I catch a glimpse of her goldilocks curls as I pick up my board outside of the rental lodge. I do a double take, as all boys do when they think they see a pretty girl. My gaze falls on her for only an instant before I have to tear it away, because as I glimpse the strawberry blonde ringlets falling across her lightly freckled cheek, she starts to look my way, and fear seizes me. I don’t want those eyes–marked by a devasting shade of green and blue–to see me as the slack-jawed neanderthal that she has momentarily turned me into. Though I lack the faculty to form a sentence, she walks in my direction, buying me time.  I fall into stride on her left, separate but in sync. My window is wide open, but what do you say to a pretty girl in a crowd? How do I make her see me as unique from the countless goons who have gone before? How do I portray confidence without arrogance? Compassion without weakness? Intelligence without pretension?

As I continue to over-think even the simplest of introductions, opportunity sweeps in on my left:  a predator, flanked by a two subordinate members of his pack.

“Hey there sweetheart,” he calls to her. I drop back a step to give him a clear line of sight.  “Do you snowboard?”

“Mhm,” she nods, holding up the board in her hand.

“Wow, that’s sexy,” he replies, causing his two friends to chuckle like idiots, in awkward envy of his daring. “We should set a shred date.” As the girl flushes and tries to hide her face in her hair, I step in between them.

“I’m sorry, but this is getting hard to watch.” I make sure to speak up in order to drown out any further advances. “I admire your confidence, but your strategy is garbage. Not only have you objectified her twice in ten seconds, but you asked her on a date before you even asked what her name was.”

The confusion ripples across his features, and I know that anger in close behind. As the predator collects his thoughts, I steal a glance over my shoulder to make sure she’s watching.

She is.

“Why don’t you mind your own business, dude?” He says as his brow creases in what I can only assume is fury. “What the fuck do you know?” Excellent question, my stupid friend.

“First of all, you can’t tell me to mind my own business as you’re butting into someone else’s.” I start as I line up the argument in my head. “Secondly, what I know is that ‘Hey sweetheart’ is a condescending way to start a conversation. I know that having these two goons chuckling like henchmen in a Bugs Bunny cartoon is only hurting your cause. And I know that a girl like her, who is that naturally pretty, has had to deal with a hundred assholes just like you, and could do without the hassle.”

From here, the goons will usually go silent. Never having developed the proper tools to express their emotions, they will typically just smolder in quiet rage, and stare at me like they smell something unpleasant and it’s my fault. Regardless, while I do think that calling him an asshole may be excessive, I’m short on time, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about assholes, it’s that nothing pisses them off faster than being called an asshole. As I watch the rage well up behind his eyes, I can only hope that his intelligence is suffering the inverse, because he is playing his part flawlessly.

“Hey dickhead, you want to get your ass kicked?”

“Not really,” A smirk slides into place as the three of them close in around me. “Why? Do you feel like reinforcing every point I just made, as well as the meat-head stereotype?”

“Fuck you,” he shouts, inches from my face, fuming as the other two loom over his shoulders like gargoyles.

At this point, it’s time to retreat. When a predator begins to express himself solely in expletives it means that his (or her) aggression is nearing capacity, leaving little to no room for rational thought. On one hand, I can either keep talking and risk pushing him over the brink into physical violence:  a mantle his companions will undoubtedly take up. On the other hand, I can walk away now and risk looking like a pussy. Now, if I were a particularly prideful man, I’m sure that would bother me, but I didn’t go through all the effort of catching this girl’s eye just to be incapacitated in a struggle for dominance.

Instead, I wink at him, and turn away to see the girl standing against a fence post, waiting not twenty feet away.

“Where are you going, pussy?” The predator tries to grab me as I walk away, but I just roll my shoulder back, letting his hand slip right off my jacket.

“That’s right, you better walk away, fag,” the predator continues to shout as his friends pull him away toward one of the ski lifts, probably to talk about what an asshole I am, and how badly they could have beat my ass.

“Hi,” I walk toward the girl. “I promise we’re not all like that.”

“I know,” she replies with a straight face. “You didn’t need to do that, though. I could’ve handled it.”

“Oh I know. I just can’t guys like that,” I say. “Plus, my motives weren’t entirely selfless. My name’s Andy.” I take off a glove and extend my hand.

“Amanda,” she takes it with a smile. “I must admit. That was pretty funny watching him flounder like that. He had no idea what to do.”

“Why thank you. There’s something rewarding about the look on someone’s face after you’ve stunned them into silence. Would you like to join me on the mountain for a couple of runs?”

“Oh, you mean a shred date?” She asks.

“Precisely,” I nod. “I would never assume anything more.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m waiting for someone.”

“Aw,” I pretend to be wounded. “And all this time, I thought you were waiting for me.”

“Haha,” she laughs but I can’t help detecting an iciness in her voice.  “No no. I was waiting for him.” She points down the path at a broad shouldered man walking toward us, eyeing me with notable distaste.

“You know,” she leans in close and drops her voice to a whisper. “It’s not the meatheads that bother me. At least they’re straight forward. It’s the manipulative, sarcastic little fucks like you, with their smooth lines and witty comebacks. Always trying to weasel their way into my good favor, like I’m too stupid to see what’s going on.”

The blood drains from my face and the air leaves my lungs. I freeze. I’m a deer in a pair of high beams.

“Who is this guy?” Her boyfriend questions her as he gets within range.

“Hey babe,” a smirk spreads across her face. “This is Andy. He was just trying to get in my pants. Said he would show me what it’s like to be with a real man.”

“Is that right?” He squares up to me, his head clearing mine by half a foot, looking down at me with murder in his eyes.

I turn to her, wanting to plead my innocence, but my tongue is swelling up and the words won’t come out. She sees me paralyzed, and her smirk spreads to a smile. She mouths ‘Good luck,’ and then throws me a wink before walking away toward the lifts.