He begins to walk away, love’s inertia loosening its grip. He may not sleep with her after all. “WHERE YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING, BABY?” she howls into the night, gutturally, full to the brim of vulnerability and expired loneliness.

“HEY,” she calls out.

“I JUST MET YOU!” she cries.

She explains, in the language of love—English—how crazy it would be to just—oh, fuck it—she gives him her number.

But, she is no fool (if anything, she’s overeducated), and she doesn’t want to be perceived as Bertha-in-the-attic hysterical crazypants, so she nonchalantly—eyes cast downward and demure as hell—conveys he can call if he wants, but no big deal if it doesn’t happen; no big deal at all, she whispers in her own ear. It’s hard to look him in his soul-sucking eyes when she gives her number to him—she can’t not, it’s her biological imperative—but we can never forget that she is RELAXED about the transaction (only to him is she RELAXED, but we, the audience, familiar with dramatic irony, know the truth of her passion and desire).

(via: HAROLD BRODKEY EXPLAINS CARLY RAE JEPSEN’S “CALL ME MAYBE.” By Elissa Bassist)