I've always considered myself a romantic. But how much of this quality is truly my own? And/or how much of it is just a product of 80s & 90s rom coms and high school dramas? In today's episode, I’m going to tell you a story about one of these moments and I’ll let you be the judge.
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Story performed by: Aaron Calafato
Story co-creator & additional Vocals: Rob Montague
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Orginal Music: thomas j. duke
Original Art: Pete Whitehead
Additional Vocals: Cori Birce
If you like stories, you most likely enjoy reading. If that's the case, I’m recommending a podcast called Professional Book Nerds. Check them out wherever you get your pods!
7Min S2 E35 She looked like Alicia Keys - powered by Happy Scribe
This is an important prologue, as it's going to set you up not just for the rest of this episode, but for the next two weeks of episodes. It all started with a phone call from my friend, filmmaker Rob Montague. Montague—one of my favorite last names of all time. Rob and I were having a deep conversation, and we were talking about what it was like to grow up in the '80s and '90s as latchkey kids, kids that had working parents, or, in our case, broken homes. As kids, we spent a crazy amount of time watching movies and TV.
I told Rob that while that did suck, that I didn't know where I'd be without movies and TV. But Rob seemed a bit more cynical. I resisted and said, "Hey, look, Rob, growing up, I was a little dude with a Napoleon complex. That TV, the movie theater blockbuster, watching all those movies at home by myself, that's where I learned, for example, the courage to pursue girls with confidence. Those '90s movies where the outsider or the underdog has to overcome all the odds and make a grand gesture of love to stand out from the pack and impress the girl he's trying to court."
Rob paused. He said, "Yeah, but dude, if you really think about it, those movies were really creepy." Now I paused. Rob goes on. He says, "For example, do you really think it's okay to show up unwanted to a girl's house with a boom box over your head, blasting music outside her window?" He's referencing the movie Say Anything and others of its ilk.
He goes on. He says, "They brainwashed us to think that it's okay to disrespect women's boundaries". I thought about it for a second. My stomach dropped because, frankly, I have and I have to say, especially in my earlier years, I've always thought of myself as a romantic guy. I was the guy who made the grand jester.
I've given away necklaces, paintings. I broke out into monologues and soliloquies to express my affection. But am I really just a weirdo? Where is the line? Was this desire to be like this, my own my own human nature? Or am I just a product of '80s and '90s romcoms and high school dramas?
Today, I'm going to tell you a story about one of these moments that I've experienced, and I'll let you be the judge. Make sure and stay tuned after the story for the outro, as I'm briefly going to speak with Rob Montague. We're going to preview what you can expect to hear from both a male and a female perspective on the following two episodes as we further break down this story and topic.
It was the summer between my freshman and my sophomore year in college. I get this paid internship opportunity out in the Washington, D.C. area, specifically Crystal City at a company called Amteum. Couldn't pass it up. I'm in my early 20s, excited, first time out of Ohio, really like working and living. I jump at the chance.
In the first couple of weeks, the company does this really cool thing, where they have these during-the-day-young-networking-seminars, essentially, where they take interns like me. And they bring in other early career folks, years 1-3, basically just a bunch of early 20s, late 20s professionals in one room just talking to each other. It was really great.
As a young guy in college, I'm coming into my own. I'm interested in dating women. I'm looking around, you know what I'm saying? Not being weird, but just looking around, just noticing the room. I'm reading the room.
First few days go by. Nothing comes my way. Next thing I know, they bring in a new group from across the street. The same company, just different building across the street. They come in there. We're all settling in. I'll never forget.
I'm sitting there having my coffee. I look across the room, and there's this young lady who sits down, and she looks exactly like Alicia Keys, I mean, exactly. No exaggeration. I have to do a triple take.
I'm thinking, did they bring a guest speaker in? Do we get a guest musical performer? This is awesome. But the more I look, I realize this isn't Alicia Keys. She just resembles her, almost identically.
As I'm looking her way, I notice she looks at me. And I kind of look away because I didn't want to look like I was staring, so I kind of look away. Then I look back at her, and she's smiling at me. Oh, she's smile at me, so I smile back, and I kind of look away.
Look back at her. She's smiling again. She waves. I look behind me, see if there's someone else she's waving to. I don't want to look like a jackass here.
She's looking at me, smiling at me, waving at me. So I wave back, "How are you doing?" It was a great feeling. As the meeting goes on, I'm thinking, "You know what? This girl is very attractive. I should make a grand gesture here."
