Crushes Past Part Two – Stood Up, Hook Up and Vulnerable

Part Two picks up from my post on freshman year crushes. You can read it here: Crushes Past Part One

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Sophomore year began feeling like being so close to the peak of this college mountain. I didn’t expect all the old faces turning into crushes. I really expected it to be a year with new guys or one really special guy and fun experiences. However, it left me so many times like what did I just get myself into or why did I let myself be played for a fool.

“I couldn’t forgive myself”

He was also in my Intro to PR class freshman year (it was a huge class – don’t judge me) and I hung out with him a couple of times in study groups at the library. He kept giving off this let’s be friends air but when fall came around, there seemed to be the addition of maybe looking for more than friends unprompted.

Early September a mutual friend of ours had a birthday party and he convinced me to go with him. As the time drew closer for the party to start, he was at a bar but said he was on his way. 20 minutes passed and I texted him again, “Sorry my friends are letting me leave.” I told him to have a good night and I had other friends wanting to hang out with me. He texted, but I want to hang out with you. I replied we’ll just have to see how our schedules link up. It felt like such a smart move. A powerful move.

We rescheduled to hang out two other times two weeks later and both times he cancelled for last-minute reasons. Fast forward to early November after not talking for a while, we made plans to make plans. And the official title of date was on this. I gave him two options and he chose the one I secretly hoped for. The day came for us to go on that date and he stood me up with no excuse this time or even a text cancelling. I was livid. But a good amount at myself, because I knew deep down he was going to cancel. Once again my hope got the best of me. I wasn’t being real with myself.

A few weeks later I learned he went on our date with another guy and couple, along with learning something else truly unpleasant, and I felt like a fool. I felt angry at the thought of him. But I knew the real anger was at me.

For the first time since he stood me up at the beginning of November we chatted for this post, I said: “I’m going to be honest when I say that you left me feeling pretty hurt. I couldn’t forgive myself when I learned certain things. So my questions to you is why did this whole thing about us going on a date drag on for so long and why did you stand me up in the end? Should I have seen the signs?”

I received a long reply from him but the most important to me was after he explained where he was mentally, “If I had to choose one reason, it would be because I was scared. . . Unfortunately, my past decisions harked mistakes. Granted, that’s part of life. People make mistakes, you live and learn. Sorry for making you feel as if you weren’t good enough. It was never intentional.”

But after reading everything he said, it left me wondering where was this person like a year ago? It would have made all the difference. I think that’s the lesson though. Sometimes it really is all about timing and where we are in life. People can be just assignments that teach us lessons.

“It looks like you made out with a unicorn”

I know some people do, but I never go out with this goal of looking for a guy. I just feel like being gay, you spend all this trying to first decipher if a guy is gay and then weighing whether to try to talk to him. Plus I don’t really consider myself someone okay with casually hooking up with someone I just met.

That being said, my friend, Alexa, was showing visiting Korean students around and invited me to eat dinner and go out with them. Alexa had me bring my camera, so the Korean students could be tagged on Facebook and look back on going out.

After being out dancing for a while and getting close to the students’ curfew, Alexa and I notice this guy dancing with a combination of unique poses. She tells me I should go dance with him, but I tell her I’m not interested. She takes it upon herself to go talk to him. She asks him to take a picture with the visiting students. Then she tells him to take a picture with me. As he is posed on me, the camera is not working and I’m telling Alexa that it’s okay and apologizing to him. But she is resilient. Finally, she snaps a picture and I think to myself, she went through all this because she obviously wants me to dance with him, so I ask him to dance.

Dancing is at first awkward but turns into grinding. Grinding is awkward, because, no matter who the people are, your bodies have to sync up to the beat, but eventually we did. Grinding then turned into also making out. Then repeat that. And as we’re making out, I think to myself, I can’t believe I’m doing this. But . . . I didn’t regret it. As we stood there dancing looking each other into the eyes, I was actually having fun and didn’t regret it. We did exchange numbers in the end.

After, taking the Koreans back to their hotel, we go over to a friend’s place. My friends stare at me for a second. “You have glitter all over your mouth! It looks like you made out with a unicorn.” So he became the unicorn.

He and I didn’t hang out after, but I’ll admit it that I came off strong in the days following because I knew after that I’d be too busy with Dance Marathon which takes up a weekend basically, then going to Boston for a week and then catching up and jumping into an eight week group project I was team leader for but would be behind on because of Boston.

When I talked to him he said, “Honestly, I don’t remember much about that night. I do however know that I made out with another guy that same night. I did want to meet up with you after because you were really sweet and seemed really interested.” But needed to do it on his terms and I know I pushed it. But I think I did it just enough knowing what my schedule was.

I’m told though the Korean guy has a picture on his phone of me and “the unicorn” making out. . .

He Has a Crush on You

Being vulnerable and talking about my insecurities doesn’t come easy to me but with him I wanted to make that effort. And I’m not patient but I wanted to be patient, because I thought that if I played it right this time, you know really played it right, it could work out.

Even though it may not have been clear, I introduced him in my blog post “Dear Boy I. . .” as I toyed with the crush. A few months later I laid out all my emotion in “He Has a Crush on You” as the school year came to a close.

Last fall I had my first real conversation with him, and I started to see how my first impressions of him were wrong. In February he happened to be leaving a building on my path to class and he walked with me as he went to meet a friend. As we talked, I remember thinking how cute he is. More than that, but the real pull you feel when you’re mentally and physically attracted to a person you’re talking to. Eventually I resolved to think of it as a foolish idea until I randomly saw him again and I thought to myself how I’m fine when I don’t see him, but then I see him, and I just go there in my mind. As mid-April came I hung out with him more and got to have real conversations with him and wanted to make some type of progress every time I was with him whether it was an excuse to hang out with him again (like purposefully leaving a tie I let him borrow) or ask me more deep questions (like what types of books do you like to read) or hug me or smile directly at me.

He didn’t feel the same way I learned.

A week ago we randomly talked on the phone for the first time this summer. It was nice. But I felt myself going to that hopeful place. You know that place – maybe he will talk to you and get to know you more and like you as more than a friend.

But I had to stop myself mid track. You can’t go there. You just can’t go there. We end up hurt and in awkward situations, because you go there. So rein it in now and it’ll all be fine. It’ll all be fine if you just accept what he told you as the truth. . .

Thank you to the guys who have been a sweet inspiration to this blog post but also were so willing to answer my questions and tell me the truth. As I told a best friend, “They all broke my heart, but they’re such sports!” That’s said in a jokingly manner. I hope y’all find great boyfriends and amazing husbands one day!

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I hope you enjoyed this post! Feel free to comment or follow me on Twitter @JarrydK.

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