Mr. Anderson, welcome back, we've missed you....
So.
It's been a while, hasn't it?
Wait a minute, who the fuck am I talking to? Nobody reads this thing anyway.
Oh well :D
***
Every time I look back on my last entry, I get massively depressed.
All I'll say is, things with Colleen got... well, they got really fucked up (I mean really fucked up) and it happened all at once and just...
...blah.
(And I still can't get her out of my head either.)
***
I'm good, though.
Really, I am.
I wish Patty would talk to me again, but she's refused all my peace offers. I'm not even sure what it is we're even supposed to be fighting about, but whatever--what can I do?
But Patty of course, is the past. I mean, there's something really depressing about the girl who gave you your first kiss hating your guts interminably, but like I said, what can I do?
The same goes for pretty much everyone else at LHS. I tried to keep in touch with as many people as I could, but I just got rebuffed (in various fashions) each time.
I don't really understand it, either. Like, OK, a couple months ago, Tracey held this small "IB kids" reunion thing--and, strangely enough, invited me. I mean, I suppose I was in IB for a while, and those were mostly the people I hung out with, but I still thought it was kinda weird. I accepted though, and went into the thing thinking, "The past was the past. Stop being an asshole, and show these people how to party Jersey-style."
So, sure enough, it was a great night. Hell, the first person I talked to off the bat was Greg Sobetski. We all know how I used to feel about Greg Sobetski. Greg Sobetski knew how I felt about Greg Sobetski. And I got a lot of crap for it from a lot of people.
I mean, sure, honestly, part of me still finds the guy annoying, but--and this sounds stupid, I know--but I realized I just didn't fucking care anymore. Whatever faults he may have (and we of course all have our own faults), Greg Sobetski is still a good guy, a smart guy, and an interesting guy. So what the fuck else mattered?
So it was genuinely enjoyable talking to Greg. It really was. And I think he recognized that attitude shift because he was friendly as hell too--and also genuinely. Hell, Greg, of all people, even congratulated Rutgers on their victory in the St. Petersburg Bowl--which surprised the bejeezus out of me and was in its own way amazingly flattering.
Greg and I talked, and then Jason showed up. I swear to God, Jason practically stalked me back at LHS--no, really--and you could tell he felt kinda awkward around us. So what did I do? I brought him into my conversation with Greg, and soon the three of us were chattering away. Like I said, who the fuck cares about the past?
And so it went through the night. I talked with Greg, I talked with Jason, I talked with Rachel and Zoey and Emily (the same Rachel, Emily, and Zoey who were my BFF's at LHS and then promptly stopped talking to me altogether after graduation), I talked with Tracey and Sarah. It was fun. We all had fun. We had drinks, we ate weird food, we played Twister. It was good.
Of course, I tried talking to Patty (who had brought Zak along--I tried to talk to him too) but she just looked at me like a tiny dog which shat on her Dolce and Gabbana shoes and ignored me. So, I ignored her, and went back to the party.
What I found so astounding was, for example, Rachel and Zoey and Emily could just start talking to me again--Zoey especially, which was rather surprising given our, er, history--after ignoring me for months (hell, years by this point basically)--and then after the party completely went back to ignoring me again, even though I went on their Facebook's and was like, "Hey, great seeing you, let's all catch up again) or something.
But like I said, what can I do, right? Whatever.
***
I also met Tracey's friend Kimberly at the party.
Now, Kimberly is astoundingly pretty, and she's also rather astoundingly normal as well. Which was a welcome change of pace.
I won't say she and I "hit it off", because that implies that there was some sort of romantic connection, and I'm not really sure that it was. Like, I found her very attractive and very interesting, but it only vaguely even crossed my mind to be like "Oh let's go out" or something because that was just dumb--different schools, different states, so on.
So it was just like hey, this is a new person, I hope she'll be my friend. Which was nice, it really was.
We traded wall posts on Facebook occasionally, but there wasn't much depth to it, which I thought entirely appropriate. I mean, obviously, we'd only met the one time at a mutual friend's get-together, we'd enjoyed talking together but it hadn't been like a 3 hour conversation, and there was geography and such involved. But like I said, it was still nice, because she seemed normal, and she didn't immediately hate me off the bat or anything. And I felt like being really nosy and a creeper and so on would just complicate any potential friendship or whatever, so I basically left her along.
I mean, it's not like I could think of anything to say anyway.
