I 'Heart' U

I was handed this scribbled note on a napkin at a bar last weekend in DC by a short, slight chick who smiled and turned away. I asked, “What the…?”
She turned back to me expectantly and answered, “Someone passed this to me. Give it to someone else.”
Then she half-laughed, half-giggled as if I were now privy to her deceit and somehow would succumb and acknowledge my part to play in the wider chain of recipients and note-passers.
“Why would I do that?” I asked, a little repulsed by what I perceived as an insulting endeavor. Why would I want to pass a note with such a brave and profound statement to another person who I did not know and would not want to bother which such emotional obscenity?
She answered, “ ‘cause it’s fun.”
“No it’s not! How is that fun to smash someone else’s confidence when all they have left after such a provocative phrase is a crumpled napkin?”

Now while our conversation lasted a few moments longer than the transcript above, I did my best to explain in my least heavy-handed way that I was not appreciative, she did insist that I keep the napkin. I tried to return it to her but this was met with stark refusal so I kept the napkin in my pocket only to discover it again as I was being full-body searched at Reagan National.

I remembered the incident and through the haze of a few afternoon Guinness, I pondered whether receiving such a disingenuous confession would lift or lower spirits. While I did not think it was convincingly amusing at the time, I can appreciate that the chick recognized me of many, and being singled out at a bar is never a bad thing regardless of the falseness of the message.

Even so, playing puppeteer with emotions of the romantic nature is certainly akin to playing with its hot and tempestuous figurative cousin, fire. And no one likes to have romantic hopes raised only to have those hopes serve as a humiliating reminder of temporary bar-room loneliness. Yes, my friend had the prospect of matching, while I stood in the cigarette pit outside, puffing smoke.