I'm experiencing senioritis. This form of senioritis is not as bad as my high school diagnosis. In senior year of high school I absconded to play handball after 12pm and my days would burn out when the sun hit the ground. I would spent sun up to sun down hitting blue balls against a wall and dodging other shirtless dudes and occasionally nicely shaped females who lacked a full brain. But handball life was rather crude and awkward for me, as I never fit into the Hollister Asian crews. The gangster Asians were much different from me: A, they had a posse of slim gangster girls in Northface, and B they drove cars and seemed to be in a different social class position than me. That was high school. Flash forward to my current senior year: I hesitate to do my work and I hear my fellow senior Angie struggling to focus on her work as well. This is hard to believe because Angie has always been studious and evangelical when it comes to her grades. But I suppose I overexpect her and place her on a pedestal as a goody-two-shoes girl who is sweet and simply fit for social work and sociology. When I think of Angie I think about Professor Unterbach and Doctor Bear. I remember when I gave her Doctor Bear we were in the same afternoon class that melted into 3PM or later. Our professor would rant about social inequities and the Communist party. We would pass glances at each other and laugh and smile. When I gave her the bear I was essentially giving her an invitation to crushing on me as much as I crