Awkward Things I Say To Girls

Part 4 of 5, Chapter 19

FYI, this is an It’s Not a Date story post. New to the story? Start at the beginning.

My whole world was just about complete.

Well, except for that HCE wasn’t actually really dating me. Yet. We went out on weekends and saw movies and had dinner, and we chatted online constantly and talked on the phone, plus we wrote notes to each other in class in the form of haikus where we told each other that the other one was cute. But, other than that, no. We weren’t dating.

Plus, I was busy limping out of school with the minimum possible academic performance. If collegiate (and subsequent) experience has taught me anything, it is this: if something comes so easily to you that you can rush through your homework and never study, which to you is a fantastic deal because you don’t really enjoy it much and want to get on to something else as soon as possible, that thing is not the sort of thing that you’d best choose as a major in college. “Wow,” you want to say of your chosen field. “I could listen to old people drone about this subject for hours! Then I want to rush to the bookstore and drop hundreds of dollars on hardback books about it that I will want to actually kind of skim!” If that is not you, then I hope you either prefer used books, or you are good at forcing yourself to do things that you find at least mildly unpleasant, which frankly is a useful skill that you wish I would acquire so that you could actually read this blog instead of refreshing it in vain. Well, college also taught me that wings and beer go great together.

Oh, there were other details. The Cavs lost a ridiculous number of basketball games. Winter in Cleveland aimed a few final kicks into Spring’s gut as she lay curled in pain on a Parma sidewalk before he took her purse, turned, and stumbled off, drunk, to sleep off another hangover. I was not getting any better at knitting.

But other than that, HCE was single, and I was single, and we spent all our time together, and so what could go wrong?

—

“I don’t think this boy is going to come make out with me,” HCE said.

Whoa. What? This wasn’t one of our typical conversations about ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, sex, literature, movies, school, politics, activism, dating, the campus newspaper, the administration, public displays of affection, private displays of affection, music, our childhoods, sports, board games, liquor, parties, Cleveland, fashion, or anything having anything to do with what we’re doing this weekend. I was on new ground and completely lost.

“Boy?” I said, playing it cool.

“The one from our softball team. I told him I wanted him to come make out with me, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if he doesn’t.”

I can think of a few ideas that I’d like to try, I thought. The filter let it through. “I can think of a few ideas that I’d like to try,” I said.

“No, you stay put. How’m I supposed to make out with him if he shows up and you’re here?”

You’re not supposed to make out with him, you’re supposed to make out with me, a fact which I will share with him emphatically if he needs convincing, I thought. The filter caught this one. “Okay,” I said, confused. Maybe she needs a rebound makeout. It isn’t as though I’m going anywhere.

Part 4 of 5, Chapter 18

FYI, this is an It’s Not a Date story post. New to the story? Start at the beginning.

Deep breath. Okay, another.

The professor is swimming in the front of the class, nattering about the difference between GDP and GNP. HCE is scribbling something in my notebook.

I could still throw up
It’s “Regurgitation Day”
I won’t if you won’t.

Waking up still drunk and going to class anyway wasn’t something I did a hell of a lot of in college, partially because our college was less fun than a pocket calculator with a personality disorder, and also because I didn’t go to a tremendous quantity of classes in the first place. That is, unless a certain someone was going to sit next to me and write haikus at me all class long. Especially if both you and that someone are coincidentally now single. I picked up the pen.

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Uh, hey.

Look, I know it’s been a while, and I know I didn’t call or write, and I’m sorry. Though it’s little consolation, I want you to know that I thought about you constantly. I only saw other people like half a dozen times, and frankly I didn’t enjoy it and missed you.

There were lots of reasons not to write the blog, virtually none of which I can describe in detail without continuing the extended metaphor much further than is approved by the FDA for human daily allowance of metaphor. However, I do realize that I won’t get out of this week’s blog post alive without hitting three more things:

1. Yes, I am 100% single.

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Gyaaaahah!!!! Jeez, man, write something!!!
—Everyone

Okay. You didn’t want to do any work today anyway. But rather than fire directly into Part 4 of an ongoing story or take a shot at transcribing any pent up awkward things of which I have several, let’s do a long-overdue Q&A mailbag. The rules: questions, comments, insults, and search keywords that someone used to find the website will be in bold. The silken lyrics of forgotten love songs, which may or may not be awkward, will be in regular type.

