Flirtations with the Maintenance Man...or the Sorry State of my Dating Life

For several months now I've had a bizarre little flirtation going on with one of my apartment complex's maintenance men. I must admit, however, that it is a largely one-sided [his] flirtation. And quite frankly, I don't know what to make of it.

First off, he's not a bad looking guy. I only ever see him when he's in his "work" clothes though, which are practical--i.e. worn t-shirt and shorts or khaki pants. Despite this, I get the impression he would clean up quite nicely when he's not trimming the hedges, cleaning the pool, etc.

The whole thing started off innocently enough. As most of my good friends know, I have a tendency to sort of disappear into my own mental universe a lot of the time. This is a common occurrence especially when on my way to the bus stop (I need to distract myself from the heinous heat and humidity of Florida). So one day, I was leaving my apartment and I ran into said maintentance man. He stopped, said hello, and then gave me a sort of "come hither" smile accompanied by a little batting of the eyelashes. I, of course, was startled out of a mental conversation with myself on the details of my next dissertation chapter and the musical merits of the latest Yeah Yeah Yeahs album.

Thus, I believe I responded with a rather stupefied grin and shuffled along.

About a week later, I meet him again and we once more engaged in this oddly charged but banal conversational mode. Little did I know that this was to be the beginning of a pattern. At least once a week I would run into him. And believe me when I say that on several of these ocassions I was not looking my best. I recall one particularly memorable day in which I ran into him in the laundry room when: a) I had not showered yet, b) was wearing my jogging pants with the hole in the crotch (I had no clean clothes dammit!), c) and my hair was pulled up in some crazy pseudo-bun to get the scraggly curls out of my face. Nonetheless, he gave me the hairy eyeball and a friendly grin. So I'm assuming even my most unkempt appearance is not a huge turn-off.

Now we come to our current predicament. The other day I was on my way to the bus stop as usual and I ran into him again. Our conversation went roughly as follows:

MM: [flashes smile] Hi honey, how are you doing?
Sparks: [look of befuddlement] Er...hi. Fine, thanks.
MM: I haven't seen you in a while. I've been kinda lonely.
Sparks: Oh...uh...I've been...busy. Sorry, gotta run! [scurries away in confusion]

What is the crux of my dilemma you might ask? Well, what the hell does all of this mean? For instance, is he looking for a personal invitation up to casa de Sparks? Is he envisioning some trite pornographic scenario where my dishwasher breaks down and I have to call him to come and fix it?

I guess you could say that this situation has me confused because: a) honestly, he's fairly good looking, b) young--I'd say my age or maybe a little younger, c) and he genuinely seems interested in me. I find this extremely tempting because I haven't had any dating prospects in far too long. But I'm not sure that this fellow really wants to date so much as do the nasty. My hormones are okay with that, but my brain is rejecting the possibility because it wants a relationship. Granted, I don't really know anything about Maintenance Man, but I don't get the impression that "relationship" is his primary objective.

Urgh. Feling very confused and sexually frustrated. Any helpful thoughts or suggestions would be welcome at this point.