Friends At College

I might start smoking (partial joke.)
I spend about 98% of my social time at the Pussy Palace Plaza, the smoking area between the North and South Halls.
Mostly, this is because Mears is my best friend, and I pretty much am attached to her hip, and she spends a lot of time there because she spends a lot of time smoking.
Partially because it's a high-traffic area, so I'm bound to meet someone new every time I go.

And it works.
It just feels weird and stupid, sitting there watching everyone smoke and not smoke myself.
Especially because I've always loved cigarettes. Everything about them: the smoke, the smell, how it tastes in a boy's kiss. I love the little flowers Karen would make for me out of the filters. I love sitting in circles with smokers and listening to their, "Problems I have because I smoke," stories.

Apparently, I have to drink a lot to get drunk.
We think I'm a liquor person.
No back story, just fact.

I met a boy named Kyle today.
Mears and I have seen him around campus before. He always look a little lofty, like he's set himself on his own pedestal. I won't speak for Mears, but I felt really intimidated by him. Socially secure people are always so intimidating to me, because they know how to handle themselves in ways that I will never understand. I hate being one person in the crowd. I am NOT a leader. I'd much rather take orders than give them.
I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't think it makes me a sheep. I do think that being aware of this personality trait makes me self-aware, which makes me more mindful of the situations I place myself in.
That makes me overall a safer, more reliable person.
But, anyways, I finally got around to talking to Kyle today. I mustered up all the courage in my teeny-tiny heart and told him, "You are really intimidating, like a shark in the waters. What do you DO at this school?"
He laughed. He laughed really hard.
And we got to talk, and he is a little arrogant, but he's also a nice person, and intelligent, and not even half as mean as I thought he was. It turns out that, sort of like me, he has the weird social anxiety that makes him WANT to make friends with others, but doesn't permit him to initiate things.

How sad would it have been if I'd gone these next few years without learning that about him? Just hating him for being so cocky and such an asshole, based only on the perception of him being "too good" for us?

So, I'm going to try to do better from here on out.
Michael told me that he almost confronts people into introducing himself, and that some people get really scared and scamper away, but that some people have become pretty good friends with him through that method.
Of course, you know that Michael is my rolemodel.
And that every word he says is straight out of the Bible, as far as I'm concerned.
And that when he suggests something, I adopt it almost as a personal mantra.

So I'm taking this confrontational, progressive method of his and fine-tuning it to my smallness and cuteness and childish-ness, and I'm going make a lot of friends because Michael said so.\
(I really like that I began and ended a sentence with the same word. I'm sure it's not grammatically correct, but this is my blog and I don't care.)

Also, I met Alex today.
On Monday morning when I was really excited about classes, I was walking to Milenburg and he was walking to somewhere else. I had on my yellow and pink shoes, he was wearing a likewise yellow and pink shirt. We matched. We briefly discussed it. We parted ways.
In the cafeteria, while waiting for Michael to finish making his breakfast sandwhich and for Mears and Danny to show up, he sat down alone a few tables over.
And of course Michael has just-a-few-minutes-ago given me this friend-making advice.
So of course I invite him over and explain that I hate to eat alone, and wouldn't want him too.
And of course he informs me that he has absolutely no social anxiety, or any problems eating alone, but spends a very enjoyable brunch with my and my two best friends and Danny (whom has an undetermined position in my social life and thus cannot be named yet.)

Also, I met Carl.
He is twenty-two, and a freshman. He took a few years off to care for his grandparents, because he's an only child and they had no one else to do it. However, his grandfather recently passed, and his grandmother requires medical assisstance that cannot be achieved from home, so he had to put her in a nursing home, where he frequently visits. He wrote a poem about how ignorant people that listen to rap music are. On my walk through South Hall (because it is about five bajillion times more interesting than North,) he invited me to a game of ping pong, and I countered with an invitation to walk around campus in the rain. Mine obviously being the better idea, he accepted. We walked around for at least an hour.

Then, I met Nicky and his girlfriend-- God forgive that I don't remember her name-- who spin poi and do hoolahoops. I don't really understand how one "does" hoolahoops, but I guess that's a personal decision. We talked about SEGA and nintendo and ps1, because we were all feeling nostalgic. This was right before I talked to Kyle for the first time, and is probably the catalyst for my unusal courage. They were really sweet. We were all at the Pussy Palace Plaza (a fake name that only Mears, Keifer, and I use. Keifer was our first college friend, by the way, but he doesn't spend much time with us anymore. I miss him.)

I don't really want to start smoking. I love being able to breathe properly.
But I really am addicted to nicotine already, and second hand smoke is way worse. Actual smoking would be, as a matter of scientific fact, the healthier decision.

I have no romantic feelings for anyone on this campus.
I don't know why I can only make friends with boys.
Girls are just too much of a wall to tackle right now.
I'll just stick to Momma and Nicky's girlfriend, whose name I will soon relearn.


I've written this just to let you know that I. Am. Okay. And that I will continue to be okay until there is no more kay to oh. And that I remember you, and I love you still.
And that I always will.