Julian Hastings, a man who has been speaking far too liberally to a restaurant server, has just announced his hope that he doesn’t come across as “creepy” though he actually crossed that threshold long ago.
“I hope you don’t think I’m creepy or anything for saying this, but you have really elegant hands,” Julian said to his server, Cleo Wright, who actually started thinking Julian was creepy within 30 seconds of first bringing him water.
The service industry worker gave more insight into the situation.
“I had a bad feeling about this guy immediately,” Cleo says. “He started trying to tell me about the book he was reading, and I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe he’s just lonely, but then the word ‘erotic’ got thrown into his description and I was like, okay bye, he’s going to be one of those.”
Sources report Julian had several opportunities to interpret his waiter’s terse responses, stiff body language, and comments that she had to get to other tables as invitations to stop talking to her, but instead opted to disregard these cues in favor of doing exactly what he wanted.
“I’m just a people person, I love to connect,” says Julian, after 70 minutes of intermittently holding Cleo hostage in an unwanted exchange.
“I never would want to make anyone uncomfortable, so that’s why I just push the envelope, maybe flirt a little, have some fun, then ask them in a guilt-inducing way to tell me that I’m not creepy,” Julian continues. “And they almost always assure me that it’s fine, so I must be doing something right!”
“Anyway,” Julian adds, “I’m sure if someone ever didn’t enjoy the extra attention, they would just tell me.”
Upon hearing this comment, Cleo released a low and exhausted groan that her coworkers have translated as roughly meaning, “This fucking asshole has never worked for tips.”
