The Hot Man Conspiracy

I have realised that there is a conspiracy afoot. A really annoying conspiracy that is out to turn me into a bluestocking spinster.

Or at least not let me leave the current bluestocking spinster club of which I am a current member.

Hell, who am I kidding? I'm the bloody president!

Anyway, the story starts off like this...

It was lunchtime and I decided to take a trip to the local supermarket.

I could have walked but it was lashing down with rain and gale force winds were picking up speed I was far too lazy for such things as health and exercise. Bear in mind that I was heading to said supermarket to drool at their Christmas aisle while picking up a sandwich for my lunch - not exactly the actions of one who is particularly concerned about her health. Not right at that precise minute anyway.

I parked up, wondering all the while whether everyone had to submit to a partial lobotomy before entering a supermarket car park or if it was just the woman who stepped into the path of my car, then deciding to look, and then deciding to stop. Still in the path of my car. My moving car. *Sigh*

Into the shop I went, and made a beeline for the Christmas stuff. I stopped at a people snarl only to look right into the oddly shaped hairstyle on the back of one of my colleague's heads. It's distinctive. I guess this would be good time to point out that I am something of an introvert. I can speak to people and if you were to talk to me, you probably wouldn't realise my horror at having to do so. But afterwards, I must run away and hide, all the while running through every. single. nuance of the conversation, facial expressions, outfits and etc that just transpired. It's exhausting!

So it was true to form that I quickly snuck past and headed for the sanctuary of the clothing section. Thus started a conversation in my head that attempted to calculate the destination, route and probable shopping habits of someone who I barely know.

Another aside - does anyone else have this problem with people you barely know? The people I don't know - I can ignore if they ignore me. The people I know well - I'm not scared of. It's those middling people - the people with whom the conversation is awkward even before I've joined in. I'm not a fan of those people.

Anyway, I thought and contemplated and calculated. I took a trip to the back of the store and eyed up all the aisles. Sensing the coast was clear, I headed back down to the Christmas aisle. Who is likely to return to an aisle after they have been there?

I got to the bottom and, horror of horrors, spotted my colleague. And, to make matters worse, she had another colleague with her. Double the trouble, double the awkward. I did a u-turn and found myself aimlessly walking down the baby aisle. I don't have a baby. By the end of the shopping trip I had also found out that I don't have a dog, a drinking problem, a cheese obsession or a need for large quantities of sandwich bags for only £1.

I calculated probable routes once again and determined my next course of action. Heading back to the tills, I arrived at the self checkouts... and bumped straight into my colleagues. How? How does this happen?

"Oh, hello," they said. "Oh, hello," I replied, with a great imitation of someone who hasn't been running round a giant superstore trying to dodge these exact people for the last 20 minutes. I then offered them a carefree laugh that sounded more like a strangled hippo (mahhh hehrrrr rarrrrr) and strode off in the direction of the busy manned tills like a woman on a mission. I waited a good 10 minutes in a queue, all to avoid more banal chit chat and hippo sounds.

After all that, this is my gripe...

The shop is big. There are probably hundreds upon hundreds of folk in said store at any one time. Of all those people, on this occasion, I was trying to avoid just two. Yet, on multiple occasions, despite my planning and strategising, I managed to bump slap bang into them. Dammit.

With so many other people in the store (other than those I was trying to avoid) I will have to assume that at any one time, there also has to be at least one hot, single, delectable man in the store. The law of averages would assume this to be true. Ergo, whenever I am in the store, there should always be a potential husband on the loose.

Do I bump into hot, single men on multiple occasions when I'm shopping? No.

Do I have to worry that I will meet hot, single men so often around the store so that it gets embarrassing? No.

Do I see them so often that I need to plan and strategise in order to keep away from these hoards of sexy, hot men (ooh look, it changed!)? No.

Do I see hot sexy men wherever I go? Well, yes, actually.

Just kidding. No. It's always no.

Despite using the words 'potential husband on the loose' above - I can assure you that I'm not a crazed stalker in jungle khaki walking around stores with a hot, single man sized butterfly net. Because of this, I don't have any reason to think that said men are all hiding from me in the store or out (and having better luck at avoiding people than I seem to do). Please also remember that I wouldn't be able to talk to them (because I'm ignoring them as above) so they have no reason to suspect that I'm a) a babbling idiot who often imitates hippos in conversation and b) a little bit weird in general.

I can therefore only come to one conclusion: there is definitely some sort of conspiracy here.

Until I start to bump into hot men on a more regular basis, I will continue to believe that.

I'm just putting it out there into the universe to let it know that I'm onto it. I know there are games afoot and I am wise to it.