Dream Weaver

This is a post specifically for guys—although I would imagine it would strike a chord with many girls, too. Have you ever been standing in line in a store, or maybe at a ball game or something, and you see her? There she is: none other than the girl of your dreams. You expect Dream Weaver to be playing any second over the intercom, and an angelic light to show up behind her accented by a soft breeze and a glowing tan. Okay, maybe I’ve seen too many movies. But, you get the point, don’t you?

This happened to me today. I was standing in line at the video store, and this girl walked in with a group of her friends (which made her that much scarier!). She really wasn’t the kind of beautiful that made you want to put her on the cover of Vogue; I mean I did a double take, but it wasn’t something that just makes the masses drool. She had a natural beauty that many women don’t have—nothing glamorous, just beautiful. Does this make sense? She looked to be about 20. She was about 5’6” with long wavy blonde hair. She had a quiet face—the kind that takes you a while to get used to, but when you do it captivates you every time. You know the kind I am talking about. Those are the ones that keep you attracted for years and years. This girl had a lip ring on the left side of her bottom lip (something that I always find especially cool. I don’t know what it is about them, but I love them. Actually, I think that half their charm is that I have never dated a girl that looked like that and they look like the kind of girl that my mother would hate. This makes them much more attractive, you know?). She wore clothes that said she cared how she looked, but not enough to go overboard with it on unnecessary days. I like that. I can’t stand extremes on both sides of the equation.

I would imagine this rings a bell. What do you do? If you are like me you look in her general direction more times than is necessary (every now and then making that wonderfully awkward eye contact that says that she notices you, too), and want so badly to go talk to her. I wonder her name and where she is from. I wonder if she thinks I am cute—half as cute as I think she is. I wonder what I would ask her about if I did talk to her. I think about the embarrassment if she thinks I am creepy. I get scared and I get nervous. But I never go talk to her. All of the things that I feel and wonder are good, but the not going and talking is, in so many ways, not.

Have you ever heard that Dave Matthews song Little Thing? It is a song about this very thing (it is on Live at Luther College—which is his best album anyways—so go check it out). Dave talks about the girl from whom he got directions one random day in New York City. He, like so many of us, did not go talk to her, and he spends an entire song devoted to the emotion of regret about not having done so. I think I relate exactly. She will be know as “the girl that I saw then” for the rest of his life. That is kind of a shame, don’t you think?

What is the message of this random post? Perhaps nothing—it might just be me needing to vent a pointless idea. Or perhaps there is an important message here: it is that we should take risks and talk to those random “dream girls.” Undoubtedly we would find the overwhelming majority of these girls to be nothing more than an extreme disappointment on many levels—but at least we would know that for sure. You know, we only live once. I say we start taking those opportunities to make a fool of ourselves. Who knows…maybe we’ll meet one who really is a “Dream Weaver.”