So you can imagine that I was very surprised indeed when, a few weeks ago, Kimberly invited me to her own little party/get-together thing, this time for her graduation from CU (she's a year older, obviously).
She'd invited Tracey, of course, because Tracey was her friend, and the same for Sarah, because Sarah was also her friend. Which made sense. But she didn't invite anybody else that had been at Tracey's thing, just some of her own friends--anybody else, that is, except me.
Which I found rather interesting.
Now, I think--aw hell, I know--that Old Nate (as I like to call him) would have immediately been like, "OMG SHE'S IN LOVE WITH ME OMG SHE'S SOOOO HOT WHATDOIDOBLAHAHADHAUDHASJKDAKJDNAKJDN."
But that was Old Nate. I'm New Nate now, and, again, he just found it rather interesting.
So, I went, and it was a very fun time. It was just a casual affair, no dance floor or beer pong or anything, but it was fun because there were a lot of crazy conversations. I met some of Kimberly's friends, who also seemed interesting and normal, decent human beings.
Oddly enough, it was less awkward talking to Kimberly and her friends than when Tracey showed up.
Tracey and I have a rather convulted relationship (helped undoubtedly by the fact that Patty is Tracey's best friend), which I've always found a shame because Tracey is one of the bubbliest, nicest people I know. I mean, Tracey's the kind of person who is everybody's friend--and in a real sense, not a look-how-popular-I-am shallow way, which I find just fantasting because, alas, in the world we live in, 99.9% of people who look like Tracey or as smart as her are just, well, fucking assholes frankly.
It was weird because I think Kimberly had the impression that Tracey and I were better friends than we actually are; for example, right before Tracey arrived, Kimberly mentioned how Tracey was excited about her new boyfriend, a guy named Austin--and then turned to me and said "You probably know more about that than I do." But in truth if I hadn't happened to read Tracey's Livejournal a few days earlier, I wouldn't have even recognized the name "Austin".
And so then when Tracey arrived, I think everyone was expecting a bigger reaction that what came to pass. In truth I genuinely wanted to get up and give her a big hug, because it was indeed nice to see Tracey again and Tracey loves hugs--but I just kinda froze on the couch, worried that Tracey would be like, "...hey Nate...?" so I just said "Hey", and Tracey said "Hey", and that was kinda it.
It was disappointing, and rather anticlimactic, but like I was talking about before, for whatever reasons--many of them certainly valid, I'm sure--the vast majority of people from my past, good people who I'd like to stay connected with or reconnect with, have just decided to pass me by.
I mean, in a meta-view, this makes sense: after all, the same things apply to me being at Rutgers, interacting with an entirely different set of people and experience an entirely different set of events. I mean, sure, I can tell people about the grease trucks and fat sandwiches, or guidos, and they may find it mildly interesting, but they can't relate to it--not really, anyway. And so it is.
But I think it was okay though. I think Tracey felt kinda similarly to me, and in any case it didn't seem to really be an issue. We all still talked, we met the now-infamous Austin (who seemed very quiet and shy, but otherwise a very nice guy), we drank, and so on.
I quickly learned that Kimberly and her crowd/posse/whatever were endearingly irreverant, which I found very refreshing--even as this included, er, other things. Like, somehow the conversation kept coming back to Kimberly's butt, and the fact that, apparently, wearing underwear is somewhat of a rarity for her, but she was wearing some today ("I learned something today!"). But Kimberly was very obviously in on the joke, as it were, and she clearly couldn't have cared less. The whole ordeal was very low-key and had this weird veneer of non-awkwardness.
Ironically, this of course made me feel terribly awkward. I mean, what was I supposed to say without coming off weird, right? But if I just sat there in silence, that was weird too, right? I mean, I was patently the "New Guy", if such terminology could even be applied in such a situation.
Then I realized I was thinking like Old Nate. I always felt terribly, horribly awkward around the other people at LHS, because no matter what I seemed to do, it always apparently just came off as creepy--and of course I desperately wanted these people to like me, so I kept trying harder, which just made things worse.
Like, I'm reminded of a conversation I had once back in LHS times. Oddly enough, this conversation was actually with Patty, so I probably seem like vindictive but I swear it's just an example I have in my head because I found it so jarring at the time; I mean, it could have been anyone else pretty much (and Patty and I weren't feuding at the time). I'm not even sure what the original conversation was about; I think Patty was talking about how she'd had some people up at her house the other day, and they'd gone in her hot tub....
Me: "Wow, you have a hot tub at your house? That's so cool! Can I come next time?!"
