).Stupidity · 8:07am Mar 8th, 2013
There are exactly two stories I won't tell just anyone. Most of my life is open season, but there are two stories I hold back. For differing reasons but to the same effect. This is the first of the two stories.
I'm telling it today because it's time someone knew. There's a lot in this story I'm not proud of, and more than a few moments where the inclination will be to slap my past self but this needs to be out there so I can break its hold on me. You're more than welcome to not read this and just move on. I fear, well parts of me fear, that this story will inadvertantly lower me in your estimation. I hope that isn't the case but I would understand if it did. This is, even if I'm not telling it right, a showcase of how easily madness can sound sane.
Like so many stories about male stupidity, this one starts with a girl. Henceforth reffered to as The Girl.
The scene is set in the second last year of highschool, where I had been harbouring an incredibly obvious crush on The Girl for most of my highschool career. Most people in similar situations would have asked her out at this point but my painfully shy self was indoctrinated against such common sense, because my conscious brain knew I didn't have a chance. She wasn't in to me. Ever. Let's get that out of the way.
So in my infinitely hormone addled state, I decided the best way to deal with this was to try to work up the courage at the year's social event. I'll tl;dr this part, nothing happened, I lacked the courage, conviction and self-confidence to do anything but look awkwardly at her and hope she picked up on it. Well she picked up on me looking at her alright, but not with the desired effect. The effect was more along the lines of what a person with common sense would expect. Ie "Why is that creepy guy staring at me?". For the record, that wasn't it exactly, she did know my name. We had been in the same class for a number of years. She didn't want to talk to me though. I ruined the evening for both of us. Yep. This isn't even the stupid part, this is a reference frame for my mental state in what follows.
Afterwards, I can't stop thinking about how badly I messed things up. So I contacted someone on middle ground. A friend of hers who knew me and would talk to me. This is where the only mistake in this fiasco that wasn't mine gets made. I asked for some way to get in touch from afar to apologize. The friend sent back her mobile number and her email address (cell number to anyone out there who uses that instead). To this day I have no idea why The Friend thought that was a good idea. Maybe it's because she overestimated my mental state. Teenage infatuation is a terrible thing.
So not being completely stupid I start with an apologetic email. Common sense would dictate some form of patience. Hormones demanded the opposite. A few short days of mooning around later, I tried the cellphone angle. I consider this to be my third biggest mistake in this mess. For the record, yes, I do look like a stalker at the moment, thank you for noticing. The ensuing mess that followed I view as completely and utterly wrong. I knew at the time she was well within her rights to ignore me if that was herr choice, and I have berated myself periodically since over my failure to recognise this free agency. The blame for this is all on me.
One two day saga of texts at odd hours and requests for meetings later, there was some kind of ultimatum. I think I said, "Treat me like a human being." Which, I didn't deserve frankly. When there was no perceived response to that, I ascended the next step on the road to full retard.
What would you have done at this point? What's the logical thing? Don't answer, just think about it. What do you think happened next?
You're wrong. I decided to go to her house in the middle of the night.
Yes. I did actually decide that, and as I'm about to tell you, I did do it. And as indication of things to come, this is only the second biggest mistake in the whole fiasco.
I have no idea how I arrived at this idea. It just hit that night. The thought process was that I was too afraid to speak to her while she was with her friends or something. I don't know. Somehow breaking several laws seemed like a viable alternative to things involving talking to people.
Now for those of you unaware, my home city is a very, very flat one. Think Suburbia. Everything is very spread out. You'd think from the way I was talking and from the fact we went to the same school that she lived nearby. You would be wrong. She lived 25 kilometres away (15.5 miles roughly). So this wasn't a walk. I couldn't yet drive at this point, so at around midnight, I got on my bicycle.
I snuck out and biked 25 k's in the middle of the night. It's miraculous nothing went wrong. It was full moon, and a Tuesday, so I think I did make a conscious effort to factor in some good ideas. How I failed to notice the glaringly obvious stupidity of the entire scheme is beyond me.
I got there, and I"ll save some time here. The tl;dr is I went home again having done nothing. I biked out, had a look around, jumped their fence, had a look around their property for same way to covertly wake her up (Thank all that is holy I did not manage to find one), then realised how bad this whole idea was and biked home again, arriving just after 3:30am. It's funny but I still remember everything about that night vividly, right up to and including the fact that I was incredibly obviously and conspicously sitting on the fence, dressed in black when their next door neighbour came out with his dog. While I was sitting on his fence. Looking like a goddamn cat burgler. How he and that dog didn't see me, I will never know.
