Saturday, November 17, 2007

If It Kills Me

Unexpectly, I'm back to talk to you again already.

I went to see 30 Days of Night with my parents tonight. I ran into a couple of acquaintances from my alma mater, from which we all graduated this year.

But they weren't just any acquaintances.

It was Jane and John.

I saw Jane for the first time in the Fall semester of 2004. She was shooting hoops on the basketball court - the opposite side of the gym from me. I was intrigued, but didn't think too much further about her until the second time I saw her.

I saw Jane again about two weeks later. I was playing some 3-on-3 basketball at school. She was in the center of the gymnasium, throwing a football back and forth with a female friend. And boy, could she throw!

I was in the middle of a game, but I couldn't stop looking over at Jane. I was more than intrigued. I couldn't even make out the details of her face, but she had this amazing bright smile. She radiated a unique, youthful, beautiful, fun type of energy - I couldn't do it justice recounting it in text.

At some point, I was totally lost looking over at her. The guy I was supposed to be guarding in the game was wide-open right underneath the basket; I was set in stone gazing over at Jane. I recovered and attempted to block the shot. But for the next play, I was back to looking over at Jane.

I'll never forget the words I said to myself after that. I said, "This is the girl I'm going to marry."

On my way back to my apartment, I saw Jane outside the gym. She was on a bike, and her friend was nearby. As I walked towards her, I thought about what I could do - smile, say hi? This was way, way before the blog, so I couldn't have even imagined starting a conversation.

It was the first time I had actually seen Jane up close. She was so sweet, so beautiful. I wasn't being poetic when I talked about her amazingly bright smile. It really was amazingly bright; it turned out to her dental braces, which I couldn't make out from across the gym.

Amazingly, she spoke to me. first. She actually thought I was someone else. When I told her that no, my name was X, not Y.... she playfully grabbed me and ran me across the grass. Boy, was she strong!

We talked very briefly. My standard conversation - what's your major, what year are you? That was about it. She was smiling the whole time - beautiful, amazing girl. It was my junior year in college, and I'd probably only had a couple of actual significant conversations with females up to that point. So naturally I couldn't, or didn't keep it going, and said see ya later.

That was it. Afterwards, I thought about Jane constantly. I couldn't exaggerate this if I wanted to. She was the most beautiful, amazing girl I'd ever seen! The sweetest, greatest girl I could imagine! I literally could not stop thinking about her.

I saw Jane around campus a few more times that semester. She always greeted me with an enthusiastic "Hey, how are you?" or something similar. My feelings weren't fading a bit.

After the winter break, I finally found myself heading in the same direction as Jane. We were going into the library, and she was carrying a huge bookbag. I asked her how her winter break was. We exchanged a couple of sentences, and then she said she was heading to her locker to put away her books; her back was killing her!

I answered with one of my standard "Oh yeah?" remarks - I still find myself saying that a lot, when nothing else to say comes to mind.

I always took the stairs, never elevators. In an amazing feat of ineptitude, I kept walking toward the stairs, and she split and headed to the elevator. I didn't even say goodbye!

Now, of course it's obvious now what I should have done. I should have offered to carry her bookbag up; I should have asked her what floor her locker was on; I should have continued to make conversation for a few minutes while we were together, and then gotten her campus phone extension number, and gone from there. Simple stuff.

But this was a time when I had never, at age 21, been out on a single date. When I had scarcely even had a conversation with a girl outside of my family.

That was pretty much it. I saw Jane a few weeks later - the day she'd gotten her braces off. She was happy, but didn't seem so interested in me anymore. She was dating someone else.

I saw that someone else the day of the Super Bowl. They were walking together. It was John. Yes, the same John that I saw with her tonight at the mall.

John is similar to me. Eerily similar. He plays the same sport, he had the closest major to mine, and he even looked similar to me.

And so, Jane has been with John ever since. He was the very first guy she went out with after meeting me. After meeting me, who she seemed quite interested in. Me, who thought she was the most amazing girl in the entire world.

And so tonight, I asked Jane and John what they'd been up to. They apparently live together now; they're probably engaged or married.

Wow. I felt so anxious talking to them, I started to lose control of my body - I was glad we ended the brief conversation before my infamous twitch returned in full blast.

Jane, the only girl who I ever seriously told myself I was going to marry (practically love before first sight), ends up marrying the very first guy she goes out with during the time I'm too anxious and inexperienced to even have a full conversation with her? It's painful, my friends. It was painful every time I saw them on campus, but I was doing well until I saw them again tonight. It took me a while (months, or a year?) to become seriously interested in other girls again - but eventualy "out of sight, out of mind" kicked in.

I felt down after speaking to Jane and John tonight. Jane still seemed every bit as beautiful and amazing as I thought she was. She hadn't "shrunk" on me at all.

So I got to thinking. In my google research, I very often come across sites like yahoo! answers, where people ask questions about how to overcome shyness, and ordinary people answer. More often than not, there's at least one answer telling the shyness sufferer they should accept the fact that they're shy - it's okay to be shy - stuff like that.

My long story about me, Jane, and John shows that those answers are absolute gibberish. No one should ever accept being shy, or anything like that. This is serious. Living is largely about love, friendships, comradery and the like. Being shy causes us to miss out on some of the best parts of life. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Now, this may not be what some people want to hear, but I believe it is an absolute fact. I can't know for certain that it would have worked out with me and Jane had things been different. Of course not. But through age 24, it is clear that shyness has been a pervasive force in my life, and it's caused me to miss out on way too much already.

So I am not going to accept being shy. Never. Ever. I am going to fight. I've decided that tonight, I will do whatever it takes. If it kills me, I'm going to beat this. There's no hyperbole here - I mean this literally.

Yes, literally. So tonight I figured that if I'm willing to face death to overcome shyness, certainly I should be able to take any risk. If I'm willing to take risks (it's easy to say and hard to do, but believe me, I am going to do it, and prove it in this blog), a whole new world of possibilities opens up. I started thinking about getting started immediately - probably implementing something like the one approach per day program, with that being just for starters. I originally planned to work on this stuff every single day, but lately I've done nothing at all on most days. That has to change.

So it turns out that the girl from my second second-date is in hot pursuit. She called me today, and I declined a group date to a movie. She then sent me a phone text message later, asking me if I wanted to grab lunch tomorrow.

I'm currently not very interested in her - probably the main reason for my success with her to this point - but I need to go out with her again for the practice. I don't mean to lead her on, so if I don't feel more interested tomorrow, I won't try to kiss her or anything like that.

So this is it. This can't be like any of the other times I've preached in the blog, and then just went on about half-assing the mission. It really is a mission. I'm going to turn my life around, or die trying.

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