Last night, I was sitting outside knitting. I was waiting until a specified time when I was supposed to meet someone at their apartment, so, having arrived early I did what I always do when I have a knitting project on the go and a bit of spare time: pulled it out and started working.

Suddenly I heard, "That is the cutest thing I have ever seen!"

I looked up, confused. An extremely good-looking Chinese guy was standing there smiling at me. Tall, well built, very cute.

"What, knitting?" I laughed.

"Knitting in front of an apartment building. What are you doing here?"

We started chatting and exchanging flirtatious banter. I have to admit it was a bit flattering: it's been a long time since a cute guy flirted with me.

"So, tell me something about yourself," he invited.

"Well, I knit."

"I know that! Tell me something I don't know."

I paused for a moment. I had a choice. Do I tell him the most important thing about myself, something guaranteed to stop the flirting and frighten him away, or do I give in to the flattery and say something lighthearted and inconsequential?

"I'm a Christian," I said.

His smile froze. He went silent. He looked at me warily.

"I thought I'd tell you the most scary thing about me," I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

"That is scary," he said. "Are you, like, a hardcore Christian? I've had a lot of conversations with hardcore Christians, because I'm a Buddhist."

"Oh yeah?" I asked him a few questions about his Buddhism, and he asked me about my Christianity. I told him what it meant to me to be a Christian. I left him with a card from my church with my phone number on it.

Somehow, I don't think I'll be hearing from him. But hopefully, the conversation meant something more than a random flirt. Hopefully, God's on his case and tracking him down. I don't know. I prayed for him.

Sometimes being a Christian is harder than others. Like, scaring away the first cute guy in ages to flirt with you by talking with him about Jesus. It hardly qualifies as suffering for the gospel. Nonetheless, I have to admit that there was a little twinge of regret. Ah well. Maybe I can start up a ministry: street evangelism to cute guys. With knitting.

I got onto the subway car. I sat down in the only available seat, next to a very sunburnt, red-skinned man in a wife-beater and jeans. I immediately semi-regretted it. He apparently hadn’t showered or applied deodorant recently.

He turned to me. “Pretty cool on the subway,” he said.

I agreed. “Cooler than outside.”

He laughed. “I might just ride the subway all day.”

“That’s one way to stay in the air conditioning.”

“Cheaper than air-conditioning your house.”

I agreed, and there was a pause.

“I’m going to the Writer’s Guild at U of T,” he told me.

“Sounds interesting. What happens there?”

“It’s for writers. People who write poetry and fiction. They get together and critique each others’ work. I pretty much have to go there every Friday. This week, Maggie McDonald is going to be speaking. In honour of her, I bought 5 liters of wine and 10 pounds of smoke—“ I thought he was going to say “smokes”, but he continued “d oysters, and five different kinds of black olives.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Yeah, and I got these!” He reached into his bag and pulled out a bag of tortilla chips. “They’re called ‘Scoopers’. You can see how you could put a smoked mussel into the center, like that…”

“Smoked mussels, I’ve never had those before,” I said.

“Smoked oysters, I mean,” he amended.

“I’ve never tried those either.”

My stop was announced, and I got up. “This is my stop, take care,” I said.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a pink-and-white box, which he thrust at me. “Here, take these,” he said. I looked at them. It was a box of smoked oysters.

“Why?” I protested, but he insisted. “Just take them!”

I got off the train and left the station, unable to stop laughing, with a pink-and-white box of smoked oysters in my hand. The city is such a strange place sometimes.

The smoked oysters were disgusting. But it makes a good story, and it was certainly a kind gesture.