gsnedders

Last night I came across something I wrote just over a year ago: oh how times have changed. No longer do I feel as I did then about anyone mentioned in what I wrote. Indeed, if you were to look at some of the descriptions of people in it and compare with how they are now you'd think I was mad describing them like I did. How people change…

Even if I look at myself a year ago, the difference is amazing. I was, even on a really basic level, far less depressed than I am now. Looking deeper, I was finally starting to consider if I was well enough to ask anyone out (a point perhaps made irrelevant by my cowardliness).

Around six months ago, I was starting to give up all hope of ever asking her₁ out, knowing that after eleven months of reaming I was just too scared of the slightest thing going wrong. I knew I had move on beyond her₁, and that my best hope of doing so was probably to divert my mind to her₂, who I already had a slight crush on. It was also around this time that my mood swings started to become increasingly frequent: back then, they had happened once or so every three months — now it is closer to one every fortnight.

Then, a month later, in May, so much happened. So much that I'm not yet mentally to talk about fully. So much that I could write about endlessly.

After the hellish month of May, four months ago, the effects of May continued to change things in my life. I finally, after fancying her₁ for over a year, moved on, though it was near the end of the month before she was fully out of my mind — to quote Catullus (in translation): It is hard to lay aside a long lasting love/It is difficult, but it must be done by you in some way or other/it is the one safety, this must be conquered by you/Just do it! Whether it is possible or impossible. I behave so differently around her₂. No longer am I so shy. No longer am I so cowardly. So much is different, yet so much the same.

This is stupidity,
Stupidly it grows by the day.

This is cowardliness,
Cowardly it grows by the day.

This is shyness,
Shyly it grows by the day.

This is annoying,
Annoyingly it grows by the day.

This is love,
Lovingly it grows by the day.

Today, I finally got up the courage to finally ask her out (maybe I write too much about her…). Yet I (again) did not. This time, however, the reason is idiotic. Completely and utterly idiotic.

This is a reason so completely idiotic you need to be warned about how idiotic it is before you read it, else, you may collapse in disbelief at the idiocy of it.

Really, it is rather idiotic. Having finally got up the courage to ask her, I quickly pack everything up at the end of a lesson (as the bell has already gone), and then… Well, it really is stupid.

Stupid enough, that it took so long that breaking the paragraph is justifiable. I couldn't get my hoodie on. I just couldn't get it on. By the time I got it on, she had gone.

How totally freakin' idiotic is that!?

While away, I got very bored at times, and among other things, I did an English Writing Past Paper (from '06). What I wrote (to time the time limit of 75 minutes) is completely true, and written in the first person with reason (e.g., it's me).

Task

New places, new faces.

Write about a time when you had to cope with new people in new surroundings.

Remember to include your thoughts and feelings.

Response

Walking into the school building, everyone seems to intently be going somewhere. I have no idea where to go. This is my first day. I stand on a single spot for what seems like an eternity as everyone rushes past. Eventually someone moves me away from my beloved spot, taking me to the nine other people starting in the same year as me. The wonders of starting at an eighteen-hundred person school are upon me, or so I thought; the school has no timetable for me. Almost an hour later I finally have a timetable, and someone (now) in my registration class is sent to get me.

We scarcely get to the classroom when the bell goes. Again I have the sense of unknown danger walking through the packed corridors full of people intently going places as I go to my first ever lesson: English. Finding myself being sat beside a girl who has herself just started here, I can't help to think that we're not even beside people who have been at this school for years and can help us get into a groups of friends, especially due to how shy I am. Oh how I would love to have friends in this huge unknown place…

Surviving the next few lessons (and break!), a girl manages to catch my eye, despite the million more urgent things on my mind. Do I really need such distractions on my first day?

Later, dangerously making my way to another class, I realise she's in it too. Am I going to be able to get any work done whatsoever? Within minutes the person beside me, a boy also in my English class, realises who I'm constantly looking at. Questioning me as to what colour her bra is, I answer honestly. It's black, and rather visible through her thin white shirt. I try to reason with him that I hadn't been specifically looking, it just rather stands out. He won't believe it, despite it being the truth.

Alas, over the remainder of the day, I manage to forget about her and get my mind back to more urgent issues, like friends (or lack thereof). Despite sitting beside her in the final lesson of the day, my mind is miles beyond her. I couldn't care less. I'm surrounded by people I don't know. I just want to escape.

Almost a year later I am again sitting near her in class. She, completely unexpectedly, asks me, "Do you fancy me?".

"No", I say answering honestly. Turning around to return to work, my mind starts to go astray, filling with thoughts of her. This time, however, not just how she looks, but also how nice she is. Shaking the thought of her out of my head I attempt to return to work.

For many months my mind remains full of her, but I am too shy and cowardly to do anything about my feelings. In the end, I begin to talk to my closest friends about her, not knowing whether it would be a mistake to talk about her or not.

Months later, my friends start to go mad at my constant talk of her. They always say they'll force me to ask her out, yet they never manage. I can scarcely talk to her, yet alone do anything more. She knows how I feel about her, she's heard my friends trying to get me to ask her out often enough, yet I remain too shy to do anything about it. I've been talking about her for an eternity, maybe I should just return to my spot, unsure of what to do, unsure of how to speak to her, unsure of how others will react.

Love, lift me up out of these blues
Won't you tell me something true
I believe in you

Elevation — U2, All That You Can't Leave Behind.

Another term over, yet I have not moved on from the girl I have now fancied for ten months; I have also still not asked her out, no matter what people try.

I sat through an entire lesson yesterday having the exact same thoughts as I had on the final of the winter term, shortly before Christmas. Should I ask her, even with so many people around who will, I think, make fun of me doing so? Once again I concluded no.

Would being more confident in what she'll say help? No. I'm almost completely certain that she'll say yes. So why the impossibility of actually doing it? I'm shy. It's hard for me to speak to people I don't know. Giving them a single reason to be horrible to me makes me even quieter, and less likely to speak to them.

Can I speak to her? Yes, provided that there aren't people around that will mock me, or if she starts the conversation.

To put it short, I'm a complete and utter paranoid shy coward.