I am currently working 40 hours per week. I have a "boring" job where I go through ~3000 pages of documents per day ensuring that they meet certain federal/industry/corporate standards. In order to "combat" this sort of "sad"/"desperate" life I started going back to school so that I could eventually get into an MFA program (if you are "interested" in my writings, you can check my previous blog entries, my writing is generally "called by other people" things like "post-modern" and "existential").
I am currently taking 2 graduate classes at my local university.
~10.75 months ago my girlfriend "broke up with me". We had been living together ~4 years. ~7.85 months ago my ex-girlfriend started dating somebody new. For the past ~10.75 months I haven't found any girls that I have "met" to be "attractive" or "someone that I would want to spend a lot of time with". I think this is normal, I think that for a period of ~6 months after breaking up I felt "intensely asexual" and became mostly concerned with other aspects of my life, I'm not sure if this is normal.
I don't know the "exact point in time" in which I felt that I was "over" my ex-girlfriend but I feel generally at this point that I am. I have not spoken to my ex-girlfriend in person since her birthday which was ~0.05 months before she started dating someone new, and not "spoken" online/any contact since then as well. I have attempted several times to e-mail her and we used to "talk" online even broken up. The last time I e-mailed her was several days before Christmas, I sent her a "Christmas card e-mail". I have had "anxiety" in public imagining seeing her and her boyfriend. I felt like I was caught in a "downward anxiety spiral" (citing various texts that I sent to friends) when I went out of state to see a concert and imagined seeing her. This was earlier this month.
I feel a lot less "anxiety" about this now. I have no "desire" to talk to her etc. and genuinely feel that if she were to change her mind and try to contact me via e-mail etc. that I would/would be able to tell her that I don't want her in my life right now probably.
In one of my classes there is a girl who sits in front of me. I didn't really notice that there was a girl sitting in front of me, or this particular girl who sits in front of me until recently. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but I think that the main reason is that she seems very quiet and doesn't talk to people in class.
In my past 2 classes I have noticed these things about the girl who sits in front of me: 1. The first class that I noticed her she was holding her book in front of her face to read it with both hands. I think this is a "normal" thing for people to do. She is sitting at her desk and her phone is on top of her desk and she briefly for a moment takes one of her hands off her book and rests her pinky and ring finger lightly on her phone, as if her fingers/hands needed in this moment to remind themselves that they existed in a "physical form" and wanted also to feel the "existence" of her phone. Her fingers/hand didn't do anything to interact with her phone, she just briefly "touched" her phone in this manner before bringing her hand back to her book. In this moment I felt "ecstatic" about life in a manner that I don't remember feeling before. "This is good," I thought to myself, and I wrote a poem about it and felt "calm"/"accepting" of reality.
2. The second class that I noticed her she was holding her book in front of her face to read it, and decided that she had "feelings of hunger" and "slowly"/"quietly" reached down into her backpack. After several moments she withdrew her hand from her backpack holding [indiscriminate snack] and brought her hand to her mouth and put it in her mouth and chewed it. She repeated this process several times. Several things that I noticed throughout this process: a. I feel like to bring [indiscriminate snack]'s from her backpack to her mouth involves some sort of bag, and I was impressed by the manner in which she was able to move the [indiscriminate snack] from the bag in her backpack to her mouth ie as "quietly" and "slowly" as she did. b. The sort of "quietness" that I have mentioned seemed to me to be particularly "significant" in the sort of sense that I was "intensely aware" of the noises happening around the class as well as the "silence" she was creating. c. I was reminded of a time when she left early from class and she zipped her backpack up in a manner that seemed (now thinking about it) particularly "calm"/"concise"/"calculated"/"quiet" ie a step above the sort of "polite quietness" that people exhibit when they leave class early and zip their backpacks up.
3. I listened to her read a section of the poem with a voice that surprised me at first, and in a manner that I would not say was particularly "skillful" or "effective". Her voice seemed "shaky" and "hesitant" through most of her reading, but there were points that I felt there was a "certainness" and "calmness" in her reading that I thought was particularly "moving" despite not being necessarily "moved".
I have not "interacted" with the girl who sits in front of me in class in any "significant" or "meaningful" way. These are the times that I have "interacted" with her: 1. The first class that I noticed her we both turned in our notes to the professor at the same time, and left class at the same time. She held the door open for me. I smiled and said thank you. We walked through the hallway (I walked slightly faster than her) and I held the door open for her and she said thank you while bringing her phone to her face and telling [the person at the other end of her phone] that she was finished with class.
