Bookshop: A Place to Meet a Potential ‘Soul Mate’

I once heard that a bookshop or a library is a good place to meet the opposite sex but didn’t quite believe it until I saw it happening during a recent trip to Reader’s Feast to hunt down a Japanese cook book by Harumi Kurihara. Another guy was travelling down the escalators with me to get to the store’s entrance. As always, I went straight to the pillar of ‘new release’ books first. After that, I went to check out the books on display behind the window. The guy with whom I shared the escalator ride to get to the store earlier was there also. He seemed nervous and I almost instantly thought it was due to my presence. To give him the space that I think he should be entitled to, I went over to the cooking books section, which is next to the window. A young Asian woman was already there. She sat on a step-up stool with a large cooking book spread open on her lap. She had parked herself right where the Asian cookbooks were and I debated whether to come back later or just check out other cookbooks until she left. I chose the later and lived to regret it. LOL. As I was flipping through a cookbook, the nervous guy from before turned up to my right and the young woman was seated to my left. I happened to look up at him and noticed that he was looking at her. Next, I felt him looking at me and when I looked up to meet his eyes; I noticed that he was trying to figure something out. No, it’s not the kind of looks a guy sends out when he is interested in a girl. Honestly, there must be something wrong with him if he was interested in me. LOL. Of course, I instantly wondered if I invaded his private space again. This time though I was unwilling to move on because I was there first. Moreover, I really wanted to check out the Asian cookbooks section to see if the book I was after was there. So, I stayed. After a couple of unbearable minutes, the guy spoke. He looked at me as he said, “So, this is where you hide during your break.” I was totally confused and thought, “Oh no, this is a friend of M and I didn’t recognise his face!” I was still wondering who he was when I heard the voice of a woman from my left saying, “Oh, I am just looking at these beautiful cookbooks.” That was when I realised that he was talking to her after all. Why would a guy like him speak to someone like me anyway? There was a brief moment of silence for a while and then I felt that he was giving me the looks again. When I looked up, he gave me a weak smile and only then I realised the non-verbal message on his face – “Beat it! Can’t a guy pick up a girl without someone like you hanging around?” I hastily retreated to an armchair between the business section and the children’s section. There I sat browsing a book on dinosaurs as I waited for the potential lovebirds to leave except that M turned up first and was quite amused by my choice of reading.
Elders have always taught children not to eavesdrop but did anyone try doing that when people are talking loudly nearby. Unlike the eyes, the ears can’t be shut to block the sounds of other peoples’ speech from filtering in. From where I was seated, I could hear the conversation that was going and it was going one way most of the time. I did try to not judge or laugh when he tried many times to impress her with his knowledge of the capital city of her home country even though she stated at least a couple of times that she was from another part of the country. I am just glad that M was not like that. We too are in an inter-racial relationship but I think I would have been quite horrified if M's initial approach was like that. The guy probably thought that she would be more at ease by displaying his familiarity of her country. I feel kind of uncomfortable when people openly display too much of what they know out loud. An overtly confident guy who is full of himself can be quite off putting.

All that waiting around was for nothing. After the lovebirds left the store, I went over to see if the Japanese cookbook I was after was there and it wasn’t there after all. M asked why I have to wait around like that when I am just as entitled to be at the bookshop as them. I should have stayed and politely asked her to move so I could check the range of Asian/Japanese cookbooks but something in me just doesn’t feel good about doing that. I just hate to interrupt certain people in certain places. Now, if I was shopping on my own that day, I would have left to try other bookstores but I was stuck that day because I was also waiting for M to turn up.