This story is autobiographical, hilarious, 100% true, and remains as irritating as an impacted tooth years after it occurred. A day won’t pass without me re-running the evening in my head.

Around 2016, I found myself divorced, living on my own with shared custody of the kids, and had recently adopted a dog. My self-esteem was broken, and I was re-learning who I was around other people.

One evening, I was running a set of errands. First up, I needed dog food and a new fetch toy for my dog – he’s a retriever, and goes through toys like a kid through candy. So I hit the local pet store where I snagged the food he likes and a new squeaky toy for him to destroy. After that, I hit the grocery store for sundries (read: beer). It was at the grocery where the incident occurred.

I gaped vapidly at the assortment of ales from the local brewers behind the frosty glass, wondering which would best satiate the negative voices in my head for the evening and give me some peace.

A voice lilted from my right—soft and friendly, carried on a gentle chuckle. “Well, hello there!”

I turned to find an attractive woman facing me, a smile on her face and a basket hooked in her arm. My initial thoughts protected my diminished self-esteem: she’s not talking to you, she’s talking to someone behind you; she’s got to be on the phone and wearing a Bluetooth headset; she’s probably been waiting to get a quad of pints from the fridge you’re camped in front of, dumbass.

I smiled back, nodded, and stepped away from the chiller door to let her shop. And she stayed put, continued to smile.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,” she continued.

She was talking to me. As the chest-crushing anxiety hits, I deflected with humor: “Guess as the resident 6’ 2” white guy with dreadlocks down to his ass, I’d be hard to miss.”

“Among other things,” she replied. Her eyebrows raised up a bit, and I realized this woman was flirting with me. She was flirting. With me.

Y’all, please understand that during my miserable post-divorce phase, I was 100% not prepared for this social dance. Hell, on my best days, just the idea of engaging is this tentative waltz-of-wit is terrifying and exhausting. My instinct was to freeze, let her verbally twirl around me without moving a muscle, lest I crush her under my stomping mouth-hooves.

But in that moment, flanked by the wall of liquid confidence, I surprised myself. I flirted back. And to be honest with you (and myself), I did a decent job. Nothing Cerano-esque, but I held my own. She laughed at my humor, and I even got a charming little move out of her where her hand covered her mouth to hide her broadening smile.

After a few minutes of polite banter, complete with subtext, we wished each other well and carried on with our respective evenings. I chose a beer, and as I paid for it, I found my thoughts had a different color to them. They were positive: I mean, folks have always told me I’m funny; I have lost some weight recently; maybe I’m pecking through at this anxious shell, finally.

I rode that high of serotonin for the rest of the evening. Once I got home, I grabbed the beer, piled the dog’s food and toy against my chest with my arm, and went into the house. Pooch welcomed me with wags and tippy-taps, and as we played with his new squeaky toy, I drank my beer and regaled him with the tale of my shining moment earlier that evening.

Two hours and several beers later, the evening was done and it was time to settle into bed. Pooch and I went to the bedroom, where he circled his cushy bed a few times before easing down with a contented sigh. I went to brush my teeth and looked in the mirror for the first time that night.

On my chest, centered over my sternum, I found this sticker:

This sticker is from the toy I purchased for the pooch. At some point, it transferred from the toy and on to my chest. My dog is a large breed and plays with large toys. If you put your flattened hand on your breastbone, you’ll have an idea of the size of this thing. It was not subtle.

My mind immediately spasmed into a post-mortem of the evening’s timeline:

1. Left house
2. Went to pet store
3. Bought toy
4. Went to grocery
5. Successfully flirted with an attractive woman
6. Went home
7. Unloaded the car
8. Played with dog

There was a thorn in my mind: when did the sticker move from the toy to my shirt? It had to have happened at the pet store, or when I was unloading the car. Either before my innocent and self-healing flirtation session, or after it.

You may wonder why I care when the sticker landed on my chest. A reasonable question if you lack the social anxiety that forces a replay and analysis of conversations years after they happen. So let me explain…

Before I saw the sticker on my chest, I could attribute the evening’s positive flirting experience completely to myself. It was my sense of humor that charmed her, my appearance and self-care that didn’t put her off, my conversational wit that kept her interest. However, the sticker puts a doubt on that. It’s a lot harder to feel responsible for her reactions when my chest carries a saucer-sized advertisement that if one were to squeeze me, I would, in fact, squeak (technically true, but not something I rely on as an ice-breaker). In short, the point in my evening when the sticker arrived on my shirt would determine whether my new positive feelings and confidence were justified, or misplaced.

I have yet to figure it out. There is no definitive evidence that the sticker was on my chest during my conversation with lovely-woman-on-the-beer-aisle. Nor do I have a sign it was missing. So each day I waffle between these two universes—one containing charming Jim and the other buffoon Jim—wondering which is reality and which is the Twilight Zone.

Think of it like this: you’ve heard of Schrödinger’s cat? It’s like that, except instead of a cat in the box, it’s my self-esteem. Sometimes my libido is in there too.

Years later, I’m content not to know. I’m married to a wonderful partner (not the woman from the beer aisle), and apparently happy and confident enough to tell this story as a humorous anecdote to my reader instead of privately to my therapist. As I write this, I kind of hope the sticker was on my chest. I mean, think about the story attractive-beer-isle-lady gets to tell, how many moments of joy she’s created by sharing the tale of the unaware hipster on the beer aisle. Does she carry a torch through the aisles of her local markets, wondering what happened to that “Squeeze-me-I-squeak guy?” I like to think she does. Not for my pride. We all need mystery in our lives, and I consider myself a harmless enigma.

A few years after it happened, I was relaying this story to a close friend. When I finished, I expected him to say something. Reinforce one of those potential realities for me.

He sat there for an uncomfortably long time. I told him it was okay to laugh at my expense, but he shook his head. “You’re missing the point,” he said. “You should carry around a roll of those stickers. Whenever you see an attractive woman you’d like to talk to, just slap one of ‘em on your chest.”

And that, dear reader, is today’s lesson in positive mental framing of the unknown.

What about you? What’s an absurd lesson from your own life? Let me know in the comments!