Freshman year, I had a boyfriend from home, so I had a lot of “guy friends.” I met one of these guy friends in my university seminar, the very first class of fall semester year. He was tall, green eyed, undeniably handsome, and he sat next to me, repeatedly?!
On the second week, I was walking out of class with another girl. She asked if I wanted to get lunch, and then she turned and asked (let’s call him Tucker?) Tucker too.
He wanted to go! We went to lunch, and then we went to lunch again after next class. And then at the end of the second lunch he suggested we all exchange numbers. We had really good talks at lunch. It turned out he was a pretty sensitive guy, not my favorite trait when it comes to boys. He would whine about our teachers critique of his comments in class, and all I could think was “maybe stop making such dumb comments?” But, he continued to be very good looking, and we continued to get lunch, sometimes the other girl from class couldn’t come. I still had a boyfriend – it didn’t matter, anyway, because we were “friends.”
Because we were being friends, my finding his general sensitivity to the comments of others unattractive did not matter to me. I chose to completely ignore the possibility that he might like me, because he knew I had a boyfriend and what kind of morally repugnant low-life would like someone in a committed relationship? I was a self conscious little freshman who lied to herself, assuming the best, out of some pretend guise of humility.
We were just like these people! Except not as pretty, and without the sex, and with much less witty banter…
Fast forward to the night of Relay for Life, I was in the stadium with my friends. I’d seen him at the Huddle that afternoon, and he asked me what I was doing later. “I’m going to Relay for Life,” I said. He disagreed, “You should come to my dorm party!” Hey, it was freshman year. So midnight rolls around, and I receive multiple texts repeatedly demanding I come to his dorm party. Cancer victims. relay for life. support. Obviously I cannot come you dummy.
Now, I look back at that Relay for Life evening and realize he must’ve been drunk, and it was honestly a gift to him that I did not go to his clearout. But the me of second semester freshman year just felt like a very bad friend. Guilt – I genuinely felt guilty.
During DARTing, Tucker inboxed me on Facebook, and asked what Spanish class I was taking. He tried to convince me to take the same class as him. It wasn’t my first choice. But when I went to DART and didn’t get the class I wanted, I ended up in the same class as him. Somehow we actually had back to back 75 minutes classes.
We always sat next to each other in the first class, and walked from the first class to the second class together, and sat next to each other again. Our dorms were near each other so we usually walked back together, sometimes the conversation wouldn’t end by the time we got to my dorm. So he would come up, and we would do homework together in my quad common room while we had vaguely flirty conversations until my roommates came home and he left like the awkward Notre Dame boy that he is. We did a group project together, and studied for our midterms together. It just made sense.
I should mention that I had broken up with my boyfriend over the summer between freshman and sophomore year. It didn’t change anything. Well it didn’t change anything for Tucker at least, because I didn’t mention it to him, and made a point to remove my relationship status from my Facebook profile.
Once, he asked me to get lunch on Friday, but I told him I couldn’t because I had started volunteering on Friday afternoons. I counter-offered, asking him to volunteer with me.
And he said yes! Volunteering was less boring because he was there. After, we sat on a little grass patch waiting for the bus to come. It was still warm enough to be nice outside. I picked grass and threw it at him, he put leaves in my hair.
We sat crammed next to each other on the bus ride back. I felt small and warm sitting next to him, and I began to think, “This is kinda nice.”
We walked from the bus stop together, and he said something about my boyfriend, and I laughed and said, “We broke up months ago…” He said, “What?!” I was surprised he was surprised. In my mind, we had been over for a very long time, even before the formal break-up came. Tucker was visibly happy. I laughed. We parted ways in between our dorms.
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