Soooo...

I can finally talk about that thing I’ve been saying I can’t talk about! Finally! It’s actually two things, but I'm only gonna talk about one of them in any real depth. The rest shall come in time.

So, a fair while ago (I don't even remember when), a friend of mine told me about this girl she knew at work. She was described as shy and nerdy, leading the two of us to joke about me going out with this girl, given it seemed so plausible in theory. I was told about a few of her interests, none of which really clicked with me, but she was definitely a geek, so I knew there could be other things she liked which I’d be into as well. That said, I didn’t put much more thought into the situation afterwards, thinking of it as nothing but a joke.

At some point, I went into my friend’s work, and was told after I went home that the girl was seen looking at me, my friend believing this girl had some kind of crush on me. Upon hearing that, I thought to myself “well, hang on… maybe this could actually be a thing. I already have reason to believe she likes me—nothing to lose, right?” So I figured I’d pursue the girl and see where it went.

To test the waters, I got my friend to ‘accidentally’ buy an extra ticket for a stand-up competition I was entering, to see if she liked my material. I figured if she didn’t enjoy my performance, she wouldn’t enjoy me as a person. I’d also get to see what she looked like, and I might get to talk to her in person at some point during the evening. It was basically intel-gathering all around :P

I didn’t see the girl until the interval, which directly followed my performance—pretty good timing considering I also rocked the house that night (I did way better than I thought I would). I went into the audience when the interval started, seeing my friend and the girl sitting together in the front row. I walked over, was congratulated by the group, then my friend conveniently gets up and leaves, obviously so the girl and I can chat in peace.

But, what’s that I hear in the distance? “Yo dude, that was awesome!”

Another friend I’d invited, sitting somewhere totally different in the audience, came up and started talking to me. Now, if I were a smart man, I’d have at least tried to include the girl in the conversation, perhaps by introducing her to my friend and vice-versa. I am not a smart man. I am not a smart man at all. What did I do? I just talked to my friend! I just left this poor girl sitting there, clearly wanting to talk to me, but being unable to cos she’s shy and she had no idea who the other guy was, thus not wanting to butt in. You’d think for all the complaining I’ve done about being left out of group conversation, I’d know how it feels and extend a helping hand. But nope: I’m a fucking idiot. Oh well, no harm done.

Though I didn’t get to speak to the girl, I at least got to see what she looked like. To be honest, though, I wasn’t really blown away or anything. Her combination of features just wasn’t clicking with me, you know? In spite of that, however, I thought “I should still give her a chance. My first girlfriend didn’t click with me physically until I really got to know her. Maybe it’ll be the same this time round”.

That in mind, I decided I would ask her out. I couldn’t wait for her to ask me out, cos we had no contact other than through my friend, and even if we did, she’s shy, so she wouldn’t have made the first move anyway. This meant I was gonna have to ask her out at her work. All things considered, this was a weird situation, quite different from all the other times I’ve asked girls out (all three of them :P). It wasn’t just because I was gonna have to ask her out at work; it was due to the fact I was asking a girl out not because I had feelings for her, but because she had feelings for me. The fact there existed a girl with feelings for me was weird enough in and of itself, but this was doubly weird.

I went in with my friend one Friday hoping to ask her out, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, even though I kind of already knew she was gonna say ‘yes’. At first, it was because I didn’t want to interrupt her while she was working (it’s always busy where she works), but I procrastinated too much and left it too late. Having lost the will to do it, I went home, but vowed to return the next week to do it for realzies. I knew I’d have to go in super-early, to catch her before she started working, leaving me without any excuses to make (cos we all know how good at making excuses I am :P)



Here’s where things get fuckin’ weird. Now, remember: I’ve already committed to asking this girl out. I’ve already decided that’s what I’m gonna do. And yet, this thing happened. And you’ll know exactly what the fuck it is before you get past the next paragraph :P

The Monday after my first ‘attempt’ at asking the girl out, I’m in a lecture for one of my classes. I’m sitting directly opposite the projector screen. But there are also seats facing 90° to the left and to the right; in one of those seats sits a random girl (if you have not guessed what’s gonna happen, please hit yourself, because you deserve to feel pain for being such a moron).

