To skirt or not to skirt

Seven years into my teaching career, i decided to wear a skirt to work today. For the first time. A short one.

As a result i received many a compliments, verbal and not so verbal ones. The verbal ones were mostly from people who knew me, colleagues and graduate students, all females. Men, i just got looks, ah those shy creatures! As i was making my way to the parking lot, in the elevator i got the penultimate compliment, by its last entrant, another female grad student. As she was expressing her appreciation, 'oh, that looks so good on you etc. etc.', out speaks the other occupant of the elevator, an unknown man. 'You know i was thinking the same, but didn't know if it was an appropriate thing for me to say'.

Now this prompts me to tell you a favorite story of mine, written by Guy de Maupassant. But as a prelude to that let me narrate two more episodes from my university life.

It starts like this. Six years ago, quand j'étais un jeune professeur...

Scene 1: ...this student of mine asks me out (by this time he graduated and found a job), first verbally, then by email. At first, i keep pretending not to have understood his advances, and then one day he shows up in my office and asks me out again in front of my colleague, i suppose to make it legit? Given the fact that he was the best student in my class (and a literature major at that!), i wanted to let him down easy. So i take him out for coffee and let him see that there is nothing in common between us, and that his attraction was probably a mélange of adulation and my hotness factor (lol, sorry but c'est vrai!). Anyway, it was what i call, a very nicely done 'Thanks, but no thanks' (if i may say so myself!).

Then there was the other one.

Scene 2: A rookie prof meets a rookie electrician by the said elevator. Think Ricky Martin minus the gay vibe. He introduces himself, and asks for my name. Pretty bold, huh, i think, who dare hits on a prof, soon realizing, he probably took me for a student. I mutter a short form of my name, and make a quick exit in my elevator (i tell you, if only that elevator could talk!). I see him a few other times on my way to the elevator, with him trying to strike up a convo and me trying to leave the scene, lest i start liking him.

Then one day, i realize i did start liking him. Alas, the next day, he makes his boldest move and follows me to my building, only to find out who i was. From then on, he kept his distance, just nodded like all the other guys that just look and nod as i pass by their shop every day on my way to the elevator.

Now comes the final story. Once upon a time in the great land of french countryside there was a couple (X & Y) and their bachelor friend Z. Z had a huge crush on X but thought he would never measure up to be someone who can be with her. The story opens with an old Z running to an old X (Y is dead by now and everyone is real old) to find out once and for all, if she would have said yes to him, had he asked for her hand. Okay, so i completely killed the poetic aura, but in a nutshell that's just about it!

Her answer, 'yes, dummy, i would have said yes.'

Ditto for me. To the shop dude.

So this is what i say to all you guys out there. Don't skirt around the wish. Be bold. Go after the one you want. So what if you get rejected? Get back up and dust yourselves off. You are men, aren't you?

Take a chance. You will never know what's in store for you unless you try.

Yep!