HEY! I'm READING here!

What's up with creepiness at Barnes and Noble?  The store seems to attract a particular group of patrons (excepting you and I, of course) whose mothers never taught them not to stare.  And that following people is creepy.  Why do I think this?  Because, particularly at the Barnes and Noble on Maynard in Cary, I have had at least three uncomfortable shopping experiences that have left me researching my purchases online ahead of time and going in to find and buy quickly, instead of browsing, having a coffee, and relaxing in one of those huge, overstuffed armchairs I love so much.  

The first of these instances that comes to mind was about 18 months ago and involved an individual that I have subsequently and creatively named Guy In The Blue Hat.  I was doing my own thing, browsing in the Christian Inspiration section.  I was looking for a particular Donald Miller book and enjoying myself quite a bit.  I hadn't been there long, however, when I noticed Blue Hat in the next aisle over, gawking uncomfortably.  Now I know I was a beautiful sight in my company t-shirt, ponytail, and glasses, but there was no need for the obvious ogling that this guy was doing.  Maybe he was offended by my choice of reading material, I don't know (I personally challenge anyone to think Donald Miller is anything but witty, charming, and knowledgeable in the matters of spirituality and cross-country road trips).  After doing the anxious *glance* Is he looking at me?? *glance around, glance back at him* Yeah, there's nobody else here, he must be looking at me sequence, I shifted slightly so that he didn't have such a direct view of me.  He shifted too.  Annoyed, I turned and glared directly at him in as confrontational a manner as I could without actually DOING anything.  His head swiveled back to the book in his hands, in which he suddenly became thoroughly absorbed.  Seconds later, however, he was back to the same gawking and I was back to being uncomfortable.  So I moved to a different aisle.  So did he...directly across from me.  I moved to a different section of the store.  Minutes later, he showed up there as well.  For the rest of the time I was in the store (about 20 minutes or so), this guy stalked me from a distance.  As I'd walk up one row of shelves, he'd pass by on another.  If I went to the cafe, he found a shelf directly adjacent to it from which to be creepy.  I couldn't get away from him.  Finally, I shot him one last look of what I hoped was complete and total disgust before leaving the store with my half-finished macchiato and no book.

Second scenario occurred about a year  ago as I sat in one of the aforementioned huge, overstuffed chairs (the ones I love so much).  I hadn't been there long, but I had a stack of about three books I was checking out and I was otherwise just unwinding after a day at work in front of a computer.  Already deep into a book I was pretty sure I'd wind up buying, I saw someone out of the corner of my eye come over and flop very conspicuously into the chair next to mine.  (As a side note, it does annoy me somewhat how Barnes and Noble tends to group these chairs, thereby forcing you to make nice, at least for the initial couple of minutes, with a complete stranger whom, if they were there first, always makes you feel somewhat like you've stepped into their own personal living room and asked to have a seat.  Awkward.  Why couldn't they just have MORE of these chairs and scatter them more strategically throughout the store?  Somewhere out there, somebody reading this disagrees with me on this issue and is rolling their eyes at me right now. I can feel it.) 

ANYway.  The person who flopped into the chair next to mine was a guy in his very early twenties, wearing a suit and tie, and obviously uninterested in the book he was holding.  He did the *glance, look away, glance, look away* sequence a few times before choosing the following opener:  "You know, you can tell a lot about a person by their handwriting."  

I wasn't writing anything and neither was he.

I looked at him blankly before returning to my reading.

"Seriously," he continued , "I'm studying handwriting analysis and I can tell all kinds of things about a person, just by reading something they wrote."

"Really," I said, not taking my eyes from the page I was reading.

"I could tell a few things about you just by observing you these last few minutes," he persisted, despite my obvious disinterest and the also obvious fact that he'd JUST sat down.  I glanced back up at him but otherwise ignored him.

"Like, I can tell you're shy at first but that you open up once you get to know a person."  This guy was brilliant.  I found myself falling deeply in love with him.  It was all I could do not to launch myself at him right then and there in the middle of the Psychology section.  We're now married and living in a duplex in Raleigh with our three children, Sammy, Davis, and Junior.

Ahem.

What continued after the above remark was a mostly one-sided conversation during which he asked me where I went to school (then where I worked), where I lived, and other questions that were, quite frankly, none of his business.  As I pressed my nose further into the binding of my hardcover, he told me how he was in his last year at NC State but was working about 30 hours a week in marketing.  He sounded terrifically proud of himself and I'm sure that in his mind, buried far beneath a cap of stiffly gelled hair, he was wondering why I wasn't throwing myself enthusiastically into the conversation; perhaps stuffing my number into his sweaty palm as he spoke.  Thankfully, after much uncomfortable shifting in my chair (which he translated to mean that I was a "passionate person" or some other such nonsense), my friend Melissa showed up to meet me for dinner and I was allowed to escape.  As he had informed me that this was his favorite Barnes and Noble to frequent in the afternoons, I avoided it like the plague for a few months.  

Incidentally, I happened to see him several weeks later selling neck ties at a kiosk in the mall.  That's marketing, right?

The most recent incident at this particular Barnes and Noble happened yesterday as I waited for another friend to meet me for dinner.  Of late, I renewed a particular interest in the Romanov family of Russia, their collective fate, and the mystery surrounding it.  I've always been curious about the story and about Russian culture in general, especially since taking a Russian Lit course in college, but my boyfriend's (hey sweetie!!) mom and grandma just returned from a trip to the Baltic region and their pictures and stories sparked my curiosity all over again.  So I went to Barnes and Noble after looking up a particular book on their website which was luckily on sale in their "Bargain Books" section.  Having found that one, I was back in the biography section, seated on the carpet, and poring over a fascinating book about the Tsar and his family with hundreds of full-color photographs.  It was during this perusal that I became uncomfortable in the knowledge that I was being observed.  I looked up and to my immediate right to find that a man seated in the cafe was watching me quite unabashedly.  I'd noticed his head swivel as I'd walked by earlier but I ducked around a display and didn't think much else about it.  But now, here he was again, staring straight at me and not looking away, despite my obvious awareness of him and my returning glare.  Now, I don't mean to sound in any way like I think I'm The Hotness, worthy of, or even used to for that matter, being ogled in public by members of the opposite sex.  When it happens, in fact, it's enough of a novelty to me that I notice it immediately and am made quite uncomfortable by it.  This particular guy, though, was quite a bit older than me and apparently difficult to turn off by my glare, so I got up and moved to the front of the store, sitting in another of those huge, overstuffed chairs (that I do love so).  What do you know but five minutes later, this guy comes rambling over and sits himself down in a chair that was a comfortable gazing distance away.  I slouched down and buried myself in the large book I was carrying, with a fervor akin to a highschooler studying for the SATs.  Thankfully, it wasn't long after that my friend arrived and we left for dinner.  

So what I want to know is, is it all Barnes and Nobles that attract this particular gawky, stalkerish type of individual or just this particular store on the corner of Maynard and Walnut in Cary?  Because of my experiences there, I rarely hang out there unescorted for any extended amount of time.  Instead, I research what I'm looking for, find out if it's there, and I go in quickly to find it, purchase it, and leave instead of loitering around in the manner which is encouraged by the arm chairs and the beverages.  Maybe this blog entry should serve as a Public Service Announcement to all patrons of that particular store: Please keep your eyes to yourself and behave in a manner your mother (and all other women) would approve of!  If it could provoke a restraining order in other circumstances and with continued persistence, please cease and desist!  People are trying to READ around here!

If you feel my pain, please let me know.  Otherwise, I'm switching to Borders.