How NOT to Pick Up a Girl in a Coffee Shop

Well, the parade of horribles that I encounter at coffee shops while I study continues to grow larger.  Today I witnessed the VERY WORST WAY to try and pick-up a girl at a coffee shop.  Unfortunately, I was the target of this "meet-cute" trainwreck.

So I'm sitting at this coffee shop, minding my own business, when an older gentleman (I'd say around 40 years old), wearing a tan t-shirt with tan pants sits down next to me.  I notice that he is carrying a hiking backpack, which appears to be filled to the brim with personal possessions.  I find this to be sort of suspect, but in New Orleans, you learn to let a lot of stuff slide.  The man proceeds to pull out an older model laptop and some scraps of paper.  He then starts to google the following things: lawyers at Adams and Reese (a local law firm), the wikipedia entry for Tom Jones, and maps of locations around the city.  All the while he is furiously scribbling with ball-point pen all over the torn white pieces of paper, John Nash Style.  Although I am DYING OF CURIOSITY as to what is going on next to me, I keep to myself and do not look over at him because I have recently been told that my "chatty cathy" nature is why I tend to lure so many random undesirable strangers into speaking to me in public places.  


Eventually, he starts packing up his belongings back into his backpack, and says, "excuse me" while he unplugs his laptop.  It was then that I made a fatal mistake: I moved my chair and smiled at him and said, "sorry if i'm in the way."  I should have known that YOU NEVER FEED THE ZOO ANIMALS.  


After packing up his worldly possessions, he stands up, puts his backpack on, and then presents me with a piece of paper.  The writing on the piece of paper is written in very boxy handwritten print, which I can only describe as looking like the sort of handwriting belonging to someone with a history of writing anonymous letters to governmental authorities.  The note says: 

Hello. My name is Phillip.  Can I call you sometime?" 

I am literally so taken aback that I sit there staring at the letter.  Then I look up at this man's expectant face, only to immediately look back down at the letter.  Finally, after a painful 1-2minutes of silence, I ask, "I'm sorry, was this on the floor? Did you find this on the floor?" just HOPING AND PRAYING that this note belongs to ANYONE BUT THIS GUY.  The man stands there, completely silent and mute.  Like I would with any uncooperative witness, I try a different line of questioning.  So I say, very slowly and deliberately, "What. Is. This." There is more silence.  Finally, out of sheer desperation I say, "I'm confused?" He responds, very slowly, "It is a note I wrote you."  I sit there in silence, looking down at this letter, deciding what my best course of action from here is.  So I hand the note back to him, and say, very slowly, "...no...I don't think that is a good idea. No. Sorry, no." He then takes the note, and proceeds to back away from me, all the while smiling.

After he is out the door, I notice that the entire area of the coffee shop around me had stopped to watch this aborted attempted at courtship.  I then look down at my lap, put in headphones, and start furiously typing.

Here is my question: What was "Phillip" hoping out of this exchange? Was he going to stand there silently and wait for me to write down my phone number for him? Nevermind the fact that I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A PEN ON MY TABLE.  Did he expect me to just give him my number without even ever once speaking to me? What if I had taken the piece of paper and written "Yes" on it.  Would he have then put down his backpack, pulled out a pen, and written, "What is your phone number?"on the paper and hand it back to me?

When he handed me the piece of paper, I *literally* expected this to become like so many exchanges I had with gypsies on the trains of Europe.  Something like, "Hello. I am sorry to bother you. My name is Phillip.  I am homeless and in need of money to get back to West Virginia where my family lives. I have 20 kids and they are hungry. Please help by giving me $100." Also, maybe it is my crippling fear of rejection speaking, but wouldn't it have been better to have written his phone number on a piece of paper and hand it to me? That way there is no risk of face-to-face rejection.

Having said all of this, I know as soon as I get home my mother is going to chide me for letting this one get away.  "Layne," she'll say, "you really ought to be less picky.  So what if he looks like he was masterminding some sort of elaborate terrorist plot involving local maritime lawyers and aging British pop singers to take place at Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World? You aren't 21 anymore. You never know, maybe he was a doctor."