Dress well. Don't do anything to excess. Be funny. Be smart. Motivated. Listen. Be interested. Open doors. Buy them dinner at their favorite vegan place, and pretend not to be disgusted at menu containing nothing but tofu and brussel sprouts. Or don't. I've found, in the past, that if you start out by showing them just how low you can go, so that whatever you do in the future will seem to be an improvement, that that alone will do the trick. Most people would argue with this point, saying that is isn't true, and it isn't what I would call "true". But sometimes, it is.
I once met a girl in college that I liked more than any of the rest of the girls in college. I liked her more than her friends, more than my friends, and more than all the other people I would come to meet. I liked her when I was drunk, and I still liked her when I was sober. I liked her when I woke up in the morning, I liked her all through breakfast, I'd spend lunch and dinner thinking about the fact that even though she wasn't currently with me, I still liked her, and I eventually went to bed still liking her. Sometimes, she liked me too. I quickly started shifting my usual activities around her, rather than eating my breakfast alone, enjoying my coffee and cereal by myself in chaotic mornings at the Hilltop foodery. I began to enjoy those things with her. Sometimes we didn't even talk, but just the fact that she was there made my breakfast a little better. She would read, or start working on some unfinished work, or maybe glance over some text books, and I would sit in silence while she waited for me to finish my second cup of coffee.
She put up with my friends, while I openly choose which of hers to like. She put up with my bad habits, while she had none. She pretended to like my favorite bands, sitting through my stories of how I once met the guy who did the handstand on his keyboard on that video I showed her on YouTube, and I complained when she played her stoner rap. She pressured me to go to class, while I begged her to stay in bed. She smoked a lot of pot, while I drank a lot of beer. Things were going pretty well. Until one day, when she told me that she had decided, just after mid-day sex, that she did not think we should date. I hated her, I felt used. We were not dating as of yet, we were just doing all those things that people who date do. We woke up together, we ate together, we spent time going on walks, seeing movies, until finally we would go to bed together. But we weren't dating. And she told me she did not want to cross that line of acknowledging what we were doing. I was furious, sort of. I more so was just crushed. This was college, and it was supposed to change my life, not just continue it on the vicious cycle it had been in for the past 8 years of my life. I got up, threw myself together, and went in search of my friends, who I had long been ignoring to spend time with this girl. My friends were understanding, and very giving with all the booze they had just bought. Upon showing up at the dorm containing all my friends, I told my tale quickly, explaining the seriously disgruntled look on my face, and was promptly handed a beer, and a shot of Jack Daniels. Problems would surely be solved tonight.
So I drank, it was a Friday, and the normal Friday things were happening with people who do things other than hang out with a girl they like. And I got drunk. I got REALLY drunk. One might even say I drank too much. Much was said along the lines of, "Fuck it dude, there are plenty of other girls on campus." That much was true, but I had met a great deal of them, and I liked this one more than all the rest. I liked her much more now, knowing that it was possible that she didn't like me that much. As more friends came in, more booze was had, and so it continued, bad decisions were made, and my night started to take a turn for the worse. What happened? Well, I'm not sure. There is a good chunk of time that escapes my memory. But apparently, I got sad, and pathetic, and drunk, until one of my more responsible friends, and his girlfriend, took me home, and put me in bed. That's when I woke up, probably 3AM, crashed around my room, waking my roommate, and told him I was going to see this girl. Really great idea.
So I leave my dorm, clad in only my boxer shorts, in early October. She lived in the dorm across from mine, in the wellness dorm. Meaning it was a chem free dorm. Meaning that drinking or even smoking was highly forbidden for the folks that lived in it. And it was late, so I couldn't get in, as the doors were locked to those who don't live there. Someone let me, the blacked out tattooed kid in his boxer shorts, into the chem free dorm at 3AM. I don't know who, but later, in the halls of that dorm, so girl I didn't know burst into laughter when she saw me, it was probably her who let me in. Anyway, I stormed up the stairs to my girls room. Pounded on her door until she answered. I remember she was pissed. But I argued my point, which at this time was that I had made a really bad decision and now had no where else to go. Being the caring and lovable girl that she was at the time, before I ruined her, she let me crash on the spare bed in her room, she might have even given me a pillow and an extra blanket. Maybe.
In the morning, bright and early, she shook me awake, still furious, and threw me out. But not before giving me a sweatshirt to borrow for my walk of shame home. I wasn't really sure what had happened, but I put the pieces together. Spare bed, no clothes, no keys, killer hangover, and really mad girl, I was in trouble. I thanked her for the sweatshirt, and she slammed the door in my face. I spent the rest of my day, after getting let back into my own dorm by someone, and having to explain to the RA that I didn't have my keys, or many clothes, and I desperately needed to get back into my room, I was let in, with some serious looks of disapproval. I didn't sleep, I just stayed in bed hating myself, on the brink of tears, asking myself what the hell I had done, until finally she called me. She wanted to talk. I quickly showered, made myself presentable, brushing my teeth and putting on a nice sweater, and went over again, this time with keys, and clothes, fully prepared to get thrown out again.
Again sitting on the spare bed, fearful for what was about to come, I waited for her to cut off my balls, and put them in a jar, keeping them until I made this up to her. Instead she told me that she had talked to her father about what had happened. Oh. My. God. Something bad was about to happen, I was sure of it. But, he father had said something to the affect of, "These things happen." This parent truly understood. And I confessed how sorry I was, and that I had personally paved my road to hell with the best intentions. All I wanted was for her to like me. She told me she did, "OH REALLY!? EVEN STILL?" I was excited. And yes, even still, she liked me. And she had decided that if she was going to have to put up with this bullshit from me even if we weren't dating, that we might as well date. I had apparently left her with no other choice. I didn't, until that point, know that that could happen. I had made this girl so angry, thrown myself in a gutter, doing whatever I could to make myself utterly repulsive, and she had seen through it to my possibly good intentions buried underneath layers of undateable qualities. (She also bought her drugs from my friends, meaning we would have to see each other, a lot, anyway)
So, we basically picked up where we left off, with dinner that night, and then probably watching TV until we fell asleep. And then, very shortly after my drunken escapades, I met her father. I put on a nice sweater again. Shook his hand, and was super polite in the way that always makes parents love me. He laughed and said, "So, I heard you had a little to drink the other night." Well what do I say to that? I threw my arm around his daughter, laughed, and said, "Ohhh, college." To which he laughed and said, "College, good times." I couldn't believe what was happening. Her father STILL liked me. It was almost more shocking than the fact that she still liked me. I had somehow accomplished the impossible. He later asked about my tattoos, and off came the sweater, revealing what I truly was. Some older guy with a beard, covered in pictures on demons and death, who does not hide his underage drinking and long list of bad decisions, and currently dating his daughter. I think he called me "Hip."
She was very impressed of how well I behaved, and got along with her father. She was so happy that he liked me, and I pretended that it was no big deal, and that I wasn't hugely relieved to not have my knee caps broken. And I continued to be me, but I always remembered to keep it under control, and not do stupid things. Often even being the responsible one. And well, she continued to be impressed with me. I'm still not entirely sure how I worked such magic, and I have never dare to attempt this again, though there have been times since that similar things have happened accidentally. I would not recommend this method of impressing girls to anyone, ever, but it worked for me. I think it is the reason why I have such bad luck most of the time, I use up years of good luck all at once, impressing girls in ridiculous ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment