Are You Guys Dating?

It was one of the first days of Senior year. Most mornings, we had announcements in the school Commons. Being a normal day, the usual round of announcements were made.   I was sitting in the near corner of the room with my group of friends, joking and chuckling with each other. Students stood up and made announcements. Sports teams had practices, clubs had meetings, all of that random nonsense.  Then our Principal stood up and said:
"Everybody, we have an exchange student this year. Her name is... and correct me if I mispronounce this: Tong Mah-cheng?"
From the far side of the room, a chinese girl stood up and took a step forward.
"It's pronounced 'Tang Mei-xing'"
"Tong Meh-sing?"
"um... close enough"

In my economics class that day, she sat next to me. We exchanged pleasantries, but I had to stop myself from sneaking glances at her all class.

Later in that day, I saw her in the library working on her class schedule. I sat down with her and explained how our school's schedule worked. And then we talked. And kept talking.

And then for the next few months, we kept hanging out with each other, seeing each other in class, eating lunch together.  We were texting each other so much, my mom upgraded my cell phone plan to unlimited monthly texts.

She invited me to her birthday in November. As a birthday present, I bought her tickets to the winter dance.

It was around mid-November when my friends started asking me "Are you guys dating?"

The first few times I heard that, I replied "No, of course not. We're just friends." But after a while, I realized that we might be. After all, I did have feelings for Mei.  Feelings that, because of the incident with Hannah, I kept well hidden. Remembering what happened with Hannah, I didn't dare make the first move.

But after a couple weeks of the "Are you guys dating?" question, I began to reply "If we are six weeks from now, then this is when we probably started, but it's hard to tell."  And so it continued like that until Christmas break.  Over Christmas break, our texts dwindled down to nothing for some reason. Towards the end of break, I got a call from Mei.
"Hello?"
"JACK! I'm so angry at you!"

The Prologue

When I started my freshman year of high school in the Fall of 2005, I was a skinny 14 year old kid who didn't know a single kid at my new school and, unbeknown to me, was about to be hit by a terrible case of acne.

Freshman year, I was the weird kid.  I was nerdy, I always had my nose in a book. I played sports, but they were Cross Country, Swimming, and Track, not sports like soccer or basketball or lacrosse which came with a certain social standing.

But I was happy. I enjoyed my classes, I wasn't too bad at running, and I had a couple friends. But most importantly, I had my first big crush freshman year.  Her name was Hannah* and we shared several classes and mutual friends.  I'd sit with her and some of her friends at lunch. I'd talk with her and her friends between classes.  She had a smile that always made the day seem somewhat warmer.

So, I spent a few weeks debating with myself, and decided, you know what? J. Alfred Prufrock can suck a dick.  I think she likes me, I like her, and you know what, I'll ask her out, and unlike all of these lame guys in high school, I'll ask her out romantically.

So, since it was February and Valentine's Day was coming up, I decided I'd ask her out then, and I'd have chocolate with me. Maybe even compose a song or something.  So, I sat with my friends and told them my plan.

Valentine's Day, 2006, I walked into school bright and early. And taped to my locker was an envelope that said "Hannah."  I opened it.  It was a letter from Hannah, saying in no uncertain terms, that she had no romantic interest in me whatsoever and to please not ask her out, or even try to spend time with her. I showed it to a mutual friend who promised me that not only was it from her, but that she had asked him to proofread it. Somehow, my friends had shared my plans, it had gotten back to Hannah, and she had not only rejected me before I asked her out, but the entire school knew of it before I did.

At swim practice that day, my teammates teased me about "hammering Hannah."  To top things off, at the end of freshman year, Hannah left, never to return to our school. I still have no idea why.  I spent the next few years keeping my crushes to myself.

And there were a lot of crushes.  Girls who I ran or swam with, girls who I was friends with, even my two best male friends I developed crushes on.  By the beginning of senior year, I had come to terms with the fact that I would never date anyone during high school, nor did it seem like a good time to come out as bi.

Of course, all of that changed the moment I met her...


*Note: no real names are used in this blog.  Every name mentioned is a randomly chosen pseudonym.

Hello World

There was a blog I read the spring of my senior year of high school.
It was called "Hyper Sexed History Nerd," and its author, Josh, was a gay kid in his freshman year of college.  He used the blog to detail his sexual adventures, funny stories, and personal struggles with romance through his freshman year of college.  Unfortunately, at the start of his sophomore year, he found out that people he knew in real life recognized him as the author of his blog, and ultimately determined that it would be better to stop writing and to delete what he had written.

I am not as good a writer as Josh.  My stories aren't as exciting, or as adventurous, or as poignant as his were.  But I am a sophomore in college, I'm bi, and I do have stories to share.

These stories will be filled with sex (most of it gay), with awkward moments, and with all the little weird moments that make life pleasant.  Hopefully, dear reader, you will grow to enjoy them almost as much as I do.