Patty (in an honestly-harsh, not-teasing tone): "Oh, pffft, you just want to see me in a bikini."
Me: "Huhwha?!"
I remember at the time being completely at a loss for words. I mean, what was I supposed to say? Yes, I'd love to see you in a bikini, because I'm sure you look good in one. Um, no, I just don't know anyone with a hot tub.... Yes, Patty, you are a Goddess and I worship your body. Dude, you're a perv, you'd probably want me to come in a Speedo. Yeah, I bet your huge tits and round ass look great in a bikini. Actually, can you wear a one-piece, I mean you're a Fatty McFatFat....
Everything was also so... loaded back then, so charged. The pecking order was always changing; objectively, the social dynamics of those years are fascinating. I think a great deal of this had to do with the uber-competitive nature of IB, which LHS of course fed. I mean, everybody was always trying to prove just how damn smart and awesome they were all the freaking time. It was exhausting!
And then I also thought about New Jersey.
People in New Jersey think they're meaner than everybody else, but that's not really true. In reality, the biggest difference between a New Jersey person and Colorado person is that the New Jersey is going to be way, way more blunt--about everything. New Jersey people have a tendency to just seem like they're always fighting and giving each other shit, endlessly putting each other down in a manner that's rather jarring. But this doesn't mean people in Colorado are less mean; no, we're just a lot more subtle about it. Social networking in New Jersey is like a wolfpack: you have to figure out who the alpha dog is and fight your way to the top. It's brutal, but it's basic. Social networking in Colorado is more like, say, Congress: there's lots of backdoor deals and underhandedness and such involved. It's more insidious, and more compex. What I find ironic is that, contrary to what everybody probably thinks (especially in NJ), it's probably easier to go from Colorado to New Jersey than from New Jersey to Colorado: if you try the arrogant-asshole crap in Colorado, you'll almost certainly just find yourself ostracized and shunned in about 8 seconds flat.
So, with all this in my head, I suddenly realized, once again, that I was thinking too goddamn much and I just didn't fucking care anymore. So I made some sort of offhand comment like "Geezus, I could never go commando, that just sounds uncomfortable", which didn't cause everyone in the room to go "OH MY FUCKING GOD" but instead just got a few laughs and then we started talking about the concept of chafing and so on....
Like I said, it felt refreshing. It felt low key. It felt normal.
Tracey ended up going after a while, and we never didn't really talk that much, but I think it was still okay. In fact, I ended up talking with Kimberly--for quite a while, until the alcohol and the jet lag (I'd only just come back from NJ a few days earlier) finally hit me and I passed out. We talked about a fair amount of things, like how her mom is from New Jersey and so forth, and it was very nice, and it was very easy. I mean, ok, we'd both had a fair bit to drink, but still.
Since I obviously couldn't drive home, I'd figured I was just going to sleep in my car, until Kimberly offered an air mattress, as if it were the most natural thing in the world (she even apologized that it was only an air mattress). Of course, this was the most natural thing in the world--but I'd been so conditioned by craziness and paranoia for so long that I found it arrestingly jarring.
And like, I said, endearing too. Kimberly clearly had her quirks, as we all do, but she was a patently nice, normal human being.
So I took the offer, slept on the air mattress till the next morning, and drove home, happy as someone with a hangover who has just slept on a half-filled air mattress can be.
When I got home, I went on Facebook and sent Kimberly a simple message saying thanks for inviting me, let me know if you want to hang out again, here's my number. At first I began to think "Oh God, will she think I'm hitting on her? And then will she talk to Tracey and then will she be like 'Yeah he's always been creepy, can you believe he commented about you not wearing underwear' and then and then and then" but then I was like "OH MY GOD BRAIN SHUT UP" and I just sent her the fucking message.
So, it's a couple weeks later, and then I get another message from Kimberly on Facebook.
Apparently since her mom is coming up to visit, and they have some coupons or something, they want to go to Water World, and she was inviting people.
Including, again, me.
Patty and I were (briefly) a couple, we were at times very close friends, and we interacted almost on a daily basis, and she makes a snide comment about me wanting to see her smokin'-hot bod in a teensy-weensy bikini when I say "hot tub". Kimberly and I have met exactly twice (and only by accident through a mutual friend/acquaintance) and we still haven't talked very much, and she's inviting me to a water park, where--gasp!--odds are extremely high that she will, in fact, be wearing a bikini (since I think the only people our age who wear one-pieces anymore are, er, those who have a bit of extra, er, "baggage"--which Kimberly patently does not).