The following morning at school, when I was tired and barely conscious, The Girl, along with two of her friends, came up and formally told me that I had no chance. Which in retrospect was more than I deserved.
If this were another story, that's where it would end. This isn't another story.
Two weeks later, I was now wracked by guilt. I felt I had to tell someone about the whole "adventures in prowling" thing. Did I tell my friends? My teachers? School counselling? No. I decided that the best possible way was to email her the details of the entire escapade.
To this day, that is one of the stupidest things I have ever done, possibly one of the stupidest things ever done.
So what happens next? First her dad, then the cops get involved. I'm not charged, and I'm not sure there's anything on my record but it's likely there's a footnote about a caution or something. Then there's a meeting with the principle and an apology to her and her parents and I spend the rest of my highschool career treading on cracked eggshells. I had rules: if she was in a room, I left it. I just generally acted like I didn't exist.
I'm still probably slightly higher on the list of potential suspects if any personal attack or stalking offence is comitted in my area, but not by much.
There's two addendums to the saga.
The first comes up during the ensuing police visit. While I was parading around wearing the largest dunce's hat in the southern hemisphere, someone else got in and hacked her email account. I have my suspicions, but obviously I didn't say anything. Police asked me about it, I denied involvement and they never got back to me so I assume tech crimes cleared it, if they ever investigated at all. To this day, I don't think anything about the timing of this was a coincidence someone was watching either one of us, I'm thinking her. They used a password reset method so they must have known her quite well. Still bugs me sometimes.
The other addendum occurs at Highschool graduation where I'm hanging out with my friends, when her group of friends walks up. There's some overlap in friendship circles, it was and still is a smallish school. There's all sorts of parents milling about wanting pictures, so I do the logical thing and duck out as quickly and quietly as I can. Her parents are there and I have no idea if they recognise me but I figured it was best not to antagonise them. Of all people her twin sister reels me back as I'm trying to hastily exit the photo op. Her sister had been in my lit class right throughout highschool, you can imagine how awkward that was. To this day I haven no idea why she called me back. Perhaps she thought I'd suffered enough. I could never find a copy of that photograph afterwards so I have no idea if I imagined the whole thing or not. The parents didn't recognise me. So somewhere out there there's this picture of me with her sister's arm over my shoulder and everyone else smiling happily while I look like I'm about to get shot. I have the oddest feeling it'll turn up one day when I'm least expecting it.
So there we go, that's the story of the stupidest thing I've ever done.
Maybe you got a laugh out of it. Maybe you want nothing more to do with me. Maybe you're wondering why I over-shared that.
It's a story I need to get used to telling so I can get over my fear of repeating history. I'm worse around girls then I was in highschool because of it. I still feel the oppressive fear of reprisal and ridicule sometimes and it's getting in the way of any chance I have of moving on.
Oh and if anyone's wondering why I'm not around much at the moment, semester just started up again and I have been busy.
Man, hindsight is hilarious.
I can't say I can offer much in the way of advice, partly because you don't seem like you need it, but also because I've been in, if not the same boat, then one that's at least in the same harbor. It's no fun to be the creeper; you're basically harmless, mostly by virtue of sheer incompetence, but people tend to blow up at you like you're an attempted serial murderer. No one acts as well as they should, a breakdown in communications causes further and further disasters, and it's all just very uncomfortable for everyone involved.
Still, things get better. The fact that you're comfortable sharing this isn't as important as the fact that you know why you're sharing it, and that you're capable of prefacing and explaining yourself rather than simply dumping information. That's definitely a solid step in the right direction. I don't know if the anxiety ever goes away completely, but so long as you use good judgement it's surprising how few pushes it takes to remind yourself that you don't have all that much to be scared of.
Besides, it's good to know that even if you haven't always been good at expressing yourself, you still have a good heart. Completely ill-advised as your actions may have been, there's some comfort to be taken in the fact that you never meant any harm. I guess that's one of the primary differences between your situation and mine.
You know, I thought it was odd how much you and I had in common when you mentioned you were studying psychology. Let's say that the oddness has been brought from the level of 'interesting coincidence' to 'suspicious that you might be my southern hemisphere doppelganger'.
