floodgates
I think some kind of switch has been flipped. Or maybe more like the tap is turned on, the river undammed.
Something has been set loose.
I have only related a small piece of last week. Only the proposition and its immediate results. There is much else to tell.
Immediately after the interaction with Corinna about the braceletnote, I went to meet with Erin. Erin is another student in Second Language Acquisition who is taking Sign Language. We've been meeting every Tuesday for a month or more, just practicing our Sign. I told Erin a little about asking someone out, because I wanted to, and because I thought some explanation for my scattered yet intense state might be necessary.
We talked about the presentations we made in Sign class. She showed me some pictures of her family, her boyfriend, and her dog. I felt relieved to discover she had a boyfriend. Made it less awkward that I had told her about asking someone else out. (One of the many things I probably don't need to worry about, but do.)
We ended up talking for a long time, basically giving the expanded short form of our life stories. I gave her a fuller history of the Baha'i Faith than I've ever given anyone. We were talking for about an hour and a half. (And no, that wasn't all in Sign.)
So that was quite interesting.
The next day, being Wednesday, I asked Caroline if she wanted to practice Sign Language. Caroline is another student in Second Language Acquisition taking Sign. We practice sometimes on Wednesdays. She said okay.
We tried a little harder to use Sign, but it's hard when you're talking about attitudes towards dating, and what kind of people you find attractive, violence in videogames, and stuff like that. Yeah, we talked about all that. Mostly about what our respective types are, interracial dating, and online personals.
As I remarked to her, it seems pretty uncommon to have conversations like that with people. So I appreciate talking with her.
Also, it seems pretty firmly established that we are not interested in each other. Which was relieving to me, because confirming what I already suspected.
So, again, that was pretty darn interesting.
It struck me that with both Caroline and Erin, I was kind of relieved to learn that they were unavailable and I shouldn't worry about pursuing them as romantic potentials. And I laughed, with only a touch of sarcasm, "Seems to be a lot of that going around."
But still life goes on.
A girl named Melody, a Chinese international student in Second Language Acquisition and Syntax classes, has talked to me several times about painting and art. She minored in painting for her undergraduate in China. She seems quite interesting.
She is soft-spoken and somewhat retiring. I have had a difficult time finding spaces to talk to her further. I decided that I must make a greater effort to seek her out and repay her for talking to me before.
I talked to her on Wednesday morning. Moderately successful, but a bit awkward. ("Do I stand in front of her desk as she sits there? Do I squat to talk on more even level? Can I lean on this other person's desk? Oh wait, that person just came into class, that won't work...")
And I debated and decided, "You know, I'm going to ask for her email address. I don't know what will come of this, not even sure what I want, exactly. But she is interesting and I'd like to talk to her more." So I was decided that, come Thursday night, I would find an opportunity to ask for Melody's email address.
On Thursday mornings, I have English 526. The same class as I have with Corinna. Now, on Wednesday afternoon, she said "hi" to me. Which is a good step towards becoming friends instead of 'dude who asked you out and you had to turn down' and 'girl I asked out and had to turn me down'. That would be an improvement. However, the exchanged hellos felt quite awkward. Painfully. Of course, it's possible that Corinna doesn't think it's so awkward and she's just naturally a bit curt.
I don't know.
But, back to Thursday morning: Corinna sat behind me, and we exchanged a few words. Just sort of morning pleasantries. But, we seemed to function just like normal human beings. I think I turned up the nonchalance a bit high, but still, things were surprising smooth. I think nonchalance is a good direction, just not so hard. I think things will be fine.
Now, we were broken into groups that day, in the teacher's absence. Much as the idea amused and sort of horrified me, I didn't have a group with Corinna. But, about halfway through class, a couple of people walked up and asked to join our group. I guess their groups were lame or something.
One of these is a girl named Liberty. I've developed a friendly acquaintanceship with her. The kind where you not only say "hi," but you can optionally ask "how was your weekend?" and get a kind of real answer. At the beginning of class I thought I might become romantically interested in her... but had sort of decided that wasn't happening. Wasn't sure we would get along that well. Shrug.
But, to my surprise and confusion, when the group was breaking up and exchanging email addresses and stuff, Liberty leaned over, snagged my notes, and told me, "Here, I'll give you my number," as she scribbled down her number and name in black marker.
Yeah, nobody else exchanged numbers.
Did she just give me her number?
I think so.
But, like, why?
Well, since it seems rather unnecessary for the group work, I guess she wants you to call her. But she did it so smoothly, I'm not really quite sure...
Well, anyway.
Thursday night came around. When the 3 hour Second Language Acquisition class had the 10 minute intermission, I stepped over to Melody and said, "Could I have your email address? I'd like to talk to you more about art."
Yeah, I sort of can't believe I said that either. Sounds so much like a line, yeesh.
But she said okay. And I got her email address.
So now I felt really weird. I mean, consider it:
I asked out a girl.
A different girl gave me her number, basically out of the blue.
And I got yet another girl's email address.
All in the same week!
I'm not used to dealing with so many girls! It's confusing!
And man, that was a huge amount of social development this week!
And how did I end up with so many different social threads in development simultaneously?
So, to cap it all off, I've decided to basically invite everyone I know to the Jason Webley concert this Friday. I spent about 2 hours emailing everyone this afternoon.