Now, at first, I start checking this girl out, but only because I think she’s a girl I already know from somewhere else. Incidentally, this girl I know is one I find quite sexy, even though I'm fairly sure she wouldn't reciprocate :P  Thing is, that girl doesn’t go to our uni; I know for a fact she's enrolled elsewhere. But from the side, this random girl in my class looked identical to that girl I know. She had the same skin colour, same build, same hair—it looked just like her. But I couldn’t see her face because she was in front of me, her head turned to face the projector screen, so I was unable to confirm her identity. I was confused as all hell, but I kept looking for anything—anything—that would clear this up (and, you know... cos teh hotness :P). I thought “it looks like her, but can’t be her… but it also could be her. Maybe she’s on some weird exchange program or something. But why would she come here? For this class? This isn’t an exotic subject, or even an interesting subject. It can’t be her… but it looks so much like her that I don’t see how it can be anyone else!” To top it all off, the topic for the class was knowledge: more specifically, if and when people can actually know things. MIND. FUCK.

Anyway, after class was over and people were leaving the room, I trailed behind the girl. When passing through the classroom door, she tried to put the little door-stopper thing in the door (but totally failed, as has everyone who has ever fucking tried :P). In doing so, she turned around, and I got a glimpse of her face: it was not the girl I though it was, or any other girl I already knew. It was some totally different girl.

Some totally different, totally cute, totally hot… girl…

Do you see the conundrum? I hope you do :P

I went home that afternoon feeling a happiness I hadn’t felt in a while—not in terms of volume, but in terms of category. I hadn’t had that feeling when looking at a girl for at least a year, and there it was, all over again. I didn’t even know anything about this girl from class, but I wanted to pursue her, even though I knew my chances were slim, and even though I knew I had this other commitment with the girl I met through my friend.



For the sake of simplicity, from this point onwards, girl from friend’s work = Girl A, girl from class = Girl B

It didn’t take me too long to figure out what to do. I knew full well that if Girl A was right for me, it’d become apparent when we went out and got to know each other, making Girl B irrelevant, as… tantalising as she was :P  So, even with Girl B in the picture, I still had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I thought “if it works out with Girl A, cool, I can see where things go with that. If it doesn’t work out with Girl A, no biggie: I can pursue Girl B instead, and I could still make a new friend out of Girl A anyway”. It was also a matter of 'first come, first served': I'd already committed to asking Girl A out, so I felt it would be wrong not to honour that commitment.

I went into Girl A’s work again later that week and asked her out before she started working (though I did stand there shaking like a nervous wreck for the five minutes she spent solving problems for other people before ‘officially’ beginning work). She figured I wanted to speak to her, seeing as I was hanging around her desk at a place I didn’t work at :P I asked if she’d like to go out to lunch with me, and she accepted. We exchanged numbers, and I told her I’d meet her at work so we could walk to the spot together. I was so nervous that my voice went all crackly and quiet when talking to her, so I knew that if I asked any girls out in the future, Girl B in particular, I’d have to work on my verbal confidence. That aside, I walked home feeling pretty happy about the fact that I’d asked the girl out, seeing as I hadn’t done that in a while.

I went back to the girl's work later that day to meet up with her. While waiting outside, anxiety crept into my system, making a rather permanent nest in my stomach. This wasn't anything to do with Girl B, but rather due to a simple analysis of what had happened with Girl A thus far. I knew what she looked like, and that didn't click with me; I knew some of her interests, and that didn't click with me either. All that was really left was to experience her one-on-one. It all came down to how she was as a person to talk to and bond with, as well as any extra interests she might have which I didn't know about. It was a long shot, and I didn't have my hopes up. I've never had to turn someone down before, nor have I had a 'bad date' before (even though I never specified this was a date), so I felt unprepared to deal with the situation if things went pear-shaped. In addition, the whole concept of taking someone out to eat to learn about them was totally new to me, so I was in unfamiliar territory from the get-go.

Not long after I arrived, the girl came out and said hi, then we started walking to the spot. She was more talkative than me (she might be shy, but she liked me, so this makes sense), and her presence was only making me more nervous. I was trying my best to respond to what she was saying, but it wasn't a comfortable conversation, at least not for me.

We arrived at the spot. I'd been there before, making me feel a little more at home; but she hadn't been there before, making me feel slightly more comfortable because it meant I could tell her about the place, giving me something to actually say. I went over the different items on the menu, talking about the things I'd had before, things my friends had liked, and so on. After we ordered, we started asking each other questions while we waited for our food, continuing to do so after it arrived. She was asked me more questions than I her, but that was to be expected. She was interested in what I was studying, so I was at least able to speak about something I knew about. But despite that, and despite my presence in a familiar location, I was still more rigid than I felt I should've been. I asked about her education as well, but the focus was most certainly on me as far as that topic was concerned. As for hobbies, I got onto the subject of gaming, and she said that while she does play games from time to time, she's not as into it as I am. The types of games she's into were also different to the ones I'm into. There was still enough common ground to carry the conversation for a while, but not enough to relax me.

