Saturday, July 4, 2020

v2.0

I went to have dinner with Aileen sometime earlier this week. On our table, there was a bookmark-shaped card that had prompts on it for conversation starters. It was designed so that you'd put down your phones and engage fully with your meal companion. Our question was "what is the most awkward experience you've had with a crush?" Aileen went all the way back to kindergarten, when she told the boy she liked that they had to hold hands because the teacher said so, although the teacher hadn't.

Mine was comparatively much more recent, which is possibly not a good thing. When I was in high school, I had a big crush on a senior called Khalis. I thought my crush was pretty obvious to everyone around me. A couple years later, after we'd both graduated and were in different schools, my best friends got him to be at my birthday party, because I wanted to learn to play drums so they'd engaged him to teach me to drum. I never knew the arrangement, whether they were paying him or whether it was for free. 

Anyway, so this Khalis guy, he was the coolest dude in my mind. He danced, he drummed, he drew (because he's an architect). When I went for drumming sessions with him, I never knew if my heart was pounding because of the goddamn DRUMS or because lord, he was so near me, and I think, or I know for sure, he knew the effect he had on me. 

After a few sessions, I told myself, what the hell right, fuck it, I only live once. I told him in no uncertain terms, that I liked him and I wondered if he'd actually go out with me, or consider me as a partner, or something. He then said "Sarah, you know if I wanted to sleep with you, I would have done it easily because I know you would, right. You're a cute person but I think we're good as friends." 

I burned up in embarrassment. That was maybe the first bout of real rejection I'd ever faced, mainly because he brought up that he could have slept with me if he wanted to, and let's be real, it was probably true. To this day, I wonder if it was the best way he could have done it, to have given me absolutely no hope nor leeway, or the worst, for being so brutal. 

For months and years, I still admired him and placed him on a pedestal. This went on and on until maybe a couple years ago, I realized he was literally just another guy and didn't see him as being integral to my life. I think the last time I talked to him was legitimately two years ago. 

Khalis was the guy who actually told me I remind him of agape love. First of all, I don't know if that's just a thing men say to girls who like them but whom they don't have reciprocative feelings for. If that's a thing, someone needs to tell me now, so I stop feeling this amount of special, lololol.

All this to say, through the entire thing with Khalis and actually just through my life, I've never known whether guys were flirting because they liked me, flirting because they knew I liked them and because they could, or they were not flirting at all and it was all genuine platonic friendship on their part, and I misconstrued it because of the feelings I had. I like to think I'm more mature now, but am I, really? In many ways, I suppose I could say I am but in other ways, maybe not.

LORD AND SAVIOR

It's been a good week. I swam three times, I cooked great meals, I went to therapy. I finally celebrated my 30th birthday (two months late, lol) at Odette, now that restaurants are open with safe distancing. Odette was bougie af but I still think Jaan was better. I woke up at 7.30am this morning for a swim, and perhaps that is why I'm extremely sleepy now. I love swimming, it literally exhausts me and calms me such that I cannot begin to describe everything that's happened this week. I had good feedback at work, therapy was useful to throw out things that have been on my mind and have my therapist see them more for what they were, than I could. Tonight I'm on a call for the mental health collective I'm part of. I wrote a proposal for them this week. I'm on another committee in my lululemon store that I'm writing something else for. I would like to finish writing everything I have to write so that I can get a bit of actual rest next week. The Hamilton film is out on Disney Plus this week, does anyone have an account that I can bum off of, HAHAHA. Tina and I planned to have a video call today, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her face. Happy 4th of July, y'all.