My phone got a text message on Friday night.  It was from a 707 number, which is my hometown.  Since my birthday was Thursday I figured it was just an old friend texting to send me happy thoughts and wishes.

So I was a little confused when the message said “Hey you i could totally see how a goofy guy like me could completely enjoy a straight up girl like you if you let me hang some time”.  Hmmm, that’s an interesting way of saying happy birthday.  I replied by saying thanks and asking who it was.  Apparently it was “shaw from the party”. 

It was about that time that I realized someone had text messaged the wrong phone number (my phone number) looking for some girl he had met at a party in Northern California.  I just let it go, failing to respond to his request for a date.

The next morning — AT EIGHT THIRTY — he texted me again saying “hey it’s shaw from the party you work today?”.  I do very little at 8:30, especially respond to text messages.  I didn’t write back.  Then he wrote later.  Finally I broke it to him: “Who do you think this is?”

“Sarah”

“Sorry,” I wrote.  “This is not her.  Wrong number.”

Then he responded with what must be an inside joke between “shaw” and “Sarah”: “Is this where you politely tell me to stretch my arches?”  I had no idea how to take that.  First of all, it doesn’t make sense.  And second of all…well, it just doesn’t make any sense.  I gave him a simple “sorry” and left it at that.  I haven’t heard from him since.

Part of me feels a little bad for the poor guy.  He was probably really into this girl and she gave him the wrong number.  Or maybe he just wrote to the wrong number.  Regardless, his message isn’t getitng to the intended recipenent.  I remember what it’s like when you get a number and wait on it for awhile, afraid of calling too early or too late.  There’s a real rush there, adrenline and excitement.  I hope finds her.  Knowing the size of the city he came from, I’m going to assume he will.

It was an odd experience.  I’ve never been mis-dialed with a text message before.  We are truly living in a new age.  Is it sad that people no longer ask people on dates via actual phone calls, resorting to text messages with grammatical errors?  Yeah, a little.  There’s not a lot of romance there.  But who am I to judge?  At least the guy has balls.

But so do I.  And that’s not what he was looking for.

And somewhere, far away, Sarah waits for a text message from the beautiful bachelor named Shaw.  If only I could connect the two.