I found this somewhat amusing, for all of about 3 seconds; my mind then turned to "Ooo, I hope I can go, it sounds fun, let me check my schedule...." Because WHO FUCKING CARES A FRIEND INVITED ME WATER WORLD!
(I also found it very flattering: I mean, irregardless of everything else, hanging out is one thing, but being invited to not one, but two things which are a bit more emotionally-close given the context of the events--graduation and her mom coming up to visit--Kimberly had thought me worthy of participating. How delightful!)
After being somewhat on, then off, then on again (concerns over the weather), this morning arrived with a "YES-go" (as she put it), both via Facebook and, indeed, by text. So, I put on my suit, grabbed my towel, hat, and sunglasses, and drove up to Water World.
Though she'd invited other people (including Tracey), the only people who showed up were me, Kimberly, her mom, and Alyssa, Kimberly's roommate who I'd met before at the graduation party. Old Nate would have been like "OHMYGODITSONLYUSWHATDOIDOWHATDOISAYGHAWEAHAKDNBAS"."
New Nate just didn't fucking care. New Nate just wanted to have fun with Kimberly, her mom, and Alyssa.
And we did. We had a lot of fun, in fact. We rode on slides. We rode on tube rides. We sat in the sun. We ate (or, as Kimberly put it, "I need to feed!"). Kimberly was nice. Alyssa was nice. Kimberly's mom was nice. There was nothing weird about it at all.
Which was, of course, weird for me.
And very, very nice.
We talked about Dippin' Dots Ice Cream (Kimberly and I are both fans). We talked about how the cheap concrete made our feet hurt. We talked about wedgies from rides--including, er, "front wedgies" (I pointed out that "Guys don't have that problem; I mean, there's things in the way"). I made fun of all three of them when they unabashedly stared at a guy wearing a tight Speedo that said "Italia" on his ass (which, I have to admit, certainly was impressive for a guy).
So, it was fun. I got sunburned, of course, but it was fun day, and completely out of the ordinary for me.
When I got home, my mom asked how it went, I told her it was fun. Then:
Mom: "So, do you like this Kimberly girl?"
Me: "Well, obviously Mom; do you do voluntary activities with people you don't like?"
Mom: "Well, no, I mean, do you like her, like her?"
--brief pause--
Me: "Geez Mom, this was like the third time I've hung out with the girl."
Mom: "-sigh- Never mind...."
I could see myself liking Kimberly. Absolutely I could. She's attractive. She's pretty. She's nice. She's smart. She has goals in life. She's fun to talk to, and fun to hang out with. I enjoy her company.
She's also a year older than me (well, only a few months actually in age, but scholastically a year older than me). I go to school in New Jersey and I won't even be in Colorado for all of my summer break. She's planning on semi-experimentally moving to Reno, just because she likes the place. She's given absolutely no indications whatsoever that she would like to be anything more than friends with me.
If something happened, sure, that'd be great. But if nothing happens (which the odds are much greater for of course anyway) but we still hang out when we can and we become good friends, that'd be great too. Why should I let myself get worked up about it, right? It's not like there aren't other girls on my mind too, and I'm sure that there are other boys on her mind (unless I'm like completely misreading all her "signals", which is possible but extremely unlikely).
So, I'll let just let what will happen, happen. Because of course that's really all one can ever do, right? :)
Here's the best thing I can say about Kimberly: she seems genuine. And I like genuine.
(Oh, and by the way, Kimberly did in fact wear a bikini at Water World, and I did in fact see her in her bikini. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.)
***
I'm excited about this week.
Nervous, but excited.
Looking for something to do while I'm briefly home this summer, I began looking to see if there were any summer youth football leagues or camps that I could work or volunteer for, for my own amusement, to further my knowledge, and to boost the all-important resume.
After looking, I found that CU is holding a variety of youth camps in June. I sent an email explaining how I'd worked with Rutgers football, I've never played but I consider myself knowledgable, blah blah blah are there any assistant or volunteer opportunities.
A few days later, and, long story short, unless something got screwed up I'll be helping out at a youth camp later this week. It's volunteer, of course, and I'll probably just be setting up cones or holding tackling bags or whatever), but I'm still excited.
Nervous, but excited.
Oh, and when I was filling out the form they emailed me for the background check, I noticed that it said:
Position or program applied for: C.U. Football Camp Coach
Coach
This made me very happy :D
It's been a while, hasn't it?