2. The second class that I noticed her I was leaving class and some girl held the door open for me because we left near the same time. The girl who sits in front of me was several steps away and if I had let the door close by itself the door would have closed approximately at the same time that she got to the door, which seemed to me at the time to be somewhat "callous" and held the door open. She said thank you and we walked in opposite directions.
I have two classes left in this semester (after which I feel "certain" that I will never see/interact with the girl who sits in front of me in class again). This is not to say that I feel "intense feelings of attraction" etc. for the girl who sits in front of me in class, but rather that I think that she seems like an "interesting person"/"person I might feel attracted to"/"someone I would like to spend time with". I feel like it could have been easier if I had "noticed" this earlier in the semester because I could have tried "talking to her"/"interacting with her" in the context of the class, but as it is would feel "strange" in any attempt of interaction ie talking to her after class ie sitting next to her in class etc. especially since there is not enough time left in the semester to use the context of the class as a reason/excuse for interacting with her.
Having been away from this sort of thing ie pursuing girls to "date" etc. and never really having had this experience before (my ex-girlfriend and I met through mutual friends and also worked together) I'm not sure if this "strange-ness" that I feel is something that I should feel or if it is "normal"/"acceptable" for me to try and interact with the girl who sits in front of me in class, and also the sort of interaction that I would go about trying to "initiate" if it were.
I think I "understand" what you're trying to "do" with the quotes, but they're still a little "distracting" to the "narrative," I feel. Good luck "initiating" "interaction."
If you only have two classes left for some type of interaction, you don't have the luxury of small banter or conversation that you might otherwise have been able to build up if done earlier on. You should essentially approach her and mention something along the lines of, "hey, I'm <insert name>. I just wanted to say that you caught my eye the other day, and I was interested in seeing if you might want to go for a coffee or something later."
You could even use the lack of remaining classes in your reasoning towards her. It doesn't have to be overly bold, or conniving in any way. Just be simple, straightforward and honest. If there is genuine interest, or she has perhaps has noticed you too, then who knows what she may say.
Maybe you should only take advice from people who have "had sex with a woman" and "bathe regularly" and don't "pop their whiteheads with a compass they used in high school".
On April 29 2013 05:08 babylon wrote: This is "nearly unreadable." The scare quotes are very "distracting." Please tone down on them for the "comfort" of the audience.
@babylon @Meadlowlark @Anachronisticanarchy Sorry, I try to make sure that when people read what I write that they know when things can be construed ambiguously and also when things are figures of speech and I am aware of their function as a figure of speech ie not necessarily concrete language but decide to use it anyway. I feel as though removing them would probably (against what @Meadowlark says) detract from the narrative overall especially re: the clarity of language and me trying to get my message across etc. (in this passage I have resisted using quotations in any form so that you will feel more comfortable) also @Meadowlark I feel as though, in imitation of this style that you are misquoting understand, and that initiating interaction would also be in a single quote (rather than two separate quotes) and also that the phrase initiating interaction feels somewhat self-aware which is one reason why I (probably intentionally) avoided using it.
@Jerubaal I'm not very familiar with Chris Farley skits and wouldn't know which one you are referring to. I'm not sure how I would go about verifying whether or not posters in reply to my post have had sex with a woman before, or bathe regularly, or refrain from popping their whiteheads with a compass they used in high school, these don't seem like questions that you would ask someone when they give you advice, I am imagining a checklist that I go through re: each posters advice with questions like have they had sex with a woman before, do they bath regularly, do they pop their whiteheads with a compass they used in highschool and it seems fucked. Also, I feel as though these aren't necessarily criteria that someone should use in judging the quality of someone's advice. With this passage as well I have refrained from using quotation marks since I am ~80% certain that the use of quotations in your post in tandem with my perceived tonality of it that you are using them in a mocking sort of way and would gather from that that you also don't feel comfortable with seeing them.
I am really sorry, but the whole time, I became really distracted by the almost near exactness you described the passage of time. Have never really met anyone who uses decimals with their months haha.
Best of luck to you though.
And you can ditch the quotes. They almost made the whole thing unreadable.
No offense, but I imagine most posts as conversation and the quote density had me thinking you were notching your fingers more than someone doing shadow puppets.
And yes, it is normal to want to talk to people in your class. Strike up a conversation (especially if finals are coming up there's usually something you can discuss re: the professor/test questions/studying troubles). Just maybe act a little more relaxed than you're coming across here.
I found this hard to read but I understood enough to give you advice. Just stop worrying what people think and talk to her. Strike up a conversation and maintain it for at least 2.75 minutes. If it's really awkward then "who cares" just try again with the next girl. All this agonizing and worrying about how she'll react is not only useless but actually counter-productive.
