Would you like a flower?

It's such a simple question. But as I learned one night in New York City, the answer is more complicated than you might think.

At SuperEgo's second anniversary show the lovely and talented John Morrison gave Michelle and I both bouquets of flowers.

He's such a charmer.

Instead of taking them home to watch them slowly die I decided to spread some joy by giving them away to strangers. This turned out to be much harder than I expected.

In fact, the first seven or so people I tried to give them to on the way to dinner turned me down flat.

Had I been able to give a few away I might have kept the rest and not thought much about it. But faced with a challenge I decided to give them all away.

As I embarked on my little experiment in acts of random kindness I created impromptu rules and goals. I vowed I would not go home until I'd given them all away. I wanted to create little moments of human connection and to leave people with an emotion, any emotion, happy, curious, puzzled, whatever. So I avoided people on phones, fiddling with gadgets or listening to iPods. I wanted to be able to engage them, even if only for a few seconds.

It's striking how suspicious people are on the streets of New York City. And to be fair, I know I'm quite wary of anyone who comes up and starts talking to me. Unless they're asking for directions I usually bail before I find out what kind of a scam they're running. So it took a lot of trying.

I always started with the same question, "Would you like a flower?" A number of times I had to follow it up with either, "I'm not selling anything," or "It's not a trick, I just want to give you a flower." But even these didn't always work.

You might think it'd be easier to give flowers to girls, but I found the opposite to be the case. Perhaps women are more used to deflecting offers from men, no matter the offer.

When friends suggested I might get beat up for offering a flower to the wrong guy I thought, how absurd! It's a flower, who doesn't like flowers? Liking flowers doesn't make you a fag. Accepting a flower doesn't make you a fag. I'd even go so far as to posit that accepting a flower from a fag doesn't make you a fag.

So I went out of my way to give flowers to straight guys smoking in front of bars and even a mechanic in an auto shop. Most of them accepted. One with a very simple "yes," indicating he would, indeed, like a flower.

I did encounter one instance of homophobia. I use the word dilberately, homo-phobia, fear of gays ... not hostility or violence or hate ... just fear.

A car load of handsome, young black men all burst into a fit of the giggles when I offered the driver a flower. He was visibly embarrassed and started rolling up his window. The shotgun passenger was so mortified, was laughing so hard and seemed to want to avoid eye contact so desperately that he shielded his face behind a magazine. But I persisted, suggesting he could give the flower to a lady. He picked a young woman on the street and said I could give it to her. I might have, but she was out of ear shot of the exchange. In the end he wouldn't take it. He seemed quite relieved as the light changed and he drove away with his friends ribbing him.

People in motion were harder than people at rest. People sitting are easier to engage than people walking. Even if they were wary, they'd usually accept. I extended a flower between a straight couple sitting on a stoop and asked my question. Surprise and slight suspicion. The man said no. So I turned to the woman and said, "Would the lady like a flower?" This broke through and with a smile she took it.

Some people probably accepted as the quickest way to get rid of me. But as I'd walk away and they'd realize that I'd really only just wanted to give them a flower I could see caution melt into something pleasant.

There were many lovely moments ... flirtatious compliments exchanged, people smelling flowers and a cute gay man taking the flower from me using his teeth as a flourish. An exuberant European woman said, "of course!" with a tone that said, "who wouldn't?"

The most satisfying were the downtrodden, beaten, blank faces of people trudging home from work converted to smiles by a surprise. Maybe I made their day. Maybe I'm not that important. But it didn't matter. I'd accomplished my goal. I gave away a flower, and two strangers shared a moment and an emotion.

I had to keep walking past my first subway stop and then another because I still had flowers. And it became harder as it got later.

Finally I was just standing on a corner trying to give away my last flower. It was late. I was tired and now just wanted to go home. A flower, a thing of beauty, life and joy had now become a burden.

I tried and I tried. Giving away perhaps 15 flowers had taken over an hour. And now that I was stationary, suspicion that the flower was the opening hook of some scam increased.

I offered it to two pretty college girls who giggled and said no. They past me and merged with some more boys and girls their age. I offered it to the whole group. More giggles.

No.

I offered it to an exceptionally beautiful young man in the group.

No.

I assured him it wasn't a trick and suggested he could give it to a lady.

No.

"It's my last one," I pleaded.

A girl in the group finally took it and stuffed it into his shirt with the bulb right under his chin. He recoiled and fell back a few steps but would not touch it with his hands. Perhaps doing so would be some kind of acceptance of the flower.

The girl persisted that he should take it and asked why he wouldn't want it. He just shook his head no. So she took it back out of his shirt and continued to taunt him with it.

As I walked away, the girl was beating the boy over the head with my last flower.