I'm Smart: #3

What I learned at last weekend’s academic conference:

3. When a man (in the academy) asks me a question do not automatically assume it’s a picking-up line

Okay, so here's an embarrassing story from last weekend.

The conference had an event each night, usually a reception with food and drinks. The first night I went to a reception that was open to everyone. There was a small dance-floor hosting the worst and 'whitest' dancers you've ever seen and I was not planning on getting out there. But, I was coerced by someone I did not even know to get out there anyway and I found myself dancing with a group of about 6 people, one of which was a well known professor at my university. Awkward! So, a couple songs later I ditched the scene and tried to forget that it ever happened.

The next night I was at a reception for my school. There was no dancing (thank God) but it was in a tiny room and overflowing with people. So, I was squeezing through the crowd when a man about 6 inches from my face says to me, "You look like a particularly good dancer I saw last night." Forgetting all about the fact that I did in fact dance the night before I thought he was telling me that he had been to a strip-club and that I look like a stripper. So, in true sassy-Grace form I said to him, "Really! Is that supposed to be a pick-up line?"

"Uh, no." He said, " I guess I just thought I saw you out there last night."

"No!" I say back to him, thoroughly disgusted by his audacity.

So, he replies with, "Is this the kind of place you usually get hit-on?"

And, I say (with even more sass), "It's happened in stranger places."

"So, you weren't out on the dance-floor last night?"

"OH! The dance-floor! YES! I was. Now I recognize you."

And before I even finish that last sentence the man squeezed by me and disappeared for the rest of the night.

LOL (blush). I keep wondering if I'll see him on campus and feel like the freak who thought he was a creep.