Okay, so I haven't posted in a few weeks. It feels longer, but I've been terribly busy. This week was the worst. I had my first chemistry exam, among other big school projects. I got 73 on the exam, and I've been weird and upset about it, but you know what trumps even that? And it is so lame, I swear. It's boys.
Go-lly, I hate saying that. Someone shoot me. I suck.
Right now, it's this guy who works in the cafeteria. I just got back from talking with him. I've been talking with him every week day for a week or two, and he's always seemed really great. He always made me feel important, every time I saw him. And I really need that. I shouldn't need that. I should be able to make myself feel important, and I CAN, given time and sleep, but it really helps to have someone else do some of the work for me. It can be a lot of work to feel important. And he's the kind of person who treats everyone like they're important but not like they're the same. Especially this last week when I was REALLY sleep-deprived and felt like crap a lot, he made me feel better by giving me his full attention, really TALKING to me, and just being happy to see me. You know you're important when someone's that happy to see you. And it wasn't weird. I mean, I was awkward around him a fair amount of the time, but awkward in a familiar way, like I get when I'm around really fantastic people who still treat me well even though I'm so awkward.
Yesterday, he sat with me during his break and told me about how he wants to get far away from this town to get away from the people who bullied him in school and now try to be buddies with him. I told him I want to travel too. He told me he's bored in this town, and I told him how I'm starting to be bored with my classes and that's bad. He told him how he's doing better than any of his brothers, and I knew he was that kind of person. Someone like me. Someone who is their own person. Most people honestly aren't. Only the people who suffer and still have the heart and brain power to look at themselves and make a choice about who they are, instead of just letting everthing affect them as it will and growing up to be as their parents raised them. People like that are nice to other people for reasons, because they believe it's right, because they like the people, etc. Not just because they were raised all nice. And I knew he was that kind of person.
Then today, he told me he doesn't really believe in God, and it didn't surprise me. It made me sad, but I reckoned he'd be that kind of person too. It so often seems that the best, brightest, kindest, most accepting people, the ones who act more Christian that Christians do, are the people who don't really believe in God. Ironically. So we talked over the cafeteria food island thingy, and I told him some of the stuff I said in the Agnostics, Atheiests, and Scientific Christianity post. He seemed just a bit stubborn about it, but it's understandable to be a bit stubborn.
And anwyay, I was tired and I knew I didn't look so good, and I was talking in my "loud voice," which I hate, to be heard over the noise, and I got nervous and blushed and shook a little, and part way through our conversation, he told me I had something on my face. All awkward enough, but not more so than I'm used to. And then I told him that some friends and I are going to see The Lion King tomorrow. He talked about how he loved The Lion King and wanted to see it also. I invited him to come with us tomorrow, but he said he was broke and suggested NEXT weekend, and I said yes. *Head-desk* First of all, I don't have the time to go see a movie two weekends in a row, and secondly, the way he smiled then, looked at me, and said, "Okay, sounds like fun." The way he did it. Geez, I'm pretty sure he sees it as a *whispers* date.
No! I didn't want this. I do really like him. But I didn't mean to ask him out. I really, really hope that's not actually what I did. But I may have. I could be wrong about what that look meant, but I'm often right about people. I was right about him a lot. I hope he doesn't see it as a date, but I expect he does because I hope for the best and expect the worst.
I don't see him that way. Okay, maybe a little, but overall, I already KNOW he's not perfect. He's a bit irritating and tries to fix my problems by contradicting me when I tell him about them. Not to mention he doesn't believe in God and I do. Golly, that's a foundation for a terrible relationship. Okay, maybe not TERRIBLE, but I won't settle for anything less than perfect. Anything less than perfect is terrible to me.
Just yesterday, I was feeling all proud of myself for liking him a lot but not wanting or expecting him to be, like, my boyfriend. That seemed very mature and helped me believe I was overcoming the lameness of me + boys in earlier weeks. I just wanted him to be my friend, my bud, my amigo. See, though?!!! Doesn't that sound like one of the oldest, moldiest cliches ever, "I just want to be friends."?? It's cliche on one person's side and painful on the other person's. This whole THING is cliche, me as a young girl, going off to college and having boy issues. And I HATE being cliche. It's so lame! So. LAME! That actually is what hurts me the most, feeling like a cliche girl. I know it's selfish of me to let that bug me more than the thought of how it might hurt the guy to hear that I don't want to date him, but I guess...I'm selfish. But don't let that make you think that I don't care how it might hurt him. It scares and hurts me enormously to think that things might have to be weird between us from now on and that I may have to hurt this guy who's been really nice to me.