We got onto politics at some point, a topic people usually avoid like the plague (I know I do :P). But, to my surprise, of all the discussions we had that afternoon, this one was the most fluid. Our views on politics were very similar (practically identical, really), and she was far more knowledgeable of the subject than I anticipated—not because I thought she was an idiot (her intellect was never in question), but because it just never occurred to me that she would know as much about the topic as she did. She also knows her history well (an area where I am lacking so bad :P), and would link our modern situation with those of the past. Best of all, though knowledgeable on these topics, she was never preachy or arrogant or anything; she was just able to speak about them with a fair amount of background knowledge. As awkward as parts of that meet-up were, this part was really cool, because it revealed a side of her I didn't know about, one I can admire in spite of the fact I wasn't reciprocating on a romantic level (remember: I figured I could befriend her if things didn't work out that way).

Towards the end, and as we walked back to her work, the girl got onto the subject of my comedy. She spoke very highly of my material, praising it for its cleverness and its ability to provoke introspection (which, to be fair, is something I aim for, so I'm pleased it comes across). This was also a fairly lax conversation for me—I mean, I was being commended here, so it was hard not to feel good :P  I like talking about comedy in-depth like this, going over the writing process, how I come up with ideas, how I deliver, etc, so it was a nice way to end the outing. One really stupid thing I did when I got back to her office: she said "I really enjoyed myself" or something like that, and you know what I said back? "Thank you". I'm sorry, what? Was I solely responsible for all the enjoyment she had? Did it have nothing to do with where we went, the food, or her own contributions to the conversation? No no, it was all me, all me. I obviously didn't mean it that way—it was a slip of the tongue—but still... man that was dumb :P

After she went back inside and I went to catch the bus home, I felt a little heartbroken. I'd given this girl every chance I could, but nothing clicked. As low as my expectations were given the circumstances, part of me wanted it to all work out in the end. And worst of all, I realised that I was going to have to let the girl down. I was going to have to reject her. I know first-hand how it feels to be rejected, but having to do the rejecting didn't feel as though it'd be any easier. Hell, the very reason I felt bad about having to do that was because I've been on her end of that conversation on multiple occasions, and it always sucks. There's no reasoning you can fall back on, no valid, sound argument you can make such that the other person goes "oh, that's fair enough, then". You have no choice but to remove their heart from their chest and squeeze it as hard as it can till it breaks, so it has the ability to re-form for another person in the future.

Thankfully, I haven't had to go through the whole "I'm just not interested" conversation, but I couldn't during our meet-up, because she hadn't told me herself that she liked me. I needed her to fess up to those feelings before I could destroy them. And I think it might have been better if we did have that conversation, cos I know what it's like to get the silent treatment: it just means the heart-crushing is slower and more painful. You wait and you wait and you wait, the lack of outright rejection leaving you able to say "there might be a chance!" I don't know. Maybe she's gotten over it already. I hope she has, for her sake. I'd like to be her friend, because I think we could get along and enjoy each other's company without the whole 'crush' thing lingering in the background. I also think she'd really get along with my friends, particularly my local friends, as I know they share interests.

In addition to all that, I think I might be able to set her up with another guy, too. I was telling my mum about the girl, about the outing, etc., and she too suggested I befriend the girl and keep in contact with her. While discussing that, out of nowhere, she said "she and [guy friend] would really get along". After going over that hypothetical in my mind, I replied with "...there is way more truth to that than you might realise...". And while I don't wanna throw her over to him like "here, you have a try!"—it takes time for feelings to die down, for her to be open to liking someone else (if she's anything like me, at least)—I still think it'd be really cool to see it happen. There are no guarantees, of course, but it's worth a shot, right? I'll pull some strings, see what I can do :P



So, what about Girl B? What's happening there? I don't wanna talk too much about that right now. I will say that I've asked her out, and that she said yes. But we haven't gone out just yet, so I wanna refrain from saying anymore about her until that happens.

So yeah, I somehow managed to ask two girls out in the space of six weeks. As amazingly talented as this may seem, please keep your swooning to a minimum, and refrain from asking me to run for the presidency of any country.