Things You Might Not Want To Know - 3/16/2007 in 2005 - 2007: High School

Saturday morning I stubbed my toe. It was extremely painful, and it did not stop being extremely painful, and it turned black. So I sort of wimpered pathetically for a while and let my parents pity me and get me ice and stuff, and I called in sick to work because I couldn't walk so much. I spent the entire day in bed icing my toe and enjoyed it immensely. I started rereading the sixth Harry Potter and anylized an album for music theory. Around dinner, Dave called and asked if I wanted to hang out. I said I'd call him back.

My parents were all concerned about it through dinner, since they know that my recent experiences with having people over have been unpleasant. They kept asking me if I really wanted to have him over, and I said I didn't know. After dinner I said I should probably call him back. They said, "Well what are you going to say?" I said I didn't know. What I said was that he could come over.

"Okay, cool. Do you have... movies there?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, so, I'll see you in a few minutes."

"Wait, so is it just you?"

He must not have heard me, because he hung up.

"So is it just going to be Dave?" said my parents.

"I don't know," I said.

It was. We went downstairs. We went through my mother's movies and he picked out the old batman. We watched it and discussed gender roles slash made suggestive comments. Then we hung out a little talking about nothing.

The next day was the Saint Patrick's day parade. I spent the morning fretting about whether or not I'd be able to do it with the stubbed toe. I did. I limped. I looked really silly and played terribly because I was bouncing up and down. It was also painful and tiring. But that was during the actual parade. The hanging around componant went well. I talked to Dave a lot. I sort of reconciled with Eric. And I figured out that whether I not I reconcile with Mike, he will keep treating me exactly the same way he always has - the same way he treats everyone: as if I will like him and think he is hillarious no matter what he does. He is that socially stupid.

Molly was not there. I don't really know where she was. She told me but I forgot. I sat next to Dave on the bus. We sat with our legs touching, which is how two people with trombones in a schoolbus seat have to sit. And I found myself wanting to hang out with him after we finished. Just him. "Is that bad?" I asked myself. And the answer came back, "Of course not, he's your friend. He's your best friend." I still did not want to bring it up for irrational reasons.

When he said he was hungry though, I asked him if he wanted to go get food. He said, "Yes. Yes I do."

We went to Friendly's and talked about everything. We talked about this thing that's happening to our brains that makes us not care about anything and want to leave. We talked about people and how they change and who we are and who we were six years ago. We told random stories, and they weren't the same stories that we tell all the time. It was an incredible conversation. I even remembered this thing... Something kind of funny and important that I'd forgotten about completely. When he mentioned how funny it was that Julian was the one who introduced us to the awkward game, I said,

"I've literally never seen him make physical contact with another person."

"Oh come on, I've seen handshakes," he said. He thought about it for a second. "Actually... well, okay, high fives. I've seen a couple of high fives."

"He actively avoids it. He does a very good job... Remember in project challenge freshman year, we had to do that thing where we were in partners, and one person had to play soccer blindfolded, and the other person had to lead them around and tell them when to kick and stuff?"

"Yeah?"

"Julian was my partner for that. He refused to let me touch his hand. He got an extra blindfold and somehow convinced me that it was logical for us both to hold onto that."

"Oh."

"Man, that was actually really embarassing. I remember this kid said, 'you have him on a leash?' and I said, 'It was his idea,' which really didn't make it sound any better... And he was my partner for the giving-the-blindfolded-person-directions-around-the-school thing too. That was the same day. I was really horrendous at it, and he kept walking into things and hurting himself. We got lost too - we were the last pair back to the gym. He kept being like, 'can you try to give directions a little better?' and I would be like, 'I'm so sorry... I can't help it! Go over there!'" Dave laughed. "I was at that really awkward acquaintence phase with him too. We sort of hung out in the class, but it was really just that we were both friends with Tom. Tom was absent that day, that's why we were partners. I remember it just being an unbelievably terrible social experience, and afterwards thinking, 'Well, it's a good thing I don't know this person well enough for the awkwardness to continue. I'll probably never even have to have a conversation with him again.'"

"Ha ha," said Dave, slapping his knee. "Oh, real life dramatic irony."

"I know. My life seems to have a lot of it."

It's weird that I can talk to him about Julian and be sexually attracted to him. Because I am. But I'm not. I always have to forget about it, pretend it's not there. Whenever feelings for him surface, I tell myself not to think about them, so I don't worry about them, so nothing comes of them. This always works.

Here's the part you might not want to know.

At that point I hadn't masturbated in over a month. I don't really do it anymore. I don't really feel like it anymore. Because I think that at this point, enough things have gone wrong in just the right way that, combined with my personality, they have made me pretty screwed up sexually. I never trusted those feelings too much in the first place. I thought that they would make me a sellout. I thought that they would make me worthless. I thought that they were inherantly wrong. And when I did feel them, I ended up being right. They made everything all screwed up, always. So I ignored them. I had to. I never talked to Ann Whatsherface about sex because I didn't want to. The fact that I didn't want to is probably a good sign that I should have.

But after the parade I did it. I thought about him. I hardly ever think about actual people. I could never even pull it off with Julian. It was wrong, but it was worth it. I can't tell whether or not I'm sorry.