Kelly, Part 9. The Conclusion of the DTR

Then I told her about my bad luck, and the irony of it all. And then we talked about us – could we date long distance, would she get a boyfriend. She pointed out that if we called ourselves boyfriend/girlfriend, that would just add a lot of pressure to the relationship that we couldn’t handle at this point. It would mean obligations.

It was all crazy and magical. And she was right. She told me that she hoped we could talk on the phone every couple days and I would only not see her for 10 weeks that would’ve otherwise, and I could visit her in Chicago. So I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t over. Not yet.

We chatted a bit more about our summers and then it was over. I don’t even remember what we talked about on the walk back out to the car. I was just sort of floating. I couldn’t believe how well it went. She liked me!

I went home and told the roomies about it, loved every second of the minute by minute description I gave to them. And the situation with Kat seemed a lot more funny not that we knew it didn’t ruin my life. I called Kelly before I went to bed, and it was awesome – just like we were dating. Wow.

Kelly, Part 8. The DTR continues

Then I had to tell her about Kat. She was shocked. Her face was incredible. Just sheer shock, nothing else. Then I must’ve talked for ten minutes straight about everything – about Kat and Friday night and going home and staring at the ceiling, feeling like I was going to throw up, and crying.

She was certainly “disappointed” but she understood that “these things can happen without emotional involvement.” That was what I needed to hear. She really did understand.

So now I was happy again. Utterly relaxed and so happy.

Kelly, Part 7. The DTR, part 1

Two days after all this we were together, Kelly and I.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“There’s a lot of stuff I need to tell you.”

“Oh?”

“I wouldn’t do this except for the fact that I am moving to Colorado in nine days and this means that I have to do things faster than…than I would otherwise.”

“I kind of think about you when you’re not around, and when you are around I get kind of nervous. But I don’t know what to do about this or how I feel about it since I am about to leave.”

The pause that followed, though short, was painful.

“Yeah I lot of people have been asking me what’s going on,” she said. “And I tell them that I really like talking to him, and we connect, and he understands me in a way that most people don’t.”

Somewhat more confident, I gave her a speech about how much I worry that she will get a boyfriend because she is “beautiful” and “fun to talk to…not many girls are” and a Christian. “Perfect. You are the perfect girl.” I love saying things like this. I was at my peak, in my zone, never felt better. But I realized that it still wasn’t clear if she liked me or not.

“Well I didn’t get the chance to prepare a speech. But just to be clear I do care about you.”

She then told me a bunch of stuff about friendships and how she wanted to be friends first in a relationship, and I think she meant to imply that we were friends before we liked each other or something. And we talked about how we’d never actually met. I don’t know.

Kelly, Part 6. The late, late night

2:00 am

It’s a rule at my college that frat parties must shut down at 2 am. So at 2 am Kat and I were walking around and then the lights came on and the part was over. We walked outside to look for my friends. No sign of them.

“You want to take me home?” she asked.

“Yeah, I guess I could do that.”

“You could come hang out in my room if you wanted,” she said.

Now reader, I want you to know that although I am sometimes bad at reading signals I am not completely naive. I knew exactly what I was getting into here. And I knew it would be dangerous. But this first thing that came to my mind was the kissing promise. If I had the chance, I had to take it. I had promised myself I would.

2:15 am

But alas her roommate is asleep in her bed, so we go to the lounge. A long – like 2 hour – discussion about the deeper elements of religion and other things that people talk about at such late hours ensues.

I knew, of course, that I was bound by the kissing promise to try and make out with her. Finally I did, and I didn’t make it home until nearly sunrise.

Housekeeping: Back in the Good Old US of A

Hey everyone, I am back from Italia now so I plan to get back on the blogging horse. I apoligize to the no doubt millions of readers out there who have been starved for the harrowing excitement of my dating adventures. Starve no more.

But I am back at college now and I am really, really behind in school since I missed about two months of class. So probably no daily posts. But there will be posts here and there, rest assured.

Housekeeping: Going to Europe

Besides (failing at) dating, I have another hobby at which I am actually good at: Ski racing. Tommorrow I will be heading to Italy for a couple weeks to compete in a disabled world cup race and in the Paralympics in Turino. So while I'm there I will update my blog when I can, but my postings may be sporadic for the next month or so.

Kelly, Part 5. The crazy night continues

9:00 pm

I arrived at my roommate Kyle’s accapella group Christmas concert. I was probably in the highest spirits I’ve ever been in my life. I literally couldn’t sit still during the show, so I just sat in the aisle where I felt more free to walk around if I wanted to. My body felt like it was going to explode in euphoria and I thought I would probably be up all night.

Little did I know how true that would turn out to be.

10:15 pm

After the concert I went to the apartment of some of my friends. They were just finishing up a few hours of drinking. I was still underage so I didn’t drink, but that didn’t bother me – I was used to it. We hung out for a while and decided to go to a frat party.

11:45 pm

We arrived at the frat party. It turned out there were several parties on frat row that night and we kept getting separated. Eventually I ran into this girl Kat. Kat and I had hung out in the past – a month or so before she had taken me to her sorority formal. She was in the same sorority as Kelly, and I liked Kelly at the time, so that was sort of weird. But it was a fun formal and I had a suspicion that Kat liked me.

So here we were walking around this frat part, Kat and I. And it was getting late.

Kelly, Part 4. The Big, Crazy Night Begins

7:00 pm

I picked up her up at her dorm room. We walked together to the President’s house, which was elegantly decorated for the Christmas season.

7:30 pm

The dinner was great. We had a small table to ourselves while we ate, and the conversation was so pleasant and natural between us. One of the dishes was a seafood salad, which I ate several bites of before realizing it was seafood. This was unfortunate because I am allergic to seafood. For a few minutes we thought I might die, but then nothing happened so we resumed normal conversation.

We were both dressed up and in good spirits. On the way home I got her to talk about the national beauty pageant she had won in high school – a subject she sort of avoids because she thinks it will make people think she is shallow – and I was so impressed. Something about a big achievement like that…a girl with ambition…I don’t know, I was impressed.

We made an appointment for the following day. I was going to take her to an old, run down amphitheater on the edge of campus where the lake is. It’s one of my favorite spots, but as a freshman she hadn’t seen it yet.

“Do you want to call me when you are ready to go?” I asked.

“No why don’t you call me,” she said. “The boy is supposed to call the girl, right?”

Another good sign, I thought.