I actually did laugh as I read your story, not out of mockery or out of condescension, but out of sheer disbelief that you were telling a story that started to sound virtually identical to one that defined my own life. A younger, earlier prototype of my current personage did very similar things; there has been a girl in my life that (believe it or not, starting all the way back in elementary school) I had sought after with virtually no hope of success. During my middle school years I even embarked on a crazy, less-than-legal nocturnal visit of my own only to get cold feet as I approached her house. I eventually told her about it as well, though I did not reveal it to her until many years after it had happened, which took pretty much all of the shock out of it and it got little more than an "Aww, well, that sounds like you." response. I wish that your story had the same ending as mine; though I've been eternally friend-zoned, her and I are on good terms to this day. I try not to spend time with her very often, as she is as much of a reminder of the past as she is a friend, so despite how it sounds I still wouldn't say it's a story with the happiest of endings.
Heh, and don't think for a second that I have better luck with the ladies in any way. Allow me to assure you that we are both trying to stay afloat in the same hurricane at the moment. In another crazy coincidence, you happened to post this reflection only several hours before I had intended on sharing a somewhat similar story of my own. It also starts with a girl, involves a life-shattering tragedy, and ends with me becoming a full-time try-hard fanfiction writer for the MLP fanbase. The aforementioned tragedy happened exactly one year ago today, a day that is quite memorable as the single worst day of my life.
Wish I had some relevant advice to give, but anything I could think to say is likely something you have heard before. Not that I can honestly think of much at the moment; my heavily intoxicated mind is in desperate need of rest. I'll be posting my little blurb in about four hours and twelve minutes; perhaps you may get a kick out of reading it. Either way I'm wishing you all the best, both with coping with this haunting memory and with your upcoming semester. Take it easy!
899513
Hindsight's always too late to save anyone.
The anxiety's going to be there until I don't need it anymore. I have to hope that's sooner rather than later. My ambitions are and never were power and fortune. I just want someone to curl up with at night. So far life has other ideas.
Sometime, when you're ready, I'd like to hear that story. If only for the sake of comparing notes. Seems like this harbour's not as empty as we all thought.
899536
I'm curious, did you study Psych previously? To the best of my knowledge you're studying film at the moment. Also I'm not really into self-defense, so we aren't clones or anything equally sinister. Maybe.
I'm pretty comfortable without advice on this one. The lesson is "Don't do this." I learned that one, feels like I wrote it into my blood. Maybe, one day, one of my descendants will suddenly pause when they're about to make this mistake and reconsider.
Coincidence is the life blood of destiny. Did I make that up? Yes. Is it true? Maybe. Does it matter? Not really. I'll hear your story as you have heard mine. It will be an honour.
As to coping, I've dealt with it. I haven't seen anyone asociated in a couple of years. It's a bigger world out there than we give it credit for. The memory is a good thing; nothing corrects mistakes like pain.
Oh, so that's why you cautioned me against asking you for relationship advice.
Anyway. We all have those moments at some point. While I understand your beating yourself up for it, I would like to think that you'll get over it sooner rather than later. You have a good heart, my friend; all you have to do is gain the self-image I think you ought to have (disclaimer—one similar to my own). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that if you have to have self-confidence to get a girl, and you need to get a girl to have self-confidence... Well, that's an unfortunate situation to be in, now isn't it?
I don't think less of you, of course. The only really off-putting thing in this paragraph is the overwhelming feeling of regret. I'm not saying you shouldn't have any. But I do think that you shouldn't preface your story with it. If you've ever heard of Louis C.K., kinda more like that. He pokes fun out of situations like this all the time. My point? I'm not sure. Probably something along the lines of 'this is a great idea for a comedic monologue,' and something you could entertain others with. I don't want to say you haven't accepted your stalking situation as a series of mistakes—that's a given—but, prefaced differently, you could ax the 'I won't be surprised if you think less of me' and replace it with 'get a load of this!'
Many facehoofs were to be had in your story, but that's really only the unfortunate side of the human condition. My only suggestion, and one I do suggest, is for you to try and repeat the story aloud to yourself. Try and make it make you smile. If your life is a series of unfortunate events, well, people love hearing standup about them. Give it a shot and see what happens.
899563 But of course, I'm a film major minoring in psychology!
"Pick a science or a foreign language to minor in," they said.
"You should pick business, everyone else is doing it," they said.
"Wait," they said. "What are you doing with that bowl of spaghetti?!"
^^^ Basically my academic advising session in a nutshell, heh.
That's some straight wisdom right there. Pardon me while I add that one to my archives!