It is not is surprise to see that quirky yet relatable blogs like Awkward Things I Say To Girls ran away with Funniest Blog and Most Addicting Blog…
—Jon Baliles

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Part 3 of 5, Chapter 17

FYI, this is an It’s Not a Date story post. New to the story? Start at the beginning.

I broke her gaze and looked down at the box of relationship-droppings, outside her dorm room. “You broke up with him.” Junior Midshipman Obvious, sir, reporting for duty aboard the USS No Kidding. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine as soon as I get everything that was his out of my life,” HCE said. “Here, you can help. Find his books in the shelf and put them in the box.”

“Which ones are his?”

“Which ones are stupid? At least give me some good news. How is your girlfriend?”

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Part 3, Chapter 16

FYI, this is an It’s Not a Date story post. New to the story? Start at the beginning.

I only spent a few nights up in Art School Girl’s cozy, strange bedroom at the top of the ancient house just off campus that she shared with three other people. It was Dumbledore’s office if he had been an art student, full of dark colors and smelling like home.

“What is this?” I said the first time I took a tour of her bedroom, pointing at spilled sand on the wood floor beneath a window.

“Don’t step in it! That’s a bird.” A bird? Oh. I noticed the tracks. “After I spilled sand one day, the bird got in and walked on it. I figured I’d just leave the tracks here.”

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Part 3, Chapter 15

FYI, this is an It’s Not a Date story post. New to the story? Start at the beginning.

“Finally,” I thought, as I leaned in to kiss her.

I specifically remember this particular kiss as being the first time I realized how much I like to draw out those brief intermediary moments when there’s a pause and your faces, eyes still closed, remain micrometers away but yet fully connected by the warmth and breath and anticipation, stretching those quick quarter-second kiss-intermissions that punctuate any normal makeout to ten seconds or more, until both of you are wound up so much that you’re unable to delay gratification any longer without being so full of adrenaline you burst.

It’s tough to describe without physically coming over and puckering up. Plus, the previous paragraph is guaranteed to be awkward or your money back. Who cares? I thought the kiss was spectacular, and I’m pretty sure she liked it, because, when I finally wrapped it up and stepped back, she whispered, eyes still closed, “Please, could you do that again?”

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“She was super hot though.”

“What?!” I say to my friend sitting two stools down from me at the bar. “You can’t be hot without being smart. They’re like the same word.”

The waitress making a drink behind the bar snorts, smiles, and looks up at me. We make the kind of eye contact that only happens when two people connect at last, hungrily, across the endless void that leaves souls cold and alone.

This is important, because after briefly dating the nerdy girl who I had incidentally met several weeks before writing about her, I am single again. It’s okay, I’m fine with it. I’m balanced and stable and centered and ready to start awkwardly hitting on waitresses for your personal enjoyment. So here goes:

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Part 3, Chapter 14

FYI, this is an It’s Not a Date story post. New to the story? Start at the beginning.

“Justin, I can’t begin to describe how drunk I was…”

“Don’t even worry about it.”

“You think I’m dreadful. I’m so sorry for behaving like that.”

“Quiet. Listen: I have a few thoughts about the other night. I’ll write you a haiku.”

“Okay!”

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“Why don’t you give me your phone number so I can call you?”

“Okay. I don’t know why I got my phone out too. I guess to look at what my number is?”

“Hang on. I’m in the wrong menu. Wait. Clear. New contact. Okay, go.”

“You mean, now?”

I may have met my awkward match.

—

She was so cute I almost sat down next to her, just after my friend had introduced us. I’m an absolute sucker for huge, clear eyes and shoulder-length brown hair. I am even more of a sucker for girls who share names of spectacularly desirable female fictional characters. Let’s call this one Elizabeth Bennet.

“Sit down right here,” the friend on the opposite side of the booth had to remind me. I guess, sure. If you want to sit at a booth where a friend and a stranger are sitting opposite one another, I suppose politeness requires you to sit next to the friend, even if the stranger is remarkably hot. This is not only less anonymously invasive of personal space, but also has the advantage of allowing you to look at the strangers pretty eyes. “We’re just talking about Elizabeth’s boy problems.”

“I know!” says EB. “I’m such a disaster. Boys!”

Fortunately: “I like talking about emotions.”

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