Winking, ugh, What Is It Good For? Absolutely NOTHING.

Kate Fact #97: Winking generally creeps me out a little bit.

I work on the 2nd floor of my building, and I like to take the stairs to the basement and back - for one thing, they're kind of a pretty-ish, elegant sort of stairway, and for another thing, it's exercise - my thighs, sadly, burn by the time I make it up to the 2nd floor.

Sometimes I pass other stairwalkers, and we sometimes acknowledge each other with a quick smile or head nod. I try to keep at least a small smile on my face at all times when I'm in the hallways - it's my way of quickly schmoozing with the bigwigs and their bigwig staff out here.

So I'm on my way to the basement today, just hitting the stairs on the 2nd floor, and I'm looking at my feet (so I don't trip - it's my biggest fear), but I do recognize that a guy is on his way up, and we'll pass at some point. He's looking at his blackberry and holding a cup of coffee or something.

I wait until we're close before I look up at him for the polite nod/smile exchange. It turns out that we have good timing chemistry, because he looks up at the exact same time as me, just as we're about to pass each other.

Without skipping a beat, he gives me a slick, come-and-get-me smile, and a coy, "hey there, pretty lady" wink.

WHA?!

It's so smooth, the wink so anticipated, I don't know what to do. So I pull out my "shy" smile and drop my eyes back down to my feet, suddenly extra nervous about tripping.

Now I know winking is commonplace and natural for many people, and perhaps it is just a normal reaction for him when he passes someone - but he should probably lose the smarmy feeling that wafts off his closing eyelid.

I get down to the first floor flight of stairs, and I go to raise my head almost imperceptively - my eyes lifted as high as they could go to catch a glimpse of this man, so I can return his wink with a tardy, unnoticeable stink-eye (kate fact #98: I like to make random faces at people who can't see me and giggle at myself in hallways and rooms when no one is around to see/interact with me), when I realize that he's watching me go down the stairs!

I save my stink-eye for when I'm safe from his glance, and I skip down the stairs a little faster, rushing to get out of range. At first I wondered if he was just looking down at his blackberry, but I feel rather certain that unless he can read emails off the top of my head, he was definitely NOT. 

Ugh, winking. Why are you generally such a creepy gesture? Every once in a while, you fill my stomach with butterflies and happy dreams - but 98% of the time, you fill my stomach with eerie pits.Why do you do this to me?