She sat by herself at the bar of the restaurant. Her only company was a book. I sidled up near her, two stools apart, maybe three, as casual as I could muster. I would quote what I said, but my attempt at a joke sputtered out of me so poorly that I’m not even sure it made sense. She looked up at me and there was a moment of silence between us so awkward, you could have stabbed me in the groin and I wouldn’t have noticed.

Her face quickly went from confusion to disgust. My mind raced for some sort of recovery. Some sort of new, more clever joke to make up for my failed attempt at my original, semi-clever joke. Nothing came.

In the past, I sulked away in this situation having embarrassed myself again. But this time something in me snapped—or not snapped, but rather, something resigned itself. I sighed and said, “I’m sorry, I was trying to be clever. I just wanted to say hi.”

The air eased between us a bit. Her disgust faded and she gave me kind of a friendly grin, “It’s OK. It was a nice try… I guess.”

I laughed, …