Speaking of which, try to follow this one:
At the start of Fall Semester i was in a student written/directed play. After our second performance, we had a reception, during which i was introduced to a pair of incredibly attractive roommates and a boy whose cuteness i considered a personal affront and challenge. I saw the three of them again at auditions for Lysistrata, where i pointed out the roommates to my own roomies, remarking upon which one i found especially distracting (despite their separate but equally stunning attractiveness). The other one of them was cast in the play, and shortly thereafter i was informed that she “wanted to marry me,” which struck me as strange since we hadn’t ever really spoken at length. I proceeded to make a sloppy drunken mess of hitting on her at a party, while i had the majority of my conversation with her uninterested roommate. A month later i asked said uninterested roommate out on a date based on her interest in paying attention to me upon further meetings. It was the perfect date, but did not seem to result in anything romantic, which i lamented at length. Lest i have the chance to put this crush behind me, she wound up being on the Stage Management staff with me for Formicans. Rest assured, it’s been all business. I was encouraged to ask her to our winter Ball, but balked, and when i finally got up the never i found out that she was attending with the cute freshmen guy (obviously my uncharacteristic distraction due to his cuteness was prophetic more than homosexual… who woulda thunk it?). I immediately swore off attending the Ball, only to have my mind changed by (drumroll, anyone?) her roommate, who asked me to go the next day.
So, i’m going to my winter formal with a girl who had a crush on me even though i sortof went on a date with her roommate and only didn’t ask said roommate to the formal because she was already planning to attend with the cute boy i met only seconds after meeting the both of them. Hors d’oeuvres at eight, dancing until one.
Drama served throughout.
flirt
The first time it goes off is around six in the morning, for no discernible reason. I mean, it obviously goes off because i set it to go off then, but Lindsay is constantly asking me why i set my alarm to ring four hours ahead of time. No reason other than it’s like a two-minute warning for having to wake up and deal with another day.
I was happy to have the warning this morning, since the day seemed especially dreary. I didn’t even need to look out of my tiny back window to know; i could feel the chill sliding in through the cracks and twisting up to raise goose-bumps on my legs. Deciding to sleep through my first two classes was not the most wrenching decision i’ve ever had to make.
The other thing Lindsay can’t seem to understand is why my alarm rings over and over again. I tell her it’s a warning… life ahead in four hours… three hours… until finally it’s just “Time to wake up. Fucking Blastoff.” Apparently, one ring is enough to convey the message to her. Today the blastoff ring was #6, and the reason i got me out of bed was because the sun had decided to accompany it. I was up and navigating the mess of my floor to turn down the alarm before Courtney could start screaming, and i could feel the diffuse runny-egg yellow of a damp sun on my back. The day had made an ugly duckling transformation for me, and i felt as though i was headed for something not entirely dissimilar.
It’s strange to go from kneading a palmful of shampoo past damp curls down to the suffocated scalp beneath to sliding a dime sized drop down the middle of centimeter long strands on the top of my head. It’s the shortest my hair has ever been. Stepping out past my fish-curtain i caught my nude reflection in the mirror, and something seemed different other than my hair. No new pimples, no unexpected muscles. It was something about how the slope of my shoulders changes, the line of my neck becomes smoother. And, something else as well — as if my haircut was emblematic of some greater change that was working its way out from my heart and up through the skin.
I wasn’t sure of what the change might be, but i hoped it would go well with my grey turtleneck and sexy jeans.
It wasn’t until i had gotten halfway to my destination of skipping class that i started feeling the way my reflection looked. Nothing tangible, but my change in carriage had seeped down from my neck and shoulders and out from my gut to pervade my whole being. By the time i got down to the Green Room i definitely felt different, although to everyone in the room it read as something closer to narcissistic conceit. Really, could i help wanting to have attention paid to me? I had Changed and they wanted to talk about midterms. Ridiculous.
Amazing what a $10 haircut, losing three pounds, and being in my scientifically determined sexual prime can do for morale. Whatever. I try not to dissect the positive moments of life too much. I just felt … fuckable. And, not just hot or easy or anything like that, but like someone covetable. Someone other people have strong opinions on. And, well, fuckable sounded like a good adjective at the time, but now that i’m looking at it in writing i can see where that narcissistic angle came in.
So, maybe it wasn’t so different from most other days, really, but usually i’m more of a pity fuck, you know?
Nevermind.
So, the question of the day seems to be whether i prefer awkwardly and ineffectually flirting in person, or awkwardly and indistinguishably flirting via instant messenger.
Not much of a question, huh? Meanwhile, someone just found my website using my full name and “krisis” as search terms. Hmm… someone checking up on their awkward suitor? That’s what IP logs were made for…
129.25.17.# drexel.edu @ 4:28:53 pm, who are you?
All this kvetching about things related to my (ever-precarious) gender role and identity may have to do with a date i may have tonight. May. It may be a preliminary evaluative “check-out-the-goods” opportunity where i’m supposed to try my best to be coherent while maintaining a vague sense of romanticism. Or, it might be two friends going out to dinner. Except, i think it could be a date… you know, Friday Night and all that. But, i don’t want to assume. So, it’s really out of my hands. I have nothing to do with it. I just need to shave and shower and show up looking pretty. Well… pretty for a guy. You know what i mean.
Thus all the anxiety about the razor. And the fairy.
Okay, i hate the phone. Got that? Hate it. If i ask you for your number, i really don’t want to have an at length phone conversation where i can make a complete ass out of myself for an entire hour without being able to do anything endearingly cute. This is not to say that i don’t want to talk, it’s just to say that it’s hard to have a meaningful silence on the telephone and so i fill them all with a ton of meaningless blather until you contrive a reason to hang up on me.
Not that she contrived a reason to hang up on me; i’m not that inept.
Yes, this means i got up the guts to pick up a phone and call her. No, i do not have an actual time for our lunch date. Yes, i suspect i am absolutely moronic enough on the telephone that any tiny inkling of attraction she might have had has now been flushed down the toilet. Yes, this means i have to call her again some other time if i ever want to see her.
Girls. What was wrong with asexuality, again?