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Approach | Mar 04 2002

She was an artist, so I figured she’d appreciate a different approach. Or that was my hope. Plus I couldn’t bear the thought of calling and asking chitchatty questions before getting to the point, particularly since the point would be obvious from the get-go. Better to skip all that. Better to establish from the start that I’m the kind of person who isn’t ruled by convention, who isn’t afraid of experimentation, who embraces irony but is not paralyzed by it, a playful person, an artist, much like her, although nothing like her. Plus I was scared I’d fuck it up.

So I called her (I’d gotten the number from a mutual friend) and said, “Hi, Kathy, this is Michael, would you go out with me?” Except I didn’t bother to pause much between the words, so it sounded more like, “Hi Kathy this is Michael wouldyougooutwithme?”

She laughed, or chuckled, something between a laugh and a chuckle, and said, “Yes.”

“Wow, that’s great,” I said, “really?”

“Sure,” she said, “why not?”

After that, I was forced to improvise.