Once Upon a Time: True Stories of an Aspiring Writer

27: Morgan Brown vs. the Little Red-Haired Girl

Another fourth-wall warning: if there is the slightest chance that we went to college together, and a chance I liked you, you may want to stay away. Seriously. 

IT ALL STARTED WITH a canceled class. 

I had signed up for an art class, "Beauty and Ugliness," with a rumored-to-be-fabulous professor who would be on Jeopardy two years later and last for three games. But over the summer, the registrar sent out an email saying that it was canceled for some reason. Thus, my entire schedule was rearranged after I was put into a different class and I'd end up being in class for four or five hours at once, with no lunch break, unless I took action and switched into another class. Which I did.

 And that's the class I was waiting for at this moment in time.

We were squished like sardines against the walls, trying to make way for people getting out of other classes and still trying to make room for each other. There were only four guys in the class, and I was standing almost directly across from one of them. He was several inches taller than me and he looked nice and preppy in khakis and a classic navy Hollister shirt. I thought he had cute guy potential, but how often did I look at someone twice and they ended up being not so cute after all? I looked anyway.

Hey...

And thus I had a reason to look forward to art after all.

As usual, though. I had my work cut out for me. And thus began the saga of the next three years where I learned, and broke, rules of college dating.

Rule 1: Make sure they notice you.

We used a band/orchestra room for our class. He sat on the side right of me. So I had a pretty good view unless someone's head was perfectly positioned in the way, which it was sometimes. He sat right with the three other guys, a patriarchal band of solidarity.

Art wasn't very exciting, though it did have a creative writing component, which I appreciated. Soon after I'd noticed him, we had an exercise: fill in the blanks: "My love is like a (color) (color (object)." I wrote, "My love is like a blue blue sky." We were asked to say them aloud, and lo and behold, the cutie came up with the same thing. Destiny! Of course, I had to come up with something new so nobody would think weird thoughts about the obvious coincidence.

I spent class time casually catching glimpses of him; less obvious than the ones I gave Ben in middle school history class. Whenever we went to the campus art gallery, I would try to stand near him. Eventually, maybe I'd find out more about him. When our teacher called on him one day. I eventually learned his name was Tim. Booyah.

But class only met twice a week, and in December it would be over. Would I ever see him again? I was determined to take action. After lots of thinking, and after learning his dorm room was easily accessible on the first floor of the building adjoined to mine, I decided to send him a note to say Happy Thanksgiving. I typed up a note with clipart, then snuck into his dorm one day (I'd noticed him going in one day after class let out, and it was conveniently easy to get to) and taped it to his door.

Nothing happened.

I got in my own way when it came to meeting people in college, as I've gone into previously. I'm still really not sure why. Maybe sort of victim complex came upon me after Jessica rejected me. It's also possible that I wanted Ben, after his rejection, to feel bad for me and come back offering friendship---not that he'd know my situation, but if word ever got out, maybe he could and then---anyway, I also held on to the belief, like the one I had four years prior, that I could make friends any time I wanted, but just didn't feel like it at the given moment. Either way, some weird personality zombie embedded itself into my soul and steered myself away from human contact.