There is this beautiful woman at my local Walmart who recognises me; she always smiles and waves at me. She usually works at the service desk and, from across the room, said, “How are you doing?” Now I’m aware retail workers are nice to customers because they have to be, but I still decided to shoot my shot. While no one was at the service area, she said, “Do you need help with something?” I was nervous and asked her name. She told me. I asked her how her Christmas was, and she said, “Good.” It was clear she didn’t want to have a conversation, so I just said, “I just wanted to say hi,” and left.
I’m aware of body language, and I take rejection well, so I just left.
But yeah, I’ve never asked out or dated a retail worker. I’m aware that just because someone is friendly with you doesn’t mean they like you, but I still wanted to shoot my shot.
Note to self: never ask out or date a retail worker.
Seconded. I met a partner of 4 years while they were working at a local market.
As I lived about 100 meters from the market, I did most of my shopping there and would be there every other day. We slowly got to chatting as they started to recognise me and one day, as I walked in, they were at the register with another customer and I waved a silent “hello” and noticed they blushed as they waved back.
Asked them if they wanted to grab a coffee sometime and got the quickest yes of my life.
Sadly we had to move to different cities and amicably ended the relationship after those 4 years.
This is definitely one of the advantages of living in Europe - stores can be right beside the apartment thanks to mixed use development. I had flat mates who went to the store every day because it was just 100m from the apartment. They got to know the retail workers, store owners, waiters, and so on. We had bar maids and bar men in the flat, we would encounter retail workers in local bars after shop close, talk to them while shopping, and so on. Asking them on a date wasn’t a problem - we were all adults and rejections did happen.