Fun & Famous

guys, why do you do this?

A few weeks back I was hanging out at my local café waiting for a friend I had made plans with. As per usual she was late, give or take twenty minutes. I went and sat in ‘our’ corner, ordered a beer for myself and a glass of wine for her and out of routine, I grabbed my iPhone.

That’s when I realized that even in my own city, I’m hardly ever somewhere without having something to do. Compris? When I’m off traveling on my own, I’m completely affirmed going to for dinner by myself and heck, I even enjoy it. A bit of looking around, a bit of staring, a bit of day dreaming. But in Amsterdam, where I live, it feels weird being somewhere without a clear goal. The solution: my iPhone. I’ll spend my time continuously refreshing Instagram, Facebook and Twitter hoping to come across a fun new update to check out. Just so I have something to do. Absurd, right?

So I decided to just sit there and not to anything besides look around. Look at the people who were just like me, spending their Friday evening drinking a beer and with one foot into a night that would most likely result in a hang over and bad decisions. A couple tables further than that of my own were a group a guys. I’d say about 40 or 50 years old. There were six of them and you could tell that when they were younger, they had definitely been a good looking bunch. One of them had even aged very well, George Clooney-ish, like a fine red wine.

”I’ll spend my time continuously refreshing Instagram, Facebook and Twitter hoping to come across a fun new update to check out.”

Whatever the case was, I was there, as were they. And since I wasn’t being distracted by my phone I was looking around instead and that’s when I saw them. And I noticed that they saw me and were all staring at me rather shamelessly. Not just for a mere few seconds, but for a long time. A really long time. A cigarette long time. I started to feel uncomfortable, texted my friend to ask where the hell she was and I was desperately trying to avoid eye contact and to get them to look the other way. But they didn’t. They kept looking and clearly I was their topic of discussion, but actually having the nerve to walk on over and strike up a conversation – hell no.

It doesn’t happen all too often because generally speaking I usually couldn’t care less about silly little things like this, but these guys were making me literally feel like I was butt naked seated across from them. It was so goddamn obvious that I was being body checked and as for the guys in question, they couldn’t give a flying f*ck. If you’re going to shamelessly stare and talk about me, then you might want to grow a pair of balls and actually come up and say something to my face.

My friend finally showed up, and I told her exactly what I’ve just written here and we decided to drink to all those dirty old men and how pathetic they can be. Okay, I know, what’s it to anyone. The next time I feel goggly eyes staring my way, I’m just going to grab my phone. To take a picture of them and post it on Twitter. You know, so they’ll know what it feels like to be unwillingly looked at.