Wait a minute, who the fuck am I talking to? Nobody reads this thing anyway.
Oh well :D
***
Every time I look back on my last entry, I get massively depressed.
All I'll say is, things with Colleen got... well, they got really fucked up (I mean really fucked up) and it happened all at once and just...
...blah.
(And I still can't get her out of my head either.)
***
I'm good, though.
Really, I am.
I wish Patty would talk to me again, but she's refused all my peace offers. I'm not even sure what it is we're even supposed to be fighting about, but whatever--what can I do?
But Patty of course, is the past. I mean, there's something really depressing about the girl who gave you your first kiss hating your guts interminably, but like I said, what can I do?
The same goes for pretty much everyone else at LHS. I tried to keep in touch with as many people as I could, but I just got rebuffed (in various fashions) each time.
I don't really understand it, either. Like, OK, a couple months ago, Tracey held this small "IB kids" reunion thing--and, strangely enough, invited me. I mean, I suppose I was in IB for a while, and those were mostly the people I hung out with, but I still thought it was kinda weird. I accepted though, and went into the thing thinking, "The past was the past. Stop being an asshole, and show these people how to party Jersey-style."
So, sure enough, it was a great night. Hell, the first person I talked to off the bat was Greg Sobetski. We all know how I used to feel about Greg Sobetski. Greg Sobetski knew how I felt about Greg Sobetski. And I got a lot of crap for it from a lot of people.
I mean, sure, honestly, part of me still finds the guy annoying, but--and this sounds stupid, I know--but I realized I just didn't fucking care anymore. Whatever faults he may have (and we of course all have our own faults), Greg Sobetski is still a good guy, a smart guy, and an interesting guy. So what the fuck else mattered?
So it was genuinely enjoyable talking to Greg. It really was. And I think he recognized that attitude shift because he was friendly as hell too--and also genuinely. Hell, Greg, of all people, even congratulated Rutgers on their victory in the St. Petersburg Bowl--which surprised the bejeezus out of me and was in its own way amazingly flattering.
Greg and I talked, and then Jason showed up. I swear to God, Jason practically stalked me back at LHS--no, really--and you could tell he felt kinda awkward around us. So what did I do? I brought him into my conversation with Greg, and soon the three of us were chattering away. Like I said, who the fuck cares about the past?
And so it went through the night. I talked with Greg, I talked with Jason, I talked with Rachel and Zoey and Emily (the same Rachel, Emily, and Zoey who were my BFF's at LHS and then promptly stopped talking to me altogether after graduation), I talked with Tracey and Sarah. It was fun. We all had fun. We had drinks, we ate weird food, we played Twister. It was good.
Of course, I tried talking to Patty (who had brought Zak along--I tried to talk to him too) but she just looked at me like a tiny dog which shat on her Dolce and Gabbana shoes and ignored me. So, I ignored her, and went back to the party.
What I found so astounding was, for example, Rachel and Zoey and Emily could just start talking to me again--Zoey especially, which was rather surprising given our, er, history--after ignoring me for months (hell, years by this point basically)--and then after the party completely went back to ignoring me again, even though I went on their Facebook's and was like, "Hey, great seeing you, let's all catch up again) or something.
But like I said, what can I do, right? Whatever.
***
I also met Tracey's friend Kimberly at the party.
Now, Kimberly is astoundingly pretty, and she's also rather astoundingly normal as well. Which was a welcome change of pace.
I won't say she and I "hit it off", because that implies that there was some sort of romantic connection, and I'm not really sure that it was. Like, I found her very attractive and very interesting, but it only vaguely even crossed my mind to be like "Oh let's go out" or something because that was just dumb--different schools, different states, so on.
So it was just like hey, this is a new person, I hope she'll be my friend. Which was nice, it really was.
We traded wall posts on Facebook occasionally, but there wasn't much depth to it, which I thought entirely appropriate. I mean, obviously, we'd only met the one time at a mutual friend's get-together, we'd enjoyed talking together but it hadn't been like a 3 hour conversation, and there was geography and such involved. But like I said, it was still nice, because she seemed normal, and she didn't immediately hate me off the bat or anything. And I felt like being really nosy and a creeper and so on would just complicate any potential friendship or whatever, so I basically left her along.
I mean, it's not like I could think of anything to say anyway.
So you can imagine that I was very surprised indeed when, a few weeks ago, Kimberly invited me to her own little party/get-together thing, this time for her graduation from CU (she's a year older, obviously).
