“Chicks Dig Candles”

That’s a quote from a conversation that I had with my friend Mike almost 10 years ago, when he was helping his wife with her new candle business, and for some reason felt the need to justify himself to me. I will admit, I was kind of wondering how a guy could credibly market something like candles. At the time, I was still hawking a much more “manly” product … waterless car wash. But Mike’s explanation of why, especially a single guy, might want have some candles around, sort of made sense.

Fast forward a couple of years later …

I was a divorced guy in my 30s, and I now sold candles. I did a lot of retailing at the time, so I kept a decent sized inventory … usually at least one of those big bookshelves, filled with a variety of different scents.

Ok, so where am I going with this?

Well, I remember this one evening. I had met a girl, and took her out to dinner. After dinner we decided to stop back a my apartment and watch a DVD. The night appeared to be going well. As we were sitting on my couch watching the movie, I noticed that she would occasionally look around the corner into my dining room, and then glance at me, before returning her attention to the movie.

I finally had to ask … “is there something wrong?”

So she looks back around the corner, turns to me and says, in a somewhat serious tone of voice: “You sure do have a lot of Candles … are you Gay or something?”

LOL, ok, so I guess Mike’s advice might not have worked out so well in that particular instance.

Now-a-days, I’m remarried, have another 1 year old daughter, and a pregnant wife … so I suppose you could say it’s a pretty safe bet that I’m a practicing heterosexual.

… but I am still a Guy with a huge shelf full of Candles