Plus, I have to think about my mom and how it needles me that she may have been right. Before I left home, she told me, "If you have to fall in love, fall in love with someone who loves God." And I thought that was the stupidest thing ever. It sounds like she thinks I'm a stupid girl, which is another reason I hate feeling cliche. Cliche girls are stupid (cliche girls, not real girls), about many things, but especially boys. They fall in love for no reason, and it's not real love. I'm waiting for a soul mate, the one person in all the world who's meant just for me, and you don't find one by moving a couple hundred miles away. I was so not going to fall in love. I'm still not. I kind of refuse to. If I do, I guess I do. But I refuse to con myself into thinking I'm in love when I'm not. My mom made it sound like I have no control over myself, and I do. I used to think it would be easy to ignore boys, and girls like Taylor Swift were the dumbest, but that was during the past few years when I was pretty isolated and didn't come into contact with boys anyway. Of course, it was easy not to think about them, and I felt smart for it, but I guess I always remembered in a corner of my mind how I was when I was a kid. I was indeed a tad boy-crazy, and I hate that part of my past self, and that's probably why I also hate it in other people.
But anyway, I lost some confidence in my control over my feelings when I had that weird crush on that one boy, but I still know that I have control over whether I let myself believe I'm "in love" and what I do because of it. I didn't realize, though, that it's much harder to control the impulse to date someone because I believe I really like them and don't want to hurt them. I hate how complicated this all is.
And what's worse is I knew it would be complicated, sort of. When I first came here, I thought boys would see me as just a friend, as I would see them. However, then there was that Catholic boy. I spent a couple days just wishing to see him. I actually ached to see him, and then I did. We talked and I decided he was a bit conceited, and it hurt how he sometimes just ignored me. It took a while to sort through my feelings, but I think I wanted to see him so badly because he was a mystery, not because I had any real feelings for him. I don't know many people like him. He's a Sagittarius, which sounds crazy to some of you I'm sure, but I think people often are much like their star signs. I only know one other Sagittarius. Anyway, I just couldn't put my finger on what kind of person he was, so he seemed ethereal and untouchable, which I may have confused with me liking him. I know now he's a bit uppity (he thinks engineers are smarter than other people, whereas I think they're smart in different ways), and I like him but not that well. But it's still weird, because of the weirdness in the beginning and because he still only says hi to me some days and not others.
Even more confusing than him, though, I talked a few times to this guy I thought was gay. I wasn't certain. I just knew he talked like Adam Lambert. I do hate myself for stereotyping, but anyway, one day, I saw him down the sidewalk and said hi and that I wasn't stalking him and he said he wouldn't mind if I did. And then he offered to study with me and give me his phone number, and I'm pretty sure now he's not gay. And he's 29. Age doesn't matter if you're really in love, but I'm not, and it's creepy to have a 29-year-old hit on me. I'd had enough after that and decided to basically stop talking to boys, except my cafeteria friend because he was smart enough to let us just be friends. Or so I wished.
And then, I think, "It wouldn't be so bad dating him." No, it wouldn't. He's way more interesting and unusual and real than any of the other guys around here, or most other places I know. I haven't had such honest conversations with anyone else here, and not in a long time. I guess I used to have conversations like this with my older brother, who my cafeteria friend reminds me of a lot. And he just seems so much more upfront than anyone else here. He talks about things that other people just don't talk about, important things that should be talked about, like God. I can talk to him and somehow come away feeling like that really happened. Not that I feel like I'm just imagining my conversations with other people, but it just feels more concrete when I have conversations with him. I think because he's honest and his own genuine person. But, "not so bad," is the stupid part. A lot of people settle for "not so bad" when they should realize that only Perfect is worth it. I never want to lose sight of that, and I almost do sometimes, which scares me. I'd regret a mistake like settling for "not so bad" for the rest of my life. Not to mention I don't really trust the guy yet. I know how long and how well some people can fake niceness, and though I don't really believe it, he could be tricking me.
Besides, the only reason I know my friend is because he and my other friend were good buds first, and I'm pretty sure she was kinda sweet on him. And I thought they'd be adorable together. I wanted them to get together because they get along so well. But she hasn't talked to him much lately, and I wonder if she decided she didn't like him so much. And I wouldn't expect her to get serious with him now that I know he doesn't believe in God, and she's a devout Catholic. But I used to think it would be so cool if those two could get together, and I could just have them both as friends.
He's awesome, and I love him in the sense that he's awesome, and I find him attractive because of how awesome he is, yes, but I'm not in love with him. I'm just not. But I'm freaking out about what to do about the Lion King.
I just thought of something. I'm supposed to go home the weekend after next. I can tell him that. But...I think I'm just gonna have to tell him what I've been thinking, because I do want to go to the movies with him. It will be fun, but I don't want it to be a date. I'll have to tell him that I don't want a boyfriend, and if he wasn't thinking "date," I'll look incredibly stupid, but if he was, I have to say something. Then, if he's hurt, the worst part about all this will be losing my friend who could make me feel important on all the worst days.
So. Freaking. Cliche.
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