She'd invited Tracey, of course, because Tracey was her friend, and the same for Sarah, because Sarah was also her friend. Which made sense. But she didn't invite anybody else that had been at Tracey's thing, just some of her own friends--anybody else, that is, except me.
Which I found rather interesting.
Now, I think--aw hell, I know--that Old Nate (as I like to call him) would have immediately been like, "OMG SHE'S IN LOVE WITH ME OMG SHE'S SOOOO HOT WHATDOIDOBLAHAHADHAUDHASJKDAKJDNAKJDN."
But that was Old Nate. I'm New Nate now, and, again, he just found it rather interesting.
So, I went, and it was a very fun time. It was just a casual affair, no dance floor or beer pong or anything, but it was fun because there were a lot of crazy conversations. I met some of Kimberly's friends, who also seemed interesting and normal, decent human beings.
Oddly enough, it was less awkward talking to Kimberly and her friends than when Tracey showed up.
Tracey and I have a rather convulted relationship (helped undoubtedly by the fact that Patty is Tracey's best friend), which I've always found a shame because Tracey is one of the bubbliest, nicest people I know. I mean, Tracey's the kind of person who is everybody's friend--and in a real sense, not a look-how-popular-I-am shallow way, which I find just fantasting because, alas, in the world we live in, 99.9% of people who look like Tracey or as smart as her are just, well, fucking assholes frankly.
It was weird because I think Kimberly had the impression that Tracey and I were better friends than we actually are; for example, right before Tracey arrived, Kimberly mentioned how Tracey was excited about her new boyfriend, a guy named Austin--and then turned to me and said "You probably know more about that than I do." But in truth if I hadn't happened to read Tracey's Livejournal a few days earlier, I wouldn't have even recognized the name "Austin".
And so then when Tracey arrived, I think everyone was expecting a bigger reaction that what came to pass. In truth I genuinely wanted to get up and give her a big hug, because it was indeed nice to see Tracey again and Tracey loves hugs--but I just kinda froze on the couch, worried that Tracey would be like, "...hey Nate...?" so I just said "Hey", and Tracey said "Hey", and that was kinda it.
It was disappointing, and rather anticlimactic, but like I was talking about before, for whatever reasons--many of them certainly valid, I'm sure--the vast majority of people from my past, good people who I'd like to stay connected with or reconnect with, have just decided to pass me by.
I mean, in a meta-view, this makes sense: after all, the same things apply to me being at Rutgers, interacting with an entirely different set of people and experience an entirely different set of events. I mean, sure, I can tell people about the grease trucks and fat sandwiches, or guidos, and they may find it mildly interesting, but they can't relate to it--not really, anyway. And so it is.
But I think it was okay though. I think Tracey felt kinda similarly to me, and in any case it didn't seem to really be an issue. We all still talked, we met the now-infamous Austin (who seemed very quiet and shy, but otherwise a very nice guy), we drank, and so on.
I quickly learned that Kimberly and her crowd/posse/whatever were endearingly irreverant, which I found very refreshing--even as this included, er, other things. Like, somehow the conversation kept coming back to Kimberly's butt, and the fact that, apparently, wearing underwear is somewhat of a rarity for her, but she was wearing some today ("I learned something today!"). But Kimberly was very obviously in on the joke, as it were, and she clearly couldn't have cared less. The whole ordeal was very low-key and had this weird veneer of non-awkwardness.
Ironically, this of course made me feel terribly awkward. I mean, what was I supposed to say without coming off weird, right? But if I just sat there in silence, that was weird too, right? I mean, I was patently the "New Guy", if such terminology could even be applied in such a situation.
Then I realized I was thinking like Old Nate. I always felt terribly, horribly awkward around the other people at LHS, because no matter what I seemed to do, it always apparently just came off as creepy--and of course I desperately wanted these people to like me, so I kept trying harder, which just made things worse.
Like, I'm reminded of a conversation I had once back in LHS times. Oddly enough, this conversation was actually with Patty, so I probably seem like vindictive but I swear it's just an example I have in my head because I found it so jarring at the time; I mean, it could have been anyone else pretty much (and Patty and I weren't feuding at the time). I'm not even sure what the original conversation was about; I think Patty was talking about how she'd had some people up at her house the other day, and they'd gone in her hot tub....
Me: "Wow, you have a hot tub at your house? That's so cool! Can I come next time?!"
