The Context
A couple of weeks ago while driving home one evening after work, I decided to pull into my favorite convenience store (Spell's Grocery on Lee Road in Covington, LA for anyone wondering) to pick up a cold beverage and a pack of smokes just as I have done hundreds if not thousands of times over the years. This was no ordinary pit-stop however, as I would soon find out.
 | |
| Photo: Spell's Grocery (right) and Amy's Place (left) on Lee Road in Covington |
Everything seemed normal enough at first. I went inside the store, got what I needed and checked out. As I was walking to my car (a black '95 Mercedes Benz 300E - Diesel), I heard a pounding on the glass coming from the beauty salon next door to Spell's. I abruptly turned around to find Holly (that's not her real name, but that's what we'll call her), one of the hairdressers, aggressively motioning me to come into the beauty salon.
The Ladies at the Beauty Parlor Told Me... (that I had a hot date)
Upon entering, she promptly and in no uncertain terms informed me that I would be taking her Cousin Daisy (that's not her real name either, but you get the point) out on a date. Naturally, I was a bit taken aback by all of this, so I in a noncommittal but polite way asked if she had any photos of her cousin. She did. Much to my surprise, the girl in the photos was not the one with the 'nice personality' I was expecting, but much to the contrary was quite attractive.
Without giving pause, I agreed to the date. It wouldn't happen for a couple of weeks, as she attends college several hours away from where I reside, and any date would have to occur on a weekend when she came home to visit her family.
Sure, I figured there must be something very wrong with the girl. I mean, what kind of gorgeous female college student has so much trouble meeting guys that she needs her cousin back in her hometown to set her up on a date? Beats me too, but several weeks ago I decided to stop questioning it.
The Girl
Anyway, so I call her, and we go out. The date went well enough. Our waitress at the restaurant was incompetent, which put us on a tight time-frame, but she handled being forced to rush through her dinner with class and elegance, and somehow managed to turn the negative into an overall positive as she impressed me with her ability to roll with the punches as I did her when I took control of the situation (which I eventually did do).
All-in-all, she's a delightful girl. For one thing, she's downright beautiful. She's intelligent, classy, graceful, popular (she has over 1,600 Facebook friends and is not a professional social media marketer, web publisher or SEO), somewhat charming and definitely a whole lot of fun to be around. We have plans to go out again the next time she's in town, and she has told me her plans are to move back home at the end of the semester and transfer to a school that's closer to home.
For a while there I suspected her age may become an issue. She's a young one, still a few months away from being of legal drinking age (that's age 20 for those of you in Rio Linda). However, even those things I initially saw as likely drawbacks had not materialized as such --- at least until now.
The Problem: She Has "Bieber Fever"
You see, it was with great regret that I recently came across an extremely unsettling status update on her Facebook page that has me rethinking my entire assessment of this girl and questioning whether or not she's even date-worthy material.
She has the Bieber Fever and appears to be perfectly content with it. I just don't know how safe I would feel being alone with a young woman who suffers from Bieber Fever.
We've all seen the headlines: "Teen Survives Justin Bieber-Inspired Death Threats;" "Selena Gomez (and/or Kim Kardashian) Getting Death Threats From Bieber Fans;" "Bieber Fans Go On Grammy-Fueled Wikipedia Rampage."
Can I really feel safe around this girl? What if I slip up and make some joke about the androgynous singer (See! Like that) that she doesn't find to be funny? What if it just downright offends her and angers her so much she feels compelled to take action? Would she actually attack me physically, or would her assaults be confined to the world of the social web? Which of the two (being attacked physically or staring down angry hoards of teenage girls online) would be more harmful to my wellbeing?
Right now I'm just not sure what to do. This could be a passing phase, but then again there's never before been a Justin Bieber and science has found no cure to date for Bieber Fever. Is it likely to happen at some point in the future? Maybe, but how sure can a guy be?
I have more questions than answers at this point. If I had to make a decision today, I suppose it would be to proceed with caution, but that could change at any moment.
Any advice on what to do would be greatly appreciated. Please share any insights you may have in the comments.
Happy Valentines Day to all my family, friends, readers and fans!
Happy Valentines Day to all my family, friends, readers and fans!
make her take this Bieber Fever flowchart to find out for sure. I think it will help.
ReplyDeleteThe final results of the poll showed that readers and fans were overwhelmingly in support of me playing it safe and "losing" her phone number or finding some other seemingly innocuous reason to avoid calling her ever again. The final tally had nearly four in every five voters telling me to do what deep down I already knew was coming up the turnpike and let this one down lightly if at all possible, and let her down hard if she refuses to go quietly.
ReplyDelete77% of voters said "ditch her" with just 23% supportive of giving her a chance to prove her heinous remark about the Mylie Cyrus look-alike was merely an aberration.
UPDATE: I took the good advice of 77% of my wonderful readers and fans and had not spoken with the girl from the time of the writing through the date on which the poll closed and the votes were tallied.
I offer my most sincere thanks to all who participated!