@nohbrows @Ryalnos Sorry for using these measurements of time, this is generally how I "perceive" the time passing in each case, I didn't intend for it to be distracting, I just wanted to create a stronger "context" so that people would be able to better understand where I was "coming from" ie this vs something like "a long-ass time", "very short while" etc. that are more ambiguous and less based upon "concrete reality".
@TheTenthDoc I don't feel the necessity to create "quotes" around my words when I am talking, I talk the same way as I type (or "perceive" my words in the same manner).
@docvoc @farvacola I think that the punctuation is only as distracting as you want it to be. For example, if I used it less I feel as though people would generally not have the same reaction as they do towards it. I feel like if I used it less people would think something like, "this makes things more clear" maybe not on the conscious level but at some level. Ie my use of brackets in describing [an indiscriminate snack] which nobody has called attention to or noticed, I feel like people would tend to read this section "naturally" and their inner dialogue can easily recognize this sort of punctuation as a signal to the reader and understand it and the purpose of it without any trouble. I feel like there is no difference between me using it once (for the sake of feeling "better able to explain" the way that I am thinking) or using it more than once besides the amount of times more that I am using it.
@ziggurat "To strike up a conversation and maintain it for at least 2.75 minutes" is something that I didn't really feel was "possible" given 1. my lack of interaction with her previously and 2. the amount of classes that I have left before the semester ends. Any attempt at a conversation would take place in the ~2.75 minutes that I spend sitting at my desk waiting for class to start, in which I would either have to (rather uncharacteristically) A. get her attention and have a conversation in which one of us is facing one direction and the other was originally facing the other direction and must now turn at an "awkward angle" in order to continue at a point in time of class when the professor is generally "half-lecturing" about something that is vaguely related to class waiting on any stragglers or B. sit next to her for the previously recommended ~2.75 minute conversation, a seat that I have not occupied in the previous classes, and then stay sitting next to the girl [who formerly sat in front of me in class] for the next 3 hours of the lecture, during which times I will probably do "vaguely unattractive" things like "taking notes in an excited manner" which I feel would also be generally unsuccessful because the girl who formerly sat in front of me in class would be left wondering things like "Why did he sit next to me to only have a ~2.75 minute conversation with me" recalling specific instances of our previous interactions ie holding the door open for each other for the next 3 hours also possibly "dreading" the end of class when (as she perceives it) I will attempt to make another ~2.75 minute conversation when all she really wants to do after class is bring her phone to her face and tell [the person on the other end of the phone] that she is done with class or I would have to wait until the end of class, taking an "extra amount of time" to pack my things up (which would be, again, uncharacteristic because I sit closer to the door and only carry a single book with me) or waiting for her outside the door (equally uncharacteristic of me, since I don't remember any instance of me doing this before) in order to "strike up" a conversation for ~2.75 minutes outside the context of the class during which time she would be thinking something along the lines of "How long is he going to keep talking, it has been ~2.75 minutes, when am I going to be able to call [the person on the other end of the phone] to tell them that I am out of class" etc. Any ~2.75 conversation that I have would have to be "direct" in my intention otherwise I am wasting ~2.70 minutes of time making whatever conversation that I make for the ~0.05 minutes that it takes to say something like "I saw you touch your phone briefly without interacting with it and felt ecstatic about my life in a way that I never have before, can we please go somewhere and do something without interacting with each other or talking, can we just go sit somewhere and be silent and not look at each other for [an indeterminable amount of time]" or "I am very impressed by the manner in which you quietly ate [indiscriminate snack] last week, did you want to go out and eat [indiscriminate snack] quietly with me later" etc. because I can't conceive of a possible "universe" in which any conversation or interaction that I have the girl who sits in front of me in class where my intentions wouldn't be clearly on display and result in any "unrelated conversation" seeming to be "strange". I feel like this was my "original intention" but was unsure of what is the manner of doing it that is 1. the least "strange" 2. has the least amount of "artifice" and 3. was the most "honest"/"straightforward"/"concrete".
@Cainam I don't understand where you would get this sense, I don't feel like anything that I wrote is "outwardly violent". I feel as though you are saying something along the lines of "Here is someone who doesn't think in a similar manner to me, therefore he must be 'mentally fucked'/'a serial killer'". In imitation of the heavy use of quotations, I would leave the quotations off of "girl" and "skin" (ie concrete reality) and also put quotations around "place" and also strongly consider putting quotations around "making a suit" (vs. "suit" alone) as a phrase.
The 2nd time you interacted with her seems like the type of scenario seen in this vid @ :45 seconds (I disregard the part about attractiveness in my point, though it is applicable in your case) :
EPT
Still, you have an interesting way of describing things. 
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