Patty (in an honestly-harsh, not-teasing tone): "Oh, pffft, you just want to see me in a bikini."
Me: "Huhwha?!"
I remember at the time being completely at a loss for words. I mean, what was I supposed to say? Yes, I'd love to see you in a bikini, because I'm sure you look good in one. Um, no, I just don't know anyone with a hot tub.... Yes, Patty, you are a Goddess and I worship your body. Dude, you're a perv, you'd probably want me to come in a Speedo. Yeah, I bet your huge tits and round ass look great in a bikini. Actually, can you wear a one-piece, I mean you're a Fatty McFatFat....
Everything was also so... loaded back then, so charged. The pecking order was always changing; objectively, the social dynamics of those years are fascinating. I think a great deal of this had to do with the uber-competitive nature of IB, which LHS of course fed. I mean, everybody was always trying to prove just how damn smart and awesome they were all the freaking time. It was exhausting!
And then I also thought about New Jersey.
People in New Jersey think they're meaner than everybody else, but that's not really true. In reality, the biggest difference between a New Jersey person and Colorado person is that the New Jersey is going to be way, way more blunt--about everything. New Jersey people have a tendency to just seem like they're always fighting and giving each other shit, endlessly putting each other down in a manner that's rather jarring. But this doesn't mean people in Colorado are less mean; no, we're just a lot more subtle about it. Social networking in New Jersey is like a wolfpack: you have to figure out who the alpha dog is and fight your way to the top. It's brutal, but it's basic. Social networking in Colorado is more like, say, Congress: there's lots of backdoor deals and underhandedness and such involved. It's more insidious, and more compex. What I find ironic is that, contrary to what everybody probably thinks (especially in NJ), it's probably easier to go from Colorado to New Jersey than from New Jersey to Colorado: if you try the arrogant-asshole crap in Colorado, you'll almost certainly just find yourself ostracized and shunned in about 8 seconds flat.
So, with all this in my head, I suddenly realized, once again, that I was thinking too goddamn much and I just didn't fucking care anymore. So I made some sort of offhand comment like "Geezus, I could never go commando, that just sounds uncomfortable", which didn't cause everyone in the room to go "OH MY FUCKING GOD" but instead just got a few laughs and then we started talking about the concept of chafing and so on....
Like I said, it felt refreshing. It felt low key. It felt normal.
Tracey ended up going after a while, and we never didn't really talk that much, but I think it was still okay. In fact, I ended up talking with Kimberly--for quite a while, until the alcohol and the jet lag (I'd only just come back from NJ a few days earlier) finally hit me and I passed out. We talked about a fair amount of things, like how her mom is from New Jersey and so forth, and it was very nice, and it was very easy. I mean, ok, we'd both had a fair bit to drink, but still.
Since I obviously couldn't drive home, I'd figured I was just going to sleep in my car, until Kimberly offered an air mattress, as if it were the most natural thing in the world (she even apologized that it was only an air mattress). Of course, this was the most natural thing in the world--but I'd been so conditioned by craziness and paranoia for so long that I found it arrestingly jarring.
And like, I said, endearing too. Kimberly clearly had her quirks, as we all do, but she was a patently nice, normal human being.
So I took the offer, slept on the air mattress till the next morning, and drove home, happy as someone with a hangover who has just slept on a half-filled air mattress can be.
When I got home, I went on Facebook and sent Kimberly a simple message saying thanks for inviting me, let me know if you want to hang out again, here's my number. At first I began to think "Oh God, will she think I'm hitting on her? And then will she talk to Tracey and then will she be like 'Yeah he's always been creepy, can you believe he commented about you not wearing underwear' and then and then and then" but then I was like "OH MY GOD BRAIN SHUT UP" and I just sent her the fucking message.
So, it's a couple weeks later, and then I get another message from Kimberly on Facebook.
Apparently since her mom is coming up to visit, and they have some coupons or something, they want to go to Water World, and she was inviting people.
Including, again, me.
Patty and I were (briefly) a couple, we were at times very close friends, and we interacted almost on a daily basis, and she makes a snide comment about me wanting to see her smokin'-hot bod in a teensy-weensy bikini when I say "hot tub". Kimberly and I have met exactly twice (and only by accident through a mutual friend/acquaintance) and we still haven't talked very much, and she's inviting me to a water park, where--gasp!--odds are extremely high that she will, in fact, be wearing a bikini (since I think the only people our age who wear one-pieces anymore are, er, those who have a bit of extra, er, "baggage"--which Kimberly patently does not).
