Love on Wheelz

The only new people I’ve met recently were a girl and a guy in the same class as me. We had a research paper due at the end of the semester, so I started a Facebook group figuring everyone in the class could share articles. Truthfully, I just wanted people to do all the research for me. That backfired tremendously because the only ones who posted articles were me and the girl. We’ll call her Alex, and we’ll call the guy Josh.
Alex messaged me on Facebook and (after I hit on her and got summarily rejected… gently) she invited me to hang out with her and Josh before class. I agreed and was proud that I’d made a potential friend. Plus, she was hot and liked women – as in, liked doing women. So when the day came, I was excited and nervous. I can never be certain if new people will understand me well or not.
She wore a sleeveless shirt and cargo pants, like a very hot butch girl. That may seem like an oxymoron, but trust me, it’s not. Josh had greased back hair, a wispy mustache and liked to smoke cigarettes. He would take long drags off of them and look longingly at the horizon, then he would slowly blow out all the smoke. Maybe it was my caveman instinct to discredit competition kicking in, but everything inside me screamed douche. Nonetheless, I ignored it because I needed friends. Besides, you can be nice AND a douchebag. The two are not mutually exclusive.
We talked for a little bit. I don’t remember any of the conversation. I just remember that they didn’t laugh very enthusiastically at my jokes. They offered more polite laughs than anything. Let me tell you, there is nothing more awkward than people politely laughing at your joke. I’d rather them make a witty retort about how unfunny it was. Brutal honesty makes me much more comfortable.
But I was desperate and they were nice, so we agreed to meet up every Friday before class. I had to get up an hour earlier, but I figured it was a small price to pay for social interaction.
The next time I saw them Josh had brought a guitar.
“Omigod!” Alex exclaimed, “You play guitar?”
“Yeah. A little bit. I’m still learning.” he smirked.
“Yeah. I’m trying to learn, too.” she replied, “I know! I should bring my guitar, so you can teach me.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
Over the next week more and more people brought their guitars, all friends of theirs. They had “jam sessions” where they all played and bonded n’ shit. I know they weren’t doing it on purpose, but I was excluded. There was no way I could participate. They would talk about obscure musicians and bands that I had never heard of. The few that I did recognize were bands like The Dixie Chicks which I don’t listen to anyway. All I did was nod and smile. I had no idea what to say, nothing to contribute. We had little in common.
I still tried to make it work, though. I called them often asking them to hang out, which they only did a few times. And they never called me if I didn’t call them first. Ever since Pedro I’ve been weary of people not reciprocating. So I stopped calling them. I figured that if this was going to work then they would call me themselves. They didn’t, and that was the end of it.
I was back at square one again with no idea what to do. I’d gotten to square two by pure fucking luck. I didn’t do anything that I had vowed to do for improvement’s sake. I didn’t go up to them; they approached me. I was unable to contribute to the conversations and blend in. I need to learn better social skills.
But I won’t give up. All I need is to work up the courage to talk to people. Why is that so hard for me? I don’t understand.

This entry was posted on July 10, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Blog. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.