Allow me to be very honest. I did at one point believe that I was good with members of the opposite sex. I was confident and flirtatious. I was worry-free and bold. I think my arrival at BYU has changed this. I do not describe my newfound ineptitude as a tale of woe; I am hopefully taking it in good stride. I am finding humor behind the fact that suddenly I am reverting back to the ways of a moronic, socially retarded freshman in high school that giggles stupidly every time “boy of the month” goes by. I think that the term “freshmen” is more a state of mind than a state of age. When I was a senior, I was the epitome of cool. Don’t contest this. I was cool. I knew what to say and how to say it. I perfected the charming smile, and girl drama was stupid, and freshmen girls were annoying. But now that I’ve been slapped with a giant F on my forehead, I feel like I am running around campus asking for a wedgie.
I’ve had several incidents to prove my new freshmenism. I’m not proud of them. But they are funny as heck so I will capitalize on my stupidities for your entertainment. The first affair was about two months into the semester when a friendship of mine was not progressing into the first date phase as quickly as I would have hoped (Those who know me well know that patience is unfortunately a virtue that I do not posses). I passed (we will call him subject A) on campus and we said hello, and then my embarrassing lack of tact came into play, and I yelled, in front of everybody in the vicinity, in a scream that I’m sure people heard from the Wilk to the Maeser, “Hey! When are you going to stop saying hello and ask me on a date?!” It was one of the least tactless moments of my life. It was a moment where everything went silent and you are almost certain that everybody in the entire world has zeroed in on you and looking at you with mocking disbelief. It was a moment where I turned away from the situation in complete shock that you could be so endlessly stupid.
And on the opposite end of the spectrum from completely and shockingly forward, I embarrassed myself once more by being too afraid to act. I’d been flirting (fairly successfully) with subject B at a certain café on campus but had to run to work before I could catch any personal information about him besides his name. So of course I dined there basically every subsequent day in hopes that I might see him again. As the days turned into weeks and the hopes turned into desperation, I finally saw him again. And it was terrible. My hopes had been built so high that I was completely at a loss for words and could do nothing but stare stupidly and obviously at him. What is worse is that my friends happened to stop by, and when I mentioned that subject B was there, all they could do was gape at him, making it very clear to him and everyone else in the café that we were talking about him. I never thought that I would be this girl! This creepy stalker girl in movies. I would never be caught dead doing this when I was a senior, and yet, as a freshman I find myself committing one of the main freshmen faux pas. Great.
It all culminated in a terrible act of impulsion and over-confidence when I suggested to a boy 7 years my senior that he ask me out. To which he very kindly responded that that would be like dating his daughter.
I blame the fact that I am a freshman and prone to behave stupidly. It’s written in the freshman rule book that you must be frivolous and silly and downright embarrassing. Oh the agony.