“Ask her out,” my friend said, getting ready to leave to meet his date for valentine. “What’s the worst that can happen? She says no, and you move on with your life."
He had a point. Valentine is running out, just few hours left, and I think its looming presence injected some sort of courage into me. And, fine. Maybe for just once in my life -- no, literally, because I've never had one -- I wanted a Valentine.
I met her by coincidentally. That's how I know my feelings for her were real. I wasn't tindering, or being set up by a friend, or sitting alone secretly waiting to get hit on. She slithered her way into my life, sneakily but surely.
It started off innocently enough: we began spending more time together. We're part of the same friend group, so it was hard not to. For weeks, we flirted. She'd get absurdly drunk at parties and tell me how wonderful I am, and I'd give her a compliment in return. I even noticed she started to look at me in a different way, a special way, the way you look at someone who's just trailed out of the room so longingly that you're almost offended by her disappearance.
One night, she and I did stuff. I thought I'd be able to put that drunken, one night stand thought out of my head, but I couldn't.
Later on, her stupid face kept popping up. Every time something funny happened, I wanted to tell her about it first. And I was fucked, because I didn't ask for her to come into my life. But she did.
So I decided to take my friend up on his advice. A few hours before Valentine's Day was over, I asked her out on a movie date. The flirtation had gone on long enough, and seeing illusions that said "TELL HER" and "I LOVE YOU" only encouraged me.
She said no. She gave me some crap excuse about how the time or the place or the vibe wasn’t right -- I can’t remember. This important part is the part I was blocked from my memory.
Did I make this flirtation up in my head? Had I imposed my wildest fantasies onto some girl who is neither willing nor able to give me any of what I want? Maybe I'm not intuitive at all. Maybe I'm just...crazy.
I don't know. I'll never know. I just know I got shut down.
My coursemate, Sarafina, penned this thought-provoking piece about how a girl will never text the guy she’s crushing on. She just won’t. And you know why? Then I cut in 'Never Mind' but she continued. We’re just supposed to sit around, be OK with being ogled at, and do nothing. God forbid we speak our minds and take a chance for something we believe in.
Should I feel sorry for knowing what I want and going after it? No, I shouldn't. I should feel empowered. But instead, I feel small and desperate and unworthy of being someone’s boyfriend. Only I’m not desperate. I’m driven. I went after my studies and landed it, so is it really so ridiculous to think I'd go after a girl I dreamt about a future with?
The truth is, I wasn’t expecting “no.” I was expecting “I’ll think about it." I was hoping for “yes.” But now, “no” haunts me, and my mind frequently flashes back to my girlfriend folding her coat on my bed, the sting is real.
I’m slowly learning that life isn’t like a box of chocolates. It’s more like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Do you remember that game? It’s the one where you push a black button over and over just to get a marble or two to eat. Doesn't really matter now. Only you can feed your own soul.
Who knows what happened with her? Maybe she got the Valentine's Day scares. Maybe the timing really wasn't right. Maybe she never really liked me in the first place, and every funny remark and loving look and suspicious smile wasn't meant to make me feel good, but meant to be an ego boost for her on a bad day.
And so, here I am, few hours before Valentine’s Day comes to an end, a loveless reject. I’ll get over it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to hurt. I know Valentine's Day is just like any other unimportant day that, I wanted to make someone feel special.
That’s the thing about being rejected. It’s supposed to toughen us up, right? Make our skins thicker, our thoughts strong and our hearts more willing to get rejected again. I don’t feel any of those things yet. Weakness has taken over. But I guess that's what you get when you choose to be vulnerable.
Today, around midnight, I opened up a text. It was from Damilola, a girl I have sex with sometimes (just sex). "I was just thinking about you," it read. I found myself smiling, my eyes bewitched in the bright light that shines from my phone.
Was she really thinking about me? I don't know. Maybe she was, but maybe it doesn't mean anything more than for one insignificant moment in time, she thought about me. I don't have feelings for her, and I doubt she has any for me, but what I do know is I don't have it in me to find out.