I don't consider myself to be an extremely superficial person. I generally try to see the "person inside" rather than looking at outside appearances. I do admit there were instances in my past when that wasn't necessarily the case. I'm reminded of a couple of instances in particular.
One of the jobs I had soon after college was working for a boat manufacturer. One of my job duties involved traveling to boat shows across the country. The first of these trips was to Chicago for a big boat show. I drove from North Florida to Chicago with one of the company's sales reps. After the first day of driving, we stopped overnight in Nashville, Tenn. The Holiday Inn at which we stopped had a pretty cool lounge with a band, so I decided to head on down to chill for a little while and listen to the music.
Now, I have never really considered myself to be stunningly good looking. I was never one to have a lot of girlfriends in my youth, and not many since then. So, you can probably imagine my surprise when a waiter approached me and told me that there were a pair a ladies who wanted to buy me a drink. Never having experienced this, I had no idea what the expected protocol was, so I told him what I wanted to drink and then proceeded to look around to try to figure out who the generous benefactors might be. To my surprise, a pair of women smiled at me and waived. It was at that moment that I literally did not know what to do. You see, these women were not what one would consider to be physically attractive in any sense of the term. I'm sure many women deal with this on a frequent basis, but with no personal experience to act as a guide, I decided that I had to at least be polite and say "thank you." I walked over to their table and they invited me to join them. Still not wanting to be impolite, I sat down. After a bit of conversation, they invited themselves up to my room. I guess that's when I panicked. I did what any guy would probably do in a similar situation, I lied. I told them that I was traveling with a co-worker who had very strong conservative religious beliefs and he wouldn't approve of me coming back to the room with two strange women. That and agreeing to accept a phone number seemed to let me off that particular hook.
A few months later, I was at a boat show in Orlando by myself. I was staying in a nice motel in the Lake Buena Vista area, before it became so developed. The motel had a really nice lounge/dance club and I decided to check it out. The bar was crowded and I noticed a very cute young lady next to me ordering a drink. Both of our adult beverages were ready at the same time and I paid for them and handed the attractive young lady her drink. She asked if I had paid for her drink and I told her, "Yes, they don't let you drink for free in these places." It was the most clever thing I could think of to say at the moment. I then asked if she would care to dance. To my genuine surprise, she agreed. After we danced for a while, I mustered my courage and asked if she would like a bit of company. She told me that as tempting as that was, she was with a very religious family who probably would not approve. Thinking back, I believe her name was Karma. (The events described here are mostly true, the names and some of the details have been changed in order to protect the innocent; and to make it more interesting.)