Smile & Nod

1st Day of School, 3rd Grade

It happened in elementary school. I was 8 years old, hanging out with my older sister one afternoon. With eyes wide she leaned in and carefully said to me,  “Never ever, tell your friends who your crush is.”

I listened with holy reverence.

She went on, “Even if they promise not to tell, it will get out. And then your crush will know you like them.” 

GASP! 

We could not have that. Chris Zwiefel couldn’t know that I would write his name daily with little hearts around it.

Fast Forward a decade and a half later and I was still living by my sister’s motto. At that time I was 24 years old, living in Australia, working as a waitress. I lived in a house with 5 other people; a girl from New Zealand - who really disliked me for some reason, a young married couple, my cousin, and an American boy from Minnesota. One evening I went to the grocery store with the Minnesota Boy, Justin. On our way home he was telling me about his crush, a girl we both knew. He then turns to me and says, “So, who do you like?”

I flipped on the blinker of my car, and turned into our neighborhood. “No one at the moment,” I said coolly.

That was a blatant lie. I was head over heels for some boy, who, I now know would have been a mistake.

We parked and sat in the car talking for a while. “What if,” he said, “you see someone you like across the room, and you make eye contact with them, what do you do?”

That was an easy one because it happened all the time.

“Well…I would look the other way, and pretend it never happened. And,” I said admittedly, “I would hope that he would think that I was pretty. And that maybe he’d come over and talk to me.”

Justin stared at me. A mixture of shock and disbelief covered his face.

“RILEY!”

I shrugged. The shy, turn away and pretend you didn’t make eye contact, was a seasoned move by then.

“You’ve got to make eye-contact and smile!” He went on, pleading, “We need you to give us a little something to work with so that we know you’re interested.”

And he was right. I knew he was right.

Now, years later, I occasionally pass that same piece of sage wisdom on to other girls. See a boy at the gym? Give him the smile and nod. See a cute guy at a coffee shop? Smile and nod. In the grocery store? SMILE. AND. NOD.

I tried it once at the beach with a cute Australian lifeguard. I actually don’t know if he was a lifeguard…but in my mind he was. I did the smile and nod as we passed each other on the boardwalk, and I kid you not, he did a 180. So ladies, and gents, smile and nod. Or get on a dating app; I did and it worked out great for me.