i'm a magnet

I am a magnet for middle aged loser Arab men. This is a well known fact. proved yet again by: So... I'm walking out of the cafe, and a few paces behind me is another patron from said cafe. and i am initially glad because it is late and there was a very scary mentally ill man in there a few minutes before--conspiracy theorist, shouting lewd things to the deep-inhale laughing loan agent. i feel safer with a patron walking behind me, why? because we learned in class the other day that mutual connections, even as tenuous as being in the same coffee shop create links--as in "protect me from that mentally deranged lunatic!!" links. he jogs to catch up with me. so we chat about the cafe, about their 2-for-1 muffins after 4pm, about how he is from Egypt, he seems to be around 50 and he has been in america for 30 years and he is really american through and through.(poor thing, he blurted it out as if i might have snapped my fingers and gathered a lynch mob) and i say "oooh, i'd love to visit egypt" (sort of a lie, besides pyramids, i hear it sort of blows) and he says "you must be older to visit egypt, you youngsters go over and only see pyramids and hookah." i laugh--though flattered that he thought i was the age to be a contiki-esque traveler--"party! let's make out in front of the mummy and play quarters, woooo!!!"

and then i make my mistake, i say "oh, i should also wait to get a husband, i hear it can be dangerous..." well, then he says "oh, you are single?" and immediately i am like "no, i have a boyfriend" and he said "boyfriend is nothing" and i said "well, i'm very flattered, but we are planning on getting married, we just arent officially engaged." "oh," he says, "to get your phone number is my plan all along...you have a beautful smile." I laugh "well, i'm very flattered, but yes, we are getting engaged any day now." it was nice to meet me anyway, he says. how nice. you know, people probably think i am paranoid because i almost always have rings on my left ring finger. it's not like i'm beating away sheikhs here, people. oh no. let us count: i got one marriage proposal from abdul--around age 50 as well-- on route 9, who worked graveyard at the texaco and gave me three days to consider whether or not to marry him as he held my diet coke hostage. we have toothless chicken wrap man from the night market in taiwan who offered to make me his second wife....and a share in the ali baba chicken stand...tempting...and then there is mohammed, who lives in a building that is basically a cheap hostel for foreign exchange students, but which relies on a few cheap year-round residents for steady income, and who talks up the two-for-one muffin special at It's a Grind, well, that is actually a good deal, but the fact that he thought I was like 22 and yet still persisted in trying to get my phone number isn't so much. now...call me discriminating, and downright picky, but which one of these wonders should tempt me so much in the first 5 minutes that i would abandon my general desire to marry someone within two decades of my own age? a person who, say, has a day job, a full set of teeth, or some hair--on his head? am i being unreasonable, here? i don't think so. again, persnickety me, but i think it's a warning sign when someone mentions marriage within the first 5 minutes of meeting me, when it pertains to marrying said me. and when it seems that they actually have confidence that this little ploy might work. do i look that sad? i need to lose some weight. if i am going to get hit on by creeps, i'd at least like to have the prospect of getting taken somewhere better than Fidel's Deli down the street if i am ever too tired to refuse the necessary five times. i want to graduate to rejecting slick creepy guys--maybe in their thirties or forties rather than fifties. with sportscars to mask their inadequacy. is that too much to ask?