Esmeralda, Hitting on *Me*?

I can see now, firsthand, how salsa dancers should never hook up and break up, there's always bad blood involved. So here's my story.

Referring back to the last email Esmeralds sent me, I believe that she only sees me as a friend. The original blog is titled "interesting Words from Crush 2" on march 20. Although it extended through 3 mails this was the last thing she said:

"Jimmy, if I would have seen you when I walked into the place I would have said hello
but I didn't... My mind was elsewhere that day because so many things happened.
But like I said before it felt like I never got the opportunity to say hello. I
didn't realized it was going to bother you...Anyhow, hope we can keep being friends
without hard feelings. I think you are a real cool guy and would like to get to
know you as a friend."

Unless she's clueless to how telling a guy you see him as a "friend" is equivalent to giving him his last meal before the electric chair, I took it that she didn't have any interest in me. Since then I've only seen her once and the last thing I expected was for her to show up at of all places, Club Miami....on a slow Thursday night. Geez.

I haven't gone to a Thursday night in ages to Club Miami because it's just slow over there. I went out tonight because my two friends, Tami and Maggie, finally made an appearance to come out salsa dancing. The last time they went salsa dancing was probably a year ago.

Although my phone ran out of batteries, it didn't stop Jose from leaving me voicemails telling me that the whole gang is heading to Miami's tonight.

So I'm at the club for not too long, danced once with Maggie, Marisol, and Johanna, I hang out with Maggie and Tami at one of the back couches in the club. I'm sitting there and I look towards the lower steps and I see this girl walking by with a really nice red top...the kind you can tie in the back from top to bottom and is in the same style as back in the days where women used them to make their waists smaller. I only caught the side of her face but from where I'm at...she was cute, then I realized she looked an awful like Esmeralda.

Esmeralda would be the last person I would expect on a Thursday, at Miami, without her usual crew. I can spot her crew from awhiles away but I didn't see the usual suspects. Eventually she passes by again and settles at a table directly in front of my field of vision, aways back. I realize now it's Esmeralda.

"Great" I wondered. She was talking to a guy with the side of her face towards me. I wasn't sure if she saw me or not but eventually I believe she did...as her back eventually became towards me instead.

As I was giving my friends Maggie and Tami the scoop on Esmeralda, I observed a few times her looking towards my direction. My friends *also* told me that they can see that she's been looking at me.

Jose and I eventually meet up and I tell him "Hey, Esmeralda's here."

"Yeah I know" he replies. "I know the guys she's with. When I came in I saw them first and then she suddenly stands up and says "Hiii! How are you?" and I said "Ummm, not so good now.""

"Why? What's wrong?" she asks him. "Oh, no reason" he replies. Jose didn't like seeing her at the club, and I'm sure he probably was thinking that it was going to be awkward between me and her.

So throughout the night I did not acknowledge that she was there, although I wasn't sure how long I could do that...the club's not that big so I'm sure eventually we'd have to cross paths one way or another.

"The guys she's hanging out are a bunch of players" Jose tells me. These guys also have girlfriends but he's seen them making out with other girls before.

I did a good job avoiding her, although now Jose tells me that she's been checking me out the whole night.

Eventually I ended up outside chatting away with one of the security guys by the restrooms. I had a good feeling she'll eventually come out this way, however I couldn't hide as my conversation with the security guy was pretty in-depth.

Esmeralda eventually *does* head towards the bathroom but not before her spotting me and coming over and saying hi.

So she's looking at me with wide opened eyes and gives me a hug and kisses me on the cheek. "How are you?" she asks in a happy mood. "I'm doing good" I reply after she releases me.

She's too close to me. I would imagine if you hugged someone you'd at least step back out of the person's zone of comfort but no, she's standing *right* in front of me. She's so close that I could see the hair in her nostrils. Yeah, *that* close.

"So why haven't you emailed or called me? I haven't heard from you since my last email." She says.

Well gee, I don't know why I wouldn't try contacting you again. "What do you mean? I haven't gotten any emails from you recently. *You* have a phone you can always call me you know." I say.

At this point I introduce her to security, and so they make some quick small talk until she turns to me and asks "So, what have you been up to?"

Before I could answer security continues to talk (he likes to talk) so I shifted the attention to him instead. So he's talking and she then asks me again "So, what have you been up to?"

That's two times she's asked! I suppose she's trying to talk to me. Funny thing is before I could answer her this time my drunk friend Audrey stumbles over and makes some comments about something, while having a beer and a cigarette both in one hand.

"Hello my drunk friend!" I tell Audrey, shifting the focus onto him. "Hey Jimmy, don't say that to me!" "Hey, I'm just being honest" I inform him. "Okay, well don't be that honest with me!" he continues in his drunken state.

I guess at this point Esmeralda either needed to use the restroom or figured that I wasn't going to talk to her and heads to the restroom. After she was done there she never stopped by. Later throughout the night I think she was still checking me out, although I'm not sure because I spent the rest of the night dancing!

Oh well. Just to be nice I sent her an email telling her I don't have her email:

"Hello, you didn't come back after going to the restroom. I didn't get a chance to tell you that I don't have your number. Anyway, can't anticipate me calling or emailing you if you give/make the same effort back. catch you later."

I think this email will get my pont across.