I'm working on a contract job, high security, nondisclosure agreements, secure facility in a bunker on a big open corporate campus. All I can say about it is is there are two sides of this gig, the math side (the side I'm on) and the chemistry side. I wish I was on the chem side, it's just like all the STEM jobs (science, technology, engineering, math) the women are all on the chem, med, and bio side and the guys are all on the geeky math/quant side. There is one girl I have my eye on, she's a manager, she's hot and she knows it (note: yoga pants are not proper corporate attire, but I approve). I'll call her Chem Girl. She's a manager so she looks down on all the contractors like me. She is a tech woman who is rising to the top and she is hard as nails.

I was thinking Chem Girl was a woman I should run some game on, especially since she's in another department and it wouldn't affect my job. Then I overheard her Friday afternoon, whining on her cell phone to her girlfriends about how they wanted to go out and she wanted to work. It was most unattractive. I figured this is a woman with none of the personality traits I'm interested. Sure she's hot, she might even be smart. But her heart is as cold as ice. Still, when I talk near her, she turns around and I immediately have her attention. I don't know what's going on there.

So today I was walking out to a break, behind Chem Girl and the other best dressed woman in the facility (note: fuck-me pumps are not proper corporate attire, but I approve). I'm about 6 feet behind them, trying not to pursue, or be seen pursuing. I'm actually having to slow my pace to not overrun them, because they're chatting and walking so slow. So as I get out near the park area, under the trees where I usually hang out, there are downed branches everywhere. It was a windy day, but it couldn't be bad enough to knock down all those trees. Oh poor trees. I blurted out, "oh man what is all this?" just sort of talking to myself. Chem girl turns back, she's kind of edging around all the branches blocking the sidewalk, and she looks at me. "Yeah, what the..? Oh, they're pruning, must be a gardener around here somewhere. Oh there she is." Chem Girl and High Heels Girl stroll off to their car, and I see the blonde gardener sitting at the base of a tree, pruning some plants. She waves and gets up to come over and chat. She's kind of hot in a rugged sort of way. She's younger than me but still close to my age, she has long blonde hair, she's wearing khaki shorts and hiking boots, a flannel shirt, and leather gloves. I'll call her Earth Girl.

When I'm on breaks, it is hard to decompress. I have 10 minutes, I spend the first minute calculating how much time I have to smoke, check email on my iPhone, grab one more cup of coffee, and get back in the cockpit for more math. My mind is a highly caffeinated whirl of polynomial factoring, linear equations, oh hell I need to stop thinking about it but I can't. But hey, here's a cheerful girl, even the type I like, I talk to everyone and she's a hell of a lot friendlier than the chems and quants.

So we strike up a conversation. "I hate to cut down all the branches but they're all dead, they have to go." I said, "oh yeah, I know, when I was a kid, I worked landscaping. Nobody likes to think about cutting down all their nice plants, but they grow better when you cut them back." She's instantly interested, we get to talking about plants and landscaping. I don't notice it at the time, but she's throwing me some classic IOIs, she's cocking her hip, flipping her hair and "grooming" (which is amusing me because she's smeared with dirt, which is kind of sexy). She's even playing coy, holding up her handsaw and hiding her face behind it when I tease her. She is pretty forward in questioning me, she asks me if I worked here long, no I'm just a contractor. She says she wishes she could get on full time, she's just an intern. I wish I was full time too, I could use the work. etc. etc. It is such a pleasant day, cool and breezy, unlike yesterday when it was 99 degrees, we are having fun procrastinating from our jobs, and lost track of time.

In retrospect, she was really interested, and I was probably one of the few people that might impress her or even have anything in common with her, on her rare contact with those mysterious people doing secretive things inside faceless corporate offices, while she wandered through the grounds, maintaining the immaculate campus, all alone.

And I wish I had noticed all that. What I did notice is that just as things were getting interesting, Chem Girl walks past me on her way back into the facility. Oh hell, break time is over, it will be bad if I get back from break later than the managers. I'm thinking dammit I didn't have time to check my email, and already my head is switching back to Euler's Formula, power series, and combinatorics. I check the time on my phone, and make an excuse, "oh no I have to get back to work. It was nice talking to you." And I completely eject, while Earth Girl wistfully waves and says goodbye.

An hour or so later, as I'm grabbing my 5th cup of coffee for the day and have a moment to myself to think, looking out the window of the break room, and wondering if Earth Girl was out there, that it hit me: I'm a goddam idiot. What I should have done was say, "Hey we should continue talking sometime. Give me your number and we'll talk later." I even had my phone in my hand, and turned on, poking buttons on it. I had a perfect time constraint to give her a sense of urgency in giving me her number. I knew to do all of this, and I did not do it. Suddenly, I could sense Earth Girl's obvious disappointment in my ejection. Yes, she wanted me to ask her for her number. And it never even entered my mind, I was preoccupied with work. I will probably never see her again. I might as well be on another planet.

tl,dr; attracted a hot girl and totally failed to realize it, or do anything about it. Well at least I'm creating attraction without really trying, I'll count it as a win.