Partying as a Third Wheel

My apologies for not posting in the past month. After I finished recovering from surgery, I made it back up to upstate NY, and immediately found myself buried in classes, work, and boys.  All in all, it's not bad. I'll discuss them one by one.

First up: Classes.  The plan for this summer was to take two math classes, back to back.  I missed half of the first one due to health problems, but upon my return, I took the final exam I had missed and ended up with a B in the class. I consider that to be not bad, though it seems like everyone but me gets straight As.

The second math class, I missed the first week of while recovering, and upon my return was immediately handed a test. Needless to say, I failed the test, but I've kept with the class in hopes of bringing my grades up.

Second: work.  My job is awesome. I work in an underground lab with monkeys. Literally, monkeys. We have four of them and we've named them Calvin, Hobbes, Batman, and Joker.  I only get paid $8 an hour, but I get to do insanely cool with research with an amazing professor. Plus, it turns out the department I work in is filled with nerds who party hard.  Last week, I went over to a Professor's house for a party and saw that Professor do a keg stand in his backyard. Last night, I went out partying with two friends, a straight white boy we'll call Ryan and a straight Asian girl we'll call Ellen.  Ryan works in my lab, Ellen works in the lab next to us. Since we all live within a few blocks of each other in the student ghetto (conveniently located within the actual ghetto.  Seriously, we're all afraid of getting shot.), Ryan and I headed over to Ellen's house where a party was going on, drank some tequila and played some Never Have I Ever, went to another party, and then finally broke into the local public pool at about 1:00 Am and went swimming.

Ellen is a sexy, nerdy, fun girl.  She's thin and pretty with a tattoo of a feather disintegrating into birds above her right hip, she handles her tequila well, she's incredibly intelligent, she's a senior applying to med school, she likes fucking outdoors, and  she has the hots for Ryan.

Ryan is an awesome guy about half a foot shorter than me, also a senior applying to med school, has a girlfriend, and enjoys talking to Ellen.

I have the hots for Ellen.  The end result is Ellen spent the evening trying to get with Ryan, Ryan spent the evening talking with Ellen, and I spent the evening trying to get with Ellen and feeling increasingly like a third wheel.  I canceled plans with Joe to get shot down by Ellen. Ugh.

Third, boys. Ralphie is no longer a fuck buddy of mine. No longer will I have the pleasure of him crawling into bed with me, begging "Easy, Tiger" as I fucked him. See, the most recent time he was over, which was about two weeks ago, I think, as we lay in bed enjoying pillow talk the topic of cars came up. He asked my why I don't drive much, and I told him the story of how I fell asleep behind the wheel when I was 16. Three times, over the course of two weeks.  Those were terrifying, and my mom hadn't been too keen on me driving after that. Frankly, neither was I.  So, I got used to using public transportation, realized that not having to pay for gas or insurance was awesome, and now, over three years later, rarely drive.  That's when I noticed Ralphie silently weeping on my shoulder.  It turns out his sister, a few years ago, was killed when a driver fell asleep behind the wheel and rammed into her car.  The drive walked away. Ralphie's sister... wasn't so lucky.  After that, after I cuddled him some, he told me he didn't think he could sleep with me again.  He couldn't help but think of her now that he had associated me with her death.  That, I could understand. After we got dressed, he sat on my lap and I held him tight in my arms.  Usually, I don't get emotionally invested in my fuck buddies, but Ralphie was nice, sarcastic, sardonic, cute, and adorable in bed.  I didn't want to let him go.  Other circumstances, I might have even asked him out given enough time.  But that was that. He left, life moved on, and by the next day, I was over it.

Final story, and then I need to head out:  There's been a massive heat wave these past few days, and on Wednesday night, it was too hot to sleep.  Max texted me, told me he had air conditioning, and asked me to fuck him. Never mind that he was 2.5 miles away, that I had work in the morning, that my bike was recently stolen.  It was too hot to sleep in my room, so I sprinted the 2.5 miles there, showered, crawled in bed with him, fucked him in his wonderfully cool, air conditioned room, and drifted off to sleep with him in my arms, the sweet, cool air, drifting over us. Morning come, I ran back home, showered, changed, headed to work.  Gotta love life.

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.