The black, iron tables at my favorite sandwich shop remind me of the ones on USC’s campus. It makes me nostalgic for my college days. I hear a lot of people say they wish they could redo high school, but I’m going to be one of those people who says, “Screw high school, I wish I could redo college.” It is the one time of my life that I took complete advantage of, and I sometimes desperately wish I could get my hands on a Time Turner to do my college career entirely different. But, I feel like I’ve waxed poetic about college enough as it is. I deferred my grad school acceptance at Winthrop until next fall, because my finances just weren’t right for me to go back to school this year. Deferring will allow me to gain financial assistance and an assistantship that could make going back to school a lot easier on me financially. So, now, it’s just waiting to see how things go.
In the meantime, my co-worker has noticed how I haven’t made much progress in reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I haven’t been in my usual reading fervor in a while, and it’s been bothering me. “How long have you been reading that?” he asked.
“I know,” I said. “I’ve been stunted in my reading lately.
“Are you depressed?”
“I’m not depressed.”
“I think you’re depressed.’
“Why would I be depressed?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Well, I didn’t tell him, because there’s not much to tell. Okay, well, actually there’s a lot to tell, but it would be weird talking to him about it because he’s, well, a guy. And what I’ve been feeling since the beginning of the month has been so not what I expected from August – the complete opposite actually – that I don’t even know how to properly deal with it. Plus, it’s just a bunch of girl crap that I feel stupid even being bothered about.
At first, I was nonplussed over my return from New York. I had what Melissa calls Reverse Culture Shock. But after a few weeks, the RCS started wearing off. Then August 3rd happened. You see, on August 3rd, I had an encounter…with a guy…a guy I didn’t know…a guy I didn’t know who kissed me because I was…well, inebriated. Well, honestly, I don’t know if that’s why he kissed me, but I’m 5’3″ and weigh just over 100 pounds, so add onto that a night of drinking and I was a pretty easy target for a marine. Or, at least, that’s what he said he was. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he was gorgeous and had a cute gap between his two front teeth, but…why? Why else would a marine kiss a girl standing alone at a bar because she just came back from the bathroom and her four other friends were otherwise engaged on the dance floor? It was not my proudest moment. Because there was a booth involved where more kissing ensued, and Em told me to be glad I couldn’t see myself.
“I didn’t look like a slut, did I? Please God, tell me I didn’t look like a slut.”
“No, you didn’t, but like I said. Just be glad you couldn’t see yourself.”
It started with this event called Brew at the Zoo, which led to celebrating a friend’s birthday at World of Beer, which led to furthering said birthday celebrations at the Tin Roof. I was having a great time, and when, whom I’ve dubbed Tin Roof Kyle, asked me to dance, I was like, “Sure, why not?” But only after I was like, “Uh…I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” We danced to a playlist of American Pie, Brown-Eyed Girl, and other awesome classics. Em gave me a thumbs-up from behind Kyle where she was dancing with a guy friend, and because I was drunk and acting out of character I gave a lame thumbs-up back, because who gives thumbs-up regarding guys, ever? Especially over their shoulder. But I was having a grand time letting him lead me around in a few twirls and assuring him he is a much better dancer than he gives himself credit for when all of a sudden there’s a slow song and…lips. There were several thousand things going through my head when it happened, but they were all kind of blurred by the beer I’d been drinking earlier that night.
Some of my other friends were proud of my, uh, triumph. But all I could think about at first was that I didn’t know anything about Tin Roof Kyle. He could’ve been in his 30s. Or worse, a guy who looked to be in his 30s but was really 43 or something. Maybe he wasn’t even a marine. What if he was a serial killer? Blame my mother for making me think that every new guy I come into contact with is initially a serial killer. But, hey, I once saw this episode of Rizzoli & Isles… But, nevermind. In the first few days after I kissed a perfect stranger, I was mortified and disgusted with myself. I felt gross, ashamed, depressed. Then something happened. I started to feel completely different. I started wondering what would have happened had I kept his number or if I’d made him talk to me more instead of being a drunk idiot who just went along with the kissing.
I found myself wanting to find him. Where his blue eyes and the little gap between his teeth and the way he kissed me made me want to find him. Only the little information I had did nothing to help me. I was torn. Here I was pining over a guy who I had previously been very sorry to have met. I mentally wrote a long monolog to say to him if I ever saw him again about how you can’t just go kissing whoever you want whenever it strikes your freaking fancy and not expect a person to be affected by it; I’m not a body to screw whenever you’re in the mood for having sex; I want to be loved, not F-ed (because I’m just too chicken to even spell that word out on my blog); I didn’t think you would like me as much sober as you did when I was drunk, anway. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m cute, but like Hermione Granger it’s hidden under a thick layer of nerd. What did he really expect to happen by us talking? He probably would have thought, “Okay, this chick is a nerdy virgin. I’m out.” Am I wrong for questioning this guy’s intentions? Am I just being crazy? Because it’s one thing for me to be the nerdy virgin – I’m cool with that – but I seriously don’t want to have the misfortune of being the crazy chick, too.
Let’s be real, though. I’m a Harry Potter nerd who randomly talks in a British accent because I think it’s funny. I have a cat I named after one of my favorite literary characters (no, it’s not Hermione or Crookshanks). I still write letters to people. Like, with a pen and pretty stationary that usually involves some kind of floral design. And these letters are usually romantic and dramatic, because for whatever reason I get into a Romantic Era mood when I handwrite letters. I snort when I laugh. I’m a little high maintenance because I have unresolved health issues that may or may not involve me being randomly hypoglycemic any given morning, among other things. I’ve never been in a serious relationship, never been in love. And did I mention I’m a nerdy virgin, emphasis on the nerdy part? Because, yeah. What would this guy, who probably only asked me to dance because I was the only female otherwise not engaged standing alone at the bar while her friends were otherwise engaged, want with me? I mean, maybe I’m wrong. I’d like to romanticize about how wrong I am, and make our love story Nicholas Sparks’ next bestselling romance, but that would be silly. If nothing else, I at least got a really good story idea out of the experience.
So, I wouldn’t say I’ve been depressed, but this whole ordeal has put me in a funk, and I’ve just been moody and brooding and obsessed with it ever since. I really hate myself for that last one. I hate obsessing over guys. Obsessing over Harry Potter, I’m okay with. He’s cool and has awesome friends, but a guy I don’t know from Ernie Macmillan who just happened to come across the exception in a loud and gyrating bar? Not cool. That’s not me. That’s just not me at all. And I wouldn’t even be writing about it, but Stephany told me it could be a useful mechanism in shaking myself of the funk. So…yeah. We’ll see how that goes. I mean, technically she told me I didn’t have to write about it on my blog, and I didn’t want to at first, because how embarrassing, right? But…I don’t know. I guess part of me feels like women out there need to share their failed attempts at life and drink coffee and wine over it, and another part of me just sat down to eat my spud at lunch and it just sort of started spilling out like word vomit – but through my fingers. Sorry about that. Take a virtual towel for your clothes. You can use my tub to clean your shoes.