough today. After a minute, I change my mind and take the note out, but then convince myself that it’ll be a waste of my courage and that it’s 2018 and men are not close minded as some of them were. I do this about three times, taking the note out and then tucking it back again until I just tuck it and close my eyes as I read prayers for my lost dignity and shame. I wait for him to come, and as soon as I see him walking, I put my stuff away, and walk out as he apologizes for keeping me and thanks me. I flee as a criminal running away from his crime scene. On the way home, I talk to myself out loud not knowing what I’m saying, I just know that I’ve done something I’ve never thought I would, and I don’t know if I’m proud of me or not.
At home, I pray and ask Allah to keep this man away from me if he’s bad for me in any way and to make him closer if he’s any good. I pray that he doesn’t get the note if he’s a bad person. And I tell my mother to pray for me as she watches me walk around the lunch table back and forth. On our way to class, I tell Najama about what I did, and I joke about how my reputation will be dragged through the dirt if he’s happened to be a married man and shows the note to his wife, and she exposes me in Shaax corner – a Somali ladies page on Facebook.
Hours later, as we walk out of class and into the parking lot of the college campus, I get a text from an unknown number and my heart skips a beat. Over couple confusing text, and as I cuss at myself, at the note, and at the stranger man, I come to realize that the note never reached the right person. The handsome stranger never got the note! And instead, the barista found it as he was closing the coffee shop. This man who knows me well, and made a couple of comments about how beautiful my style is or how well I did my eyeliner and had given me free ice coffee in a couple of occasions. To make matters worse for me I also realize that he knows who I am from the Naruto reference he uses as he gives advice about how to best ask a man out over a note! Well let’s just say that my beautiful days at that coffee shop are over, and I’m over here laughing at me, at the whole situation, but through it all, I was able to be my hero and reach a level of confidence and courage to which I’ve never thought I will. I also come to understand the ways in which prayers protect us. How fragile our heart can be when someone looks into our eyes. And as I write this to laugh at it decades later, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to ask another man out in my life.
Here's the best advice I've received from the barista:
“I can’t speak for all men but I’m speaking for all the men I’ve ever met before. The cool thing about guys is that they are pretty much oblivious to flirting. You could literally be batting your eyes and laughing at their stupid jokes and they’d be like “wow she was cute what a nice girl anyway I’m gonna keep watching Naruto”. They wouldn’t even think that anything was happening. They will just think that they were funny or had something on their jeans that you kept looking at.
“I can’t speak for all men but I’m speaking for all the men I’ve ever met before. The cool thing about guys is that they are pretty much oblivious to flirting. You could literally be batting your eyes and laughing at their stupid jokes and they’d be like “wow she was cute what a nice girl anyway I’m gonna keep watching Naruto”. They wouldn’t even think that anything was happening. They will just think that they were funny or had something on their jeans that you kept looking at.
With all this being said, this plays into your advantage. How you may ask; let me explain what you must do first...
All you gotta do is write your name and number and a cute little note like you wrote before and look at him, give it to him, smirk, and walk away.
Here is why this plays into your advantage:
The experience will be so emotionally jarring that they will pause their Naruto episode. They’ll think “wtf just happened. She was into me?! No way. How but cool!” They’ll experience heart palpitations. Then they will think about you and how you confidently strolled up and put yourself out there. He’ll think about how he didn’t have the guts to do that with you when it was in his mind to do it earlier.
He’ll attempt to recall the image that he has of you. Your eyes, clothing, hair. He will have a better day. He’ll think about the smirk. He’ll think about the intention. He will think about that moment on repeat until it dawns on him that it is real and that he can text you.”
Mana,
10/24/2018
10/24/2018
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