There are limits of realism. Sure, she could do that, but she could also rip out his spine for presuming to ask. Neither is at all likely. Meanwhile, he’s someone she’s never met and knows nothing about, so she can’t assume it’s unlikely that he’s someone who would post or sell her phone number.

Pretty sure it’s canon-canon, too. Most American biodynamics, really — growing up either in a government program or as a criminal probably isn’t conducive to normal healthy emotional development.

Yes, I feel the same. Him asking for her number seems perfectly reasonable to me. (Embarrassing, but no more so than the rest of this situation.) The thing that seems slightly unnerving is how laid-back he is about having almost fallen to his death. I mean, that’s what made me think for a moment it was Patrick, that’s the kind of weird reaction Patrick does, not noticing that he ought to be upset about this until someone tells him. (Patrick reminds me of Inspector Clouseau at those times. “Now then, what do we know? One, that Professor Fassbinder and his
daughter have been kidnapped. Two, that someone has kidnapped them.
Three, that my hand is on fire. – Aaaargh!”) (Exactly what is the deal with Patrick’s brain is interesting to puzzle over, but hang on, I’m not supposed to be talking about Patrick.) Is there something fishy going on, did he know he wasn’t really in danger? Or is he a bit peculiar too, like Patrick? Or is that just [i]his[/i] way of being awkward?

But asking for Alison’s number before she flies off? Especially when if he has any coherent thought left at all he must have noticed that that side of the situation has occurred to her, too? Nah. Doesn’t seem to me to demand any explanation at all.

Earlier I was reserving judgement, and said so.

But it’s not that he just asked for a phone number – it’s that he preceded it with the butt touching comment, which had the framing that Alison was doing something inappropriate but that hey, he was down with it. If one reads him as confident rather than smitten and dorky, it comes across as aimed at having Alison feel more uncomfortable with what was already a necessarily uncomfortable situation. I mean, seriously – he asks to be flown down, then he chides her for touching her butt in a way that implies that it was another plus of the evening. It brought sexual innuendo into everything.

And then he asks for her phone number.

Of course, to a certain extent, what matter’s most to me is Alison’s reaction – that’s when it goes from “He’s kind of coming across as smooth and pushy, but maybe it’s meant to bit smitten and dorky?” But when he asks for her number, her immediate reaction is discomfort – which is is useful in deciding which of my previous readings to go with, but even more to the point, means that I cheer when she goes with “Yeah, I think I’ll go with my gut and ask for his number instead.”

Going with the confident and pushy reading, sure, in any physical conflict, she massively outpowers him*. But in terms of social interactions, he probably has an edge, and he can play on that by messing with Alison (this is particular effective in the long term case if he can confuse the issue.)

* Though there may be edge cases, especially involving sneak attacks, and him being an unknown biodynamic. But I’m going with the obvious case.