“Corey…”

“You promised me, man. Now come on,” he pleaded.

I still couldn’t understand why he was so adamant about hanging out with me. There had to be plenty of folks who were a lot more successful that he could hang out with in Atlanta. He did security for the stars.

I figured the only way I could make the situation work for me was if I went along with his double date idea and became extra boring. Maybe if I showed up with no personality or interest, the women would decide that I was not worth their time, and Corey would move on to hang out with the next man of stature with women. There were plenty of them to go around. I guess the difference was that I had been the only fool willing to respond to him. Or maybe I wasn’t. Maybe Corey had propositioned other guys through their past histories together as well.

I said, “All right, all right, I’ll go, man. But I’m warning you now…”

I stopped myself in mid-sentence. If I warned him that I was tired and didn’t feel up to entertaining in advance, then maybe he would chalk up my whole plan of boredom as just one of those nights and still bug me about hanging out.

“You’re warning me of what?” he asked me.

“Nothing. Let me just go ahead and throw something on. Where do you want me to meet you?”

“Oh, I’ll just pick you up at your place. It’s doesn’t really matter to me.”

It mattered to me though. He didn’t need to know where I lived, if he didn’t know it already. I couldn’t put too much past this guy. I needed to get rid of him once and for all. I guess a social turn off would have to do.

I said, “Well, where do you have in mind to take these girls?”

He paused. “Actually, man, we could just eat and talk and drink at my hotel. We don’t have to take ’em nowhere if we don’t want to.”

“So these girls are real low maintenance, huh?”

“They just want to have good company, man, that’s all. What’s wrong with that?”

I said, “All right, let me get dressed and I’ll just meet you at the Hyatt then.” There was no sense in prolonging the issue. I wanted to get his eagerness over with.

I hung up the phone and thought about the most boring outfit I could wear. It’s funny how I put on nice clothes to make a living, but in my actual life, I typically dressed casually. Well, what if I showed up overdressed this time? Would that turn them all off or on?

“Women tend to dislike stuffy men,” I reasoned. So I went ahead and got stuffy in a dark blue suit, dark tie, and dark shoes.

I showed up at the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel, looking as if I was about to attend a gala affair. Corey looked me over and started laughing. He was wearing my usual gear: blue jeans, comfortable shoes, a basic tee, and a sports jacket. It looked as if we was trying to steal my casual style.