I felt like, "You know what? I'm in Washington, D.C. I'm on my own. Why don't I ask this girl on a date, ask her to coffee." The meeting goes on. Don't get a chance to talk with her.
As soon as the meeting ends, everybody jumps up, and there's a mad rush to the door. I'm like, "No, I can't get to her." She ends up hitting the first elevator down, and I'm standing in front of the elevator. She's gone out of my life. I don't know if I'm ever going to see her again.
I started asking around. I'm like, "Hey, you know this girl? You know this girl? You know her name?" No one really knows. I'm thinking, "Do I just leave it at that? I don't know." Something in me said, "Just ask her for a cup of coffee."
But how do I do it? See we didn't have Facebook back then like on our phones. There wasn't a great way to look up someone. I mean, you really using social media there is really you could only ask if a friend had their number or you just had to look them up on the internet, which is even broad back then.
But I knew she worked in the company, so I decided to take an extra step. Okay, don't judge me. I took an extra step, did some reconnaissance, went to my office, looked at the company website, and I started looking at the different departments to see if I could find her. Didn't know her name, so I'm scrolling through.
Luckily, she had been there, I think a couple of years. In one of the departments, they had her head shot in her bio and her name and her email. My heart's pounding. "Do I do it? Well, I do."
Write her an email, and I basically say, "Hey, I know this might come off weird. If you don't want to return this, no worries. Just wanted to put it out there. I thought you were really pretty and I wanted to ask you a cup of coffee. Didn't get a chance to do it.
Let me know if you're open to it. If not, no worries. I send it. Two hours later, she writes back. She says, "Yes." I'm fired up.
Next day, I run across the street during lunchtime. We meet at this cafe. When I get there, I see that she's sitting outside with a friend. Smart. Just making sure I'm not a different guy, or I'm not a weirdo, or whatever.
As soon as the friend and her see me, she waves her friend off and it's like, "We're good." We meet up and we have the cup of coffee. It was great. Mission accomplished for that day for that coffee. Because we tried a second date, and we realized our personalities were way polar. Totally different. Didn't really have great conversation.
It's so funny because of how I felt just from that initial look. What just eye contact or someone's physicality does and you paint this picture. Then you meet them and you're like, "Yeah, we're okay." I'm sure she felt the same way.
But here's the thing. My point is, it doesn't matter if it was just one coffee. I started thinking to myself when I had this conversation with Rob that I was telling you about, "Did I cross a line there? I don't think I did. I may have taken it up a notch, but it was mutual."
More importantly, what informs mine and our strategy when we pursue people we're attracted to? How much of that is us and how much of it comes from the way we were raised and the media we consumed? I look forward to unpacking this and more in the next couple of weeks.
Hey, it's Cori. Thanks for listening to the story today. To preview next week, here's a quick phone chat between Aaron and Rob Montague. Don't forget, the following week, I'll be weighing in on the subject.
We want to hear your thoughts about today's story topic. Drop us a line and share your thoughts at 7msfeedback@gmail.com. That's the number 7msfeedback@gmail.com. Talk to you soon.
Hey, what's up, man?
Rob, hey. Did you hear the story?
I did. It was great, dude.
I appreciate it and thanks for the inspiration for it, man. I'm crediting you as inspiring this whole three-part series.
Well, I mean, it's something I've got a lot of thought to for quite some time.
That's why I wanted to actually bring you into next episode. If you're cool with that, I wanted to set this up. Basically we talk and for next Thursday's episode, it's going to feature seven minutes with you because I want to give people an insight what it's like to talk with you, by the way, but also just from a phone call. I know seven minutes compared to our long hour long conversations. It's nothing-
We definitely get off some rabbit holes.
We do. It will be seven minutes with you next week to get the unique male perspective of this whole thing. I'm going to focus on three questions that I wanted you to tackle. The first one is going to be after hearing the seven-minute story that people just heard today, do you think I acted like a creep? Don't answer now. Just think about it.
The second part I want you to think about is the grand romantic gesture that's in these movies that I've talked about, is the grand romantic gesture something that's been with humans for all time and when does it cross the line? That's the second part. Then lastly, this third part, were '80s and '90s movies and TV from that time period, was it harmful in how they portrayed the pursuit of love? That's the third part.
I will have a lot to say about those subjects.
But we're going to try to condense it into seven minutes. Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.
All right. No problem, man.
Talk to you soon.
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