Life Worth Living

It’s funny and a little more than a little scary how easily old feelings come back. I ran into No. 1 (remember him?) today. He was standing outside the room I had just come out of, waiting for his class to begin, and the moment I saw his familiar, beautiful face I wanted to wrap my arms around him. I didn’t, of course I didn’t, but it was a close call.

And we chatted briefly, and I think I talked too much because I was just so damn excited to see him. And I’m a little suprised he remembered me, which probably attests to how in the course of wanting him and liking him and pining for him like a schoolgirl (which I am, actually, so the analogy is useless), I’d forgotten that he’d been my friend. I’d noticed it before, how at some point I’d started thinking of him more as a crush than as a friend, which he was first and foremost.

So I sat down in my next lecture and spent the first half of it alternately paying attention and alternately wondering if there’s another chance for me with him, and if there is, how I should approach it, and wondering if he still has a girlfriend and whether he ever liked or could still like me…and then I realised that I never got over him. Not really. But it’s not like I didn’t know that all along. I was never fooled. I know that I finally stopped liking him only because I knew I wouldn’t have another class with him and so I forced myself not to, and that it only worked because I stopped seeing him.

I guess the big question here is whether or not I still like him. Hello? Have you seen him? YES I do. It’s not the same as before, because I used to really like him and it’s so much duller now, but what it boils down to is if you asked me whether or not I would jump him (metaphorically and literally) if he were willing, I would have to tell you that I totally would. Which makes me sad because I know it’ll never happen, which makes me feel stupid because if I know it’ll never happen, then I should stop liking him, right? And that makes me angry, because it shouldn’t have to be that way. It should be that because I dont want to like him, I’ll stop. I suspect that someday I will also run into the opposite situation, and I’ll wish that because I want to like Guy X (because he’s perfect and hot and likes me, etc), I’ll like him.

But things are never so easy. Romance doesn’t come with an on-off switch, and all us little hearts drifting around looking for love just have to deal.

(I realise that this whole buisness with No. 1 doesn’t seem near as big as it actually is, and that’s because almost everything I’ve written about him (a lot of sappy lovesick posts stretching across the spring of ’08) is privated, because back then I cared a lot more than I do now about what I reveal to a faceless internet potential readership. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to unprivate it all now. Suffice it to say, No. 1 was someone in my German 1 class I used to like, kind of a lot. Also he was my friend, but like I’ve already said, sometimes I forget that.)