I found this somewhat amusing, for all of about 3 seconds; my mind then turned to "Ooo, I hope I can go, it sounds fun, let me check my schedule...." Because WHO FUCKING CARES A FRIEND INVITED ME WATER WORLD!
(I also found it very flattering: I mean, irregardless of everything else, hanging out is one thing, but being invited to not one, but two things which are a bit more emotionally-close given the context of the events--graduation and her mom coming up to visit--Kimberly had thought me worthy of participating. How delightful!)
After being somewhat on, then off, then on again (concerns over the weather), this morning arrived with a "YES-go" (as she put it), both via Facebook and, indeed, by text. So, I put on my suit, grabbed my towel, hat, and sunglasses, and drove up to Water World.
Though she'd invited other people (including Tracey), the only people who showed up were me, Kimberly, her mom, and Alyssa, Kimberly's roommate who I'd met before at the graduation party. Old Nate would have been like "OHMYGODITSONLYUSWHATDOIDOWHATDOISAYGHAWEAHAKDNBAS"."
New Nate just didn't fucking care. New Nate just wanted to have fun with Kimberly, her mom, and Alyssa.
And we did. We had a lot of fun, in fact. We rode on slides. We rode on tube rides. We sat in the sun. We ate (or, as Kimberly put it, "I need to feed!"). Kimberly was nice. Alyssa was nice. Kimberly's mom was nice. There was nothing weird about it at all.
Which was, of course, weird for me.
And very, very nice.
We talked about Dippin' Dots Ice Cream (Kimberly and I are both fans). We talked about how the cheap concrete made our feet hurt. We talked about wedgies from rides--including, er, "front wedgies" (I pointed out that "Guys don't have that problem; I mean, there's things in the way"). I made fun of all three of them when they unabashedly stared at a guy wearing a tight Speedo that said "Italia" on his ass (which, I have to admit, certainly was impressive for a guy).
So, it was fun. I got sunburned, of course, but it was fun day, and completely out of the ordinary for me.
When I got home, my mom asked how it went, I told her it was fun. Then:
Mom: "So, do you like this Kimberly girl?"
Me: "Well, obviously Mom; do you do voluntary activities with people you don't like?"
Mom: "Well, no, I mean, do you like her, like her?"
--brief pause--
Me: "Geez Mom, this was like the third time I've hung out with the girl."
Mom: "-sigh- Never mind...."
I could see myself liking Kimberly. Absolutely I could. She's attractive. She's pretty. She's nice. She's smart. She has goals in life. She's fun to talk to, and fun to hang out with. I enjoy her company.
She's also a year older than me (well, only a few months actually in age, but scholastically a year older than me). I go to school in New Jersey and I won't even be in Colorado for all of my summer break. She's planning on semi-experimentally moving to Reno, just because she likes the place. She's given absolutely no indications whatsoever that she would like to be anything more than friends with me.
If something happened, sure, that'd be great. But if nothing happens (which the odds are much greater for of course anyway) but we still hang out when we can and we become good friends, that'd be great too. Why should I let myself get worked up about it, right? It's not like there aren't other girls on my mind too, and I'm sure that there are other boys on her mind (unless I'm like completely misreading all her "signals", which is possible but extremely unlikely).
So, I'll let just let what will happen, happen. Because of course that's really all one can ever do, right? :)
Here's the best thing I can say about Kimberly: she seems genuine. And I like genuine.
(Oh, and by the way, Kimberly did in fact wear a bikini at Water World, and I did in fact see her in her bikini. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.)
***
I'm excited about this week.
Nervous, but excited.
Looking for something to do while I'm briefly home this summer, I began looking to see if there were any summer youth football leagues or camps that I could work or volunteer for, for my own amusement, to further my knowledge, and to boost the all-important resume.
After looking, I found that CU is holding a variety of youth camps in June. I sent an email explaining how I'd worked with Rutgers football, I've never played but I consider myself knowledgable, blah blah blah are there any assistant or volunteer opportunities.
A few days later, and, long story short, unless something got screwed up I'll be helping out at a youth camp later this week. It's volunteer, of course, and I'll probably just be setting up cones or holding tackling bags or whatever), but I'm still excited.
Nervous, but excited.
Oh, and when I was filling out the form they emailed me for the background check, I noticed that it said:
Position or program applied for: C.U. Football Camp Coach
Coach
This made me very happy :D