I was woken up a few nights ago to the moans of a girl from La Salle.  The moans were not caused by a stubbed toe or by stomach pains; they were caused by my roommate fucking her.  As I peered over to my right, half asleep, you can imagine my surprise to see my roommate’s white ass pumping up and down between a random girl’s legs forty five degrees from vertical.  As I later found out, my roommate met this girl at a bar downtown and took her back to our room to bone her.  Granted, my roommate does not do this too often, but it certainly got me thinking about myself.  While my roommate bangs random girls, I have not kissed a girl since before the summer.

Yes, I do know that this is college, but hooking up with girls isn’t really my style.  My friends suggest that this is because I’m gay, but I prefer to think of myself as a romantic.  Relationships are tough. Between finding a girl, getting a girl, and making it work, it is hard to believe that it is at all possible.  However, it is possible; so this is what we have to remember. I’m a big believer in context, so this is my story:

The first time I kissed a girl, I was sixteen.  I was going into junior year of high school.  I guess this isn’t so bad (it seemed much worse at the time), but I think kids start making out at around ten these days.  At the beginning of junior year I fell in love with a good friend of mine.  Despite my super suaveness, I never did anything until about halfway through the year.  At this point in high school, we had been reading The Great Gatsby.  Our English teacher gave us the assignment to write about The Great Gatsby through use of a letter.  I took this opportunity to write about Hannah.  In my paper I wrote about “some girl” with whom I thought we would make an excellent couple.  I compared us to Nick and Daisy, and paralleled many aspects of the story.  I got a B+.  When we got out papers back we were asked to share them with a partner; Hannah read mine.  That weekend we kissed for the first time (correction: she kissed me).  We dated for a year and a half, and then we went to college: I to Penn and she to Vassar.  Our relationship was pretty much done a few months before we left for college, due to constant disagreement and fighting, so it isn’t as sad of a story as it may first appear.  The sadder part is that my entire history of relationships ends there.

I kissed a girl at Barnard, another girl at camp, and a girl at Penn.  That is my entire history of girls.  It makes me wonder, am I a romantic or am I just a failure?  I’m an engineer, I ride my bike to class, and I spend a lot of time on Facebook; does this explain everything?  Is it possible that when I tell myself it’s “quality not quantity,” it is only because I can’t get either?  I hope not.

Sure my roommate gets to fuck random girls, but I think, in the end, I’m happier; I’m happier because I have hope.  As I was walking home from class the other day I saw a driver’s license on the ground.  I picked it up and later looked up its owner.  She thanked me profusely and we arranged to meet up so that I could give her back her license.  I wondered if this could be my future wife.  (She will not be, as it turns out, but I was glad to have helped her out).  Sometimes, as I look for a place to study at Van Pelt, I wonder if I’m going to sit down at a table with someone worth knowing.  Even as I shop for dinner at FroGro I wonder if I’ll be browsing for cereal and strike up a conversation with someone I’ll be with next year.  So far, I have experienced no such luck.  But it all it takes is one time.

It is true that I have zero game and am totally awkward.  But it’s also true that I’m pretty awesome.  I watch excellent TV shows (like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Desperate Housewives”), I listen to great music (like Dave, Wilco, Dispatch, and Coldplay), and I‘m pretty fun.  So if you see me walking around know that I’m not unhappy; I’m just looking.  With every study group, party, and walk down Locust there is hope.  Even with this article, I hope to catch someone’s attention – I know she’ll read it, I just don’t know if she’ll figure out it’s for her. 

I’m not sure if this article is a way to reflect for myself, a way to find out if other people feel similarly, or just a ploy to try to get a girl’s attention. It’s probably a little bit of everything.  In any case, wish me luck.  You know by now that I’ll need it.