Giddy

I Hate Band Couples

Contrary to the title, this isn't a rant about band couples.

Carlos. Oh man.

The dilemma is that I'm pretty sure he likes me. And I have a lot of evidence to support this, but it's too difficult to explain so you all could imagine it after reading what I would potentially right. I'm still going to take a stab at it anyhow.

So, I don't know if I had ever mentioned this but I am in high school color guard, and therefore am part of the marching band for a little less than half the school year. Carlos marches trumpet, but this year he is one of three of our drum majors.

I've known him for... a year and a half now? And I hadn't conjured up the idea of him liking me until about halfway through the year last year, probably during spring at the latest. He constantly complimented me in our math class, and it didn't help that he sat right behind me. 

A common flirting technique is physical contact, and he found ways to "casually" touch my hands through high fives or (if anyone else does this) that thing where you take another person's hands and either just bounce them in your palms or clap them together or like you're playing a super lazy game of pat-a-cake or anything.

I remember a time he tried to hold my hand using the "hold this" move that went viral. I rejected him but said the same thing to him and dropped a letter "L" made by my thumb and pointer finger into his palm. That was probably kind of harsh of me, but it didn't stop him.

There was also a moment when he hugged me... I think. It was that or he just kind of rested his head on my shoulder. I think he did hug me, but that's besides the point.

By the end of the year, he had told me that he was always in the band room during lunch, as if hinting that I should go there sometime. And he tried to walk around with me during lunch while I had like no friends to sit with because most of my friends were seniors and it was that point in the year where they were doing senior activities. (Disclaimer: I do actually have other friends but I thought it would be awkward to just start sitting with them after never sitting with them the entire year, which it wasn't).

Come a new school year, and the first Friday of school I saw Carlos by the band room where color guard has to sign in because it's technically a class and then we just have after school practice. I saw him outside, just a bit aways from the band room and I was exhausted. We started on Wednesday and I was already done by that third day, so I asked him if he would carry me. I knew he would, especially if he liked me. I realized though that that was a huge mistake when there was a moment when our faces were just centimeters apart. Gosh, just remembering it is making me go insane! And when he put me down, he started doing that thing where he plays with my hands and we were just talking and I'm pretty sure when I left him I kind of squeezed his hand, so that was maybe a subconscious flirting thing from me.

Our first extended rehearsal was also that night in which we have a five hour rehearsal, with a break in between for dinner. Well during that break, I was trying to decide who to hang around because my friends had all graduated. One guy who I've become better friends with now since we're in the same boat of having friends older than us, came over and Carlos would eventually come over to kind of talk to us and then go back to where he originally had been sitting, and told me to go with him and so I did. Whatever. 

We finish dinner, there's pretty much free time, and he tells me to go visit him in the band room after we hang around my freshman color guard girls. I go into the band room and hide on the bottom shelf of where the instruments are put, and the guy who I had befriended is trying to trap me underneath, whilst Carlos crouches down and tries to move in to possibly share the space. Well, my friend had made some sexual joke so I got out immediately. 

As I was leaving the band room, Carlos came in for a hug but ended up wrapping his arm around my neck and I sighed and said that I wanted to die because I was just so done so he actually kind of squeezed his arm tighter around me, and he was mostly around my shoulders rather than my neck. Cue the guy who had made the sexual joke earlier who makes another one, and I break off from Carlos and leave the band room to go back to rehearsal.

The thing is, the last couple days of school he hasn't been giving me  the same attention as when I for sure thought he liked me. He made an effort to stand by me before and start conversation, but now nothing.

And I've taken this problem to several people now. The general plan is to 1. Not lead him on but 2. Give him a shot if he ever asks me on the date. The consensus is also that this behavior right now is temporary and he wants me to go after him now.

I also can't decide my stance on liking someone just because they like you...

Then we had our first football game of the season. We always perform at halftime and then get to watch the rest of the game but from the bleachers that are assigned to the band. Carlos was the drum major on our side of the bleachers, and I tried to talk with him and stuff because I wanted to bring up that we still needed to watch a movie together or something because we have such conflicting schedules it never works out. But I didn't get to talk to him. I tried to get his phone to take selfies on it like I did with one of our last drum majors, but that was it. He also had no interest in football so I was actually watching the game and he just stood around.

The game ends and we all go home. One of my friends whom I've been talking with about this dilemma had told me a few days before how I need to try and find out if he actually likes me or not by directly asking him and I said I'd try and find out that night at the game. I was going to ease into the conversation by bringing up the movie first and all, but it didn't happen . So I texted this friend about my "failure to talk to him" and I sent it to Carlos instead! Well, good thing he went and asked further who I meant to talk to so I explained that it was him.

So I guess this is like my road to finding out the truth?