The Growth of a Forest

Dear Diary

Dear diary,

I went on my first date a few weeks ago. Well, I guess my first official date... I'm not sure what the meeting with Sam counted as.

But my first actual date in my whole life and it was not as it was hyped up to be in books. First of all, I didn't particularly like the guy. "Why did you say yes to the date if you didn't like him?" you may ask. Well, I didn't really like him, but he wasn't horrible. And I wanted to give him a chance.

To be perfectly honest though, I had serious doubts about him before the date. In fact, I had so many doubts, I felt sick to my stomach in hour before he was supposed to arrive. I've actually just briefly forgotten his name! But I remember it now: Andrew.

Yeah, back to your question. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. And also get off campus for a bit. It's kind of boring, doing research on campus during the summer... The only two places I ever go to are the lab and my dorm room. It's depressing. And my mom's been getting on my back these past few months/year to get a boyfriend. What kind of respectable Asian mother does that? Shouldn't she be banning me from dating until I'm married (or something illogical like that)?! But no, she's just be saying "You should go to parties more often. Go out, meet people." But mom, they're all drunk at parties. "Oh, that's okay, as long as you don't drink." Ladies and gentleman, my mother.

But going back to my first official date-- he got to campus, got lost on the walk from the parking garage to my dorm, and when I finally found him, I felt awfully awkward. This is why I always thought it'd be nice to date a guy who was first your friend! Because you'll already know him, you'll already know that there's tons to talk about, he'll already know you... it'll just be a lot less awkward in my opinion. Thankfully, he was quite talkative and we walked to the ice cream parlour (okay, frozen yogurt parlour) with no awkward lapses.

I took him to the local frozen yogurt shop, lent him 50 cents because he was short on cash, and then walked around the neighborhood with him. The conversation was okay. It was intellectual enough, I suppose, but I never really connected with him. He had a decent sense of humour, but I was too nervous to fully engage, I guess...

I'm actually not quite sure why the date didn't go well. My criteria for a boyfriend/husband is:

1. Intelligent

2. Caring and thoughtful 

3. Funny/witty

4. Attractive to me would be a plus

He was smart. Or at least knowledgeable about stuff that I didn't know (coding and programming). He wasn't a jerkface, although he didn't hold any doors open for me or anything. But that's alright because I suppose I was leading in the walk. (he opened the car door for me on the second date though. Unfortunately, it did not fill my stomach with butterflies.) He had a sense of humour and was self-deprecating. I smiled the entire time (but maybe that's just because not smiling would have been awkward). I don't think he made me laugh... And he was alright looking. Better in person than what he looked like on his facebook profile. So all in all, if he was to be given a score out of 4, I'd say... 2/4. But I don't particularly agree with 50%, so I guess another thing he has to be is to have shared interests with me. So now he's demoted to 40%, which isn't that bad I suppose.

If it were colonial times in England, or just a century ago (or even less, depending on where you lived) in China, I would not have had a bad life with him, I think. If I had been stuck with him for the rest of my life as my life partner (aka husband), we would have gotten along well. I would have tolerated him, he would hopefully tolerate me. It would have been a very platonic, passionless thing.

Now thinking back to all of the people that I've spoken to the most/been attracted to the most... They've mainly been graduating seniors of college. As in they were 4 years older than me. If this is the way it's going to be for the rest of my time at college... oh golly, I just can't wait! (note the sarcasm) But seriously, if I'm attracted to guys about 4 years my senior, how the bloody hell am I going to meet them? I go to an all women's college, so it's hard enough as it is to meet guys... but older guys?! Really? Sometimes, I just think life has too high of expectations for me...

~~~

Hey! So I've decided to adopt the policy of posting whatever crap I write without putting much thought into it, in the hopes that this will motivate me to write more and also to help me explore the different things I could write about. This is my first brain-fart, with more to come. Sometimes, these things will come from my life experiences, other times, I'm just making stuff up as I go (can't get any more creative than that!)

Tell me what you think about the character's journal entry :) And (if you're old enough and comfortable with it) share some of your college experiences, romantic experiences, life stories..!