If we're going crazy, let's do it in style, I guess...
Something has been set loose.
I have only related a small piece of last week. Only the proposition and its immediate results. There is much else to tell.
Immediately after the interaction with Corinna about the braceletnote, I went to meet with Erin. Erin is another student in Second Language Acquisition who is taking Sign Language. We've been meeting every Tuesday for a month or more, just practicing our Sign. I told Erin a little about asking someone out, because I wanted to, and because I thought some explanation for my scattered yet intense state might be necessary.
We talked about the presentations we made in Sign class. She showed me some pictures of her family, her boyfriend, and her dog. I felt relieved to discover she had a boyfriend. Made it less awkward that I had told her about asking someone else out. (One of the many things I probably don't need to worry about, but do.)
We ended up talking for a long time, basically giving the expanded short form of our life stories. I gave her a fuller history of the Baha'i Faith than I've ever given anyone. We were talking for about an hour and a half. (And no, that wasn't all in Sign.)
So that was quite interesting.
The next day, being Wednesday, I asked Caroline if she wanted to practice Sign Language. Caroline is another student in Second Language Acquisition taking Sign. We practice sometimes on Wednesdays. She said okay.
We tried a little harder to use Sign, but it's hard when you're talking about attitudes towards dating, and what kind of people you find attractive, violence in videogames, and stuff like that. Yeah, we talked about all that. Mostly about what our respective types are, interracial dating, and online personals.
As I remarked to her, it seems pretty uncommon to have conversations like that with people. So I appreciate talking with her.
Also, it seems pretty firmly established that we are not interested in each other. Which was relieving to me, because confirming what I already suspected.
So, again, that was pretty darn interesting.
It struck me that with both Caroline and Erin, I was kind of relieved to learn that they were unavailable and I shouldn't worry about pursuing them as romantic potentials. And I laughed, with only a touch of sarcasm, "Seems to be a lot of that going around."
But still life goes on.
A girl named Melody, a Chinese international student in Second Language Acquisition and Syntax classes, has talked to me several times about painting and art. She minored in painting for her undergraduate in China. She seems quite interesting.
She is soft-spoken and somewhat retiring. I have had a difficult time finding spaces to talk to her further. I decided that I must make a greater effort to seek her out and repay her for talking to me before.
I talked to her on Wednesday morning. Moderately successful, but a bit awkward. ("Do I stand in front of her desk as she sits there? Do I squat to talk on more even level? Can I lean on this other person's desk? Oh wait, that person just came into class, that won't work...")
And I debated and decided, "You know, I'm going to ask for her email address. I don't know what will come of this, not even sure what I want, exactly. But she is interesting and I'd like to talk to her more." So I was decided that, come Thursday night, I would find an opportunity to ask for Melody's email address.
On Thursday mornings, I have English 526. The same class as I have with Corinna. Now, on Wednesday afternoon, she said "hi" to me. Which is a good step towards becoming friends instead of 'dude who asked you out and you had to turn down' and 'girl I asked out and had to turn me down'. That would be an improvement. However, the exchanged hellos felt quite awkward. Painfully. Of course, it's possible that Corinna doesn't think it's so awkward and she's just naturally a bit curt.
I don't know.
But, back to Thursday morning: Corinna sat behind me, and we exchanged a few words. Just sort of morning pleasantries. But, we seemed to function just like normal human beings. I think I turned up the nonchalance a bit high, but still, things were surprising smooth. I think nonchalance is a good direction, just not so hard. I think things will be fine.
Now, we were broken into groups that day, in the teacher's absence. Much as the idea amused and sort of horrified me, I didn't have a group with Corinna. But, about halfway through class, a couple of people walked up and asked to join our group. I guess their groups were lame or something.
One of these is a girl named Liberty. I've developed a friendly acquaintanceship with her. The kind where you not only say "hi," but you can optionally ask "how was your weekend?" and get a kind of real answer. At the beginning of class I thought I might become romantically interested in her... but had sort of decided that wasn't happening. Wasn't sure we would get along that well. Shrug.
But, to my surprise and confusion, when the group was breaking up and exchanging email addresses and stuff, Liberty leaned over, snagged my notes, and told me, "Here, I'll give you my number," as she scribbled down her number and name in black marker.
Yeah, nobody else exchanged numbers.
Did she just give me her number?
I think so.
But, like, why?
Well, since it seems rather unnecessary for the group work, I guess she wants you to call her. But she did it so smoothly, I'm not really quite sure...
Well, anyway.
Thursday night came around. When the 3 hour Second Language Acquisition class had the 10 minute intermission, I stepped over to Melody and said, "Could I have your email address? I'd like to talk to you more about art."
Yeah, I sort of can't believe I said that either. Sounds so much like a line, yeesh.
But she said okay. And I got her email address.
So now I felt really weird. I mean, consider it:
I asked out a girl.
A different girl gave me her number, basically out of the blue.
And I got yet another girl's email address.
All in the same week!
I'm not used to dealing with so many girls! It's confusing!
And man, that was a huge amount of social development this week!
And how did I end up with so many different social threads in development simultaneously?
So, to cap it all off, I've decided to basically invite everyone I know to the Jason Webley concert this Friday. I spent about 2 hours emailing everyone this afternoon.
If we're going crazy, let's do it in style, I guess...