Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Bitch, moan, repeat

2009-12-23
4:29am

So.. I wasn't aware that anybody really checked up on this thing anymore, since the last lengthy entry I left in it was almost a year ago, but it seems I have at least one avid reader out there, who was gracious enough to leave a comment and provide some insight and perspective to the subjects I discuss with myself.

A year is a lot to cover, so I think I might just fast forward to this past semester. What shall we discuss first? With enough time, I might be able to cover girls, grades, finance, and self discovery. Let's dive in, shall we?

Summer ended pretty mildly. It had been a month or so since my breakup with my last girlfriend, and for the first time in a pretty long while, I wasn't constantly thinking about girls. It was actually a pretty nice mindset I was in, just letting everything flow. Once I moved back to Los Angeles and into my fraternity's new house, we started having small weekly parties on Friday nights. Mostly, I was just interested in having a good time, and beer pong became a bit of a focal point in our back lot. One night, my roommate Geoff had brought his girlfriend Jamie over. I remembered my roommate telling me last spring that his girlfriend had a roommate who was a little lonely, so I asked about her. Jamie told me that she had gotten into a relationship over the summer, so I told her I understood and was ready to brush it off immediately, but after I asked about her, Jamie insisted I meet her anyway. I told her I'd be down to meet her, but just as a new friend, 'cause I don't like the idea of getting in between a couple. Jamie said that was fine, but expressed her lack of faith in her friend when she told me that we could just be friends until she broke up with her boyfriend. Jamie's confidence in this relationship failing was made even more apparent when she pointed out to me that this girl's boyfriend goes to school in Nebraska.

And so this is how I met Ashnoo. She came over, I introduced myself, we had a couple drinks, and then we started to play beer pong together against Geoff and Jamie. Afterward, we decided to play a few rounds of Taboo to pass time, and at the end of the night, Geoff and Jamie rode their bikes back to Jamie's house while I walked Ashnoo home. It was a good night, if nothing else. Over the next couple of weeks, I talked to her a little bit more, but before long, I realized that I was chasing a girl with a boyfriend, and told myself I didn't want to be doing that. We still talk, and I study with her in the library every now and then, but.. I dunno. She texted me today, actually. One of the first things she told me was that she broke up with her boyfriend last night. Not sure what to make of that, so I'll just continue being her friend unless anything changes.

It wasn't long before another girl came unexpectedly into my ever-developing picture of a love life. One night, after a home football game, a few of my friends and I went out and sat on the front porch to go people-watching. This has become one of our favored activities to partake in, particularly when the Shrine Auditorium across the street holds its monthly raves. Anyway, we're outside, watching ravers go by and guessing their ages, when I meet Angeli. Angeli lives on the same floor as Layne in the dorms, and Layne is this girl who has taking a liking to Jonathan, one of my best friends in LA. Both Layne and Angeli are freshmen, and they live on the same floor as a couple of guys who pledged my fraternity, so they're getting to know us pretty well.

I didn't think much of meeting Angeli, especially since one of the pledges was talking to her most of the first night I met her. Then, a few days later, Jon let me know a little in advance that Angeli was going to ask me to go with her to her sorority's semi-formal invite. It was unexpected on my end, but once I knew, I figured I might as well talk to her a little more. I actually made a bit of an ass of myself one night, when my brother was in town and we ended up getting drunk and going back to the dorms with her, where I got a little sick. That didn't seem to matter, though, because the next night we went on our first date. We went to dinner, then to get frozen yogurt for dessert, then back and forth between my house and her dorm, talking the entire time. It was impressive, spending six hours with someone I had just recently met. At the end of the night, I hugged her goodbye and walked home.

The next few weeks went by pretty smoothly. She went with me to one of my fraternity's date dashes, and then the next night I went with her to her sorority's invite, and we started getting into a nice swing of things by watching House together on Monday nights, visiting in person with each other shortly on most other days, and constantly holding instant message conversations with each other on Skype.

One of the things I was happiest with myself about when dating Angeli was that I was open with her about everything. I told her that I have a history of falling too hard too quickly, and I told her that I would try my best to just let things happen naturally between us. She seemed to be okay with it, and nothing I did seemed like it could scare her off... At least, not until she told me she didn't want to date anymore.

Within a few weeks of hanging out with each other, I asked Angeli if she would be my girlfriend, but she politely refused, telling me that she didn't want to be committed to a relationship at the time. I respected it, but also knew that we were practically seeing each other exclusively at that point, so to me, we were simply 'dating.' I was able to say that for around six weeks, while I let things sit on the back burner. I was quite proud of myself, not insisting that anything progress, but instead deciding to let things be for weeks at a time before checking in to see what she thought about 'us.' Then, one day, literally out of nowhere, she told me she didn't think we should be doing what we had been doing anymore. Well, actually it seemed like it was out of nowhere, but realistically it probably had a lot to do with the fact that she was going back home the following weekend, and would be seeing her ex boyfriend.

It's been nearly two months since then, but even for the six-week relationship that seemed to be flourishing so well before that, it's been slightly devastating to me emotionally. I try to tell myself to be happy for her, because she seems to be getting back into things with her ex, who she fell for in the first place, but it's just hard to keep my mind off of what I thought we were heading into. At this point, I would actually be happy to be back in the state of mind I was in when I moved back to Los Angeles, and not be thinking about girls. I'd like that, but it's hard to do when I come home to Vegas - where literally every one of my best friends is in a relationship; where my brother is talking to me about the girl he's hooking up with back home and about the girl he met at a concert the other night, who he went hot tubbing with last night and went to hang out with tonight; and where one of my best female friends is talking to me about the guy she's been hooking up with for the past few weeks. Oh, sweet irony.

So here I am, back in Las Vegas for winter break, and I would be so lucky to have someone to talk comfortably with for these next three weeks. Or maybe even to lie comfortably with. There's someone here who I've started talking to a little more, but I don't think she thinks of me like that. It'd be nice to be with somebody this winter, but if that doesn't happen, then it might actually be better for me.

To be continued tomorrow. It's getting kind of late