Conor - On Love, Lust, and Loneliness

I first see her as I'm walking up to the cafeteria. I can still remember her brownish hair, sortof pouty facial expression, and grey t-shirt as if/because it was yesterday, around 7 o'clock. From the moment I set eyes on her, I know, I know deep down in my heart that she is the one for me for the next 15 to 20 minutes.

I begin my conquest. For educational purposes, I will spell out my strategy here for our readers.

1. Step one. See her.

2. Stare at her, unapologetically, as I walk up. I attempt, several times, to make eye contact. There's a high probability she's similarly obsessed with me. After all, we both have so much in common. I'm wearing a plaid shirt. She's wearing plaid shorts. We're both under seven feet tall. All I have to do is make eye contact. I don't. If my friends weren't waiting for me right behind her, I would have turned around and made my approach a few more times, until she inevitably acknowledged, if not my rugged good looks or charming personality, at least my persistence. But alas, I have to go into the cafeteria with my posse.

3. Fail at acting natural when I spot her coming into the cafe, later. I stop paying attention to what's going on for a second or two, and I'm forced to ask my friend what he just said and apologize for spacing out. Apparently I was in the middle of a sentence when I spaced out, so, getting back into swing of things is awkward.

4. Silently whisper "I love you" when she walks into view again. I repeat this step until I'm confident that on some level, she knows.

5. Fall into the dessert line that I see her in, despite the fact I'm really full and do not want any dessert. For lack of a better idea, walk by her and apologize when I almost bump into her. Dejectedly get a chocolate chip cookie.

My strategy is flawed. Somewhere in between the initial sighting and the parting apology, I fail, 9 times out of 9. This is okay, most of the time. Most of the time I find it as entertaining as anyone else. I earned several nicknames this summer, all of them derogatory, but entertaining. Conor O'Brien, King of the Friend Zone. Untouchable. All of this is great. Both of these nicknames are fine. I think the King of the Friend Zone not only refers to my unnatural ability to enter deep friend zone territory in record time, but the fact that I am King. King. Untouchable could possibly refer to how well I fight.

I am the least forward person in the world. A majority of the relationships I've been in have come to me. There's only been one I've actively pursued, and I'll talk on that later. To a large degree, I lead what I call a reactionary life. I do not do things, I only react to things. Obviously this isn't completely true, but it definitely applies to a majority of my romantic life. If you like me, I'll like you. I will look at you in a different light. Now that I've noticed this, I've developed this horrible defense system, where if you like me I automatically look for your flaws and try to not like you. I recognize how dumb this is. I try to fight off that reflex.

The other way things could go is If I like you initially, I will become your friend. Your very good friend. Because I don't know how to become anything else. I'm good at being a friend. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about platonic friendships. I GUESS THOSE CAN BE OKAY SOMETIMES. Several of the best friendships I've ever had are completely tension free co-ed engagements (but if we're ever to both be suuuuuper drunk or something I'd be willing to make some mistakes with you, Mada Larson) and it's the best. But at the same time I'd like to have another option. A button that allowed me to say the right things and dance and shake my hips and give me a stronger, more pronounced chin. I want a button that allows me to take risks, to do something when I don't know exactly how things will turn out. I wouldn't push that button often. It'd be like a movie. The ghost of my dead father would appear and be like "son, take this button and press it when the time is right" and I'll be like "It'd be really sweet to know what this button did dad" and he'd be like "the answer's in your heeeeart" or something cryptic like that and then he'd fade away. I'd immediately press the button and BAM, pronounced cheekbones and good teeth.

A year ago I was in the best relationship I've ever been in. I was dating a girl who I had become really good friends with towards the end of my junior year, and we started dating over the summer. I had pursued this girl. I wanted to be a part of her life, so I sortof forced my way in. It was a difficult situation, with several things, such as Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and her overreaction to Michael Jackson's death in our way, but it was the strongest I'd ever felt about someone. A lot of my close friends know how happy that whole thing made me. I was in love, and then one day I just wasn't. There were a lot of factors involved, again, but it was shocking how fast that was just gone. No one was as dissapointed as I was. Except for maybe her.

I like people, a lot. I like finding new friends and having adventures with them and what have you, but a shocking amount of people just seem uninterested in meeting people. This is a feeling I can't understand. College has been sortof overwhelming thus far, because there are just so many people. This shit is like, 20 times bigger than my middle school. People to the left of me, and wouldn't you fucking know it, people to my right. Whenever I'm throwing a frisbee around with my friends or having dinner with people, I find myself just constantly spacing out and looking around at the people walking by, the people sitting around us. I think it's a very basic form of longing. I want to know them. I want to know who they are. I want to know what they like, what the love, what makes them them. [editors note: I did not want to use italics twice in one paragraph, but if you type "them them" it looks sortof dumb. I hope you understand and forgive my overuse of this technique.] I'm always afraid of walking by someone who could be my best friend, or THE ONE. [editors note: My first instinct was to italicize "the one."]

So I'll keep bumping into people I become inexplicably obsessed with and apologizing, hoping that will translate into conversation. I'll keep looking around nervously as if I'm afraid that someone is hunting me, when in fact it is QUITE THE OPPOSITE. I am the one hunting. I am the hunter. I am.

I'm getting business cards made so I can hand them out to the ladies. They say: "Conor O'Brien. 18 years old. 6 feet tall. Used to be a pretty big deal, back home. Personality overcomes his other drawbacks. Sortof self-absorbed, but at least he tells all those stories about himself and his old friends with flair. Sweats with the best of them."

That'll get em.