Sunday 4 November 2012

Walls

It never ceases to amaze me just how out of their way people go to make a point. In this case, the person was a girl I bumped into two days ago, and the point was sending a message to me: Fuck off, I'm not interested.

The girl in question was someone who I'd always thought was cute; she would inevitably end up in the dining hall when I was eating last year, but she was always surrounded by friends, so I never really got the chance to speak with her. Now on Halloween, she ended up at the pre-drink that I was at, surrounded as usual by her gaggle of friends, and I genuinely didn't even think about introducing myself; I hadn't seen her in months, and was busy catching up with some of my buddies. On our way to the club, we ended up walking in the same little group because we were on the same guestlist, and I finally, unexpectedly, got to shake her hand and find out her name. This was promising. Long story short, we ended up dancing together at the club for a little bit; her friends then decided to, inexplicably, swoop in and save her from me. I didn't, and still don't, understand why: these girls were my friends too--my frosh leaders in fact. Anyway, that was that, and when I went to try my luck again, I was cold-shouldered; in hindsight, that was probably not the smartest move on my part. So I left the club that night with a slighly bruised ego, but glad that she at least knew I existed.

Last night, I was invited to a house party by a friend from res last year. I accepted gladly; I'd had a rough couple of weeks at school and needed a break. The girl from the club turned out to be at the house; I think she lived there too, but I never got to find out for sure. See, the previous night, I'd sent her a friend request, and she didn't respond. I didn't think too much about it, but I guess between that and the fact that I second-attempted at the club, she figured I was trying to start something. Now I hadn't made any moves or anything that night; I was chilling with a few friends in one of the upstairs rooms, when she walked in. Seeing me there, she grabbed one of her guy friends, looked straight at me, and kissed him. The guy was just as perplexed as I was; I was literally 10 feet away from them, so I had no trouble reading her lips, "There's this guy here...." "Huh? Where?" "He's right here." Subtle.

My friends dipped soon after that, and I left with them; what was the point of staying any longer? During my long walk back, I thought about what had just transpired. What leads people to drive other people away so easily, to be so guarded about letting people into their lives? Is it really that difficult to give somebody a shot at making a good impression? The only thing the we knew about each other were our names; for all she knew, we could have everything in common, for all I knew, we could have had absolutely nothing to speak about. There was no way to find out unless one of us took the first step, and the other opened up. In this case, the responsibility of letting the other in had fallen on her, and she sent across to me, quite emphatically, that I was to stay the fuck away. Again, for all I know that guy could have been her boyfriend, and she was just being a good girlfriend, but that still doesn't explain why she would jump to conclusions so quickly about me. In the best worst-case-scenario for me, I would've made a friend; in the best worst-case-scenario for her, I would've made an ass of myself and she wouldn't have to feel bad about turning me away after that. The ball was in her court last night though, and she made the call for both of us.

So it seems that at the end of the day, you really only do get one shot at a lot of things in life; I kinda, sorta, blew this one, and even though she probably doesn't fully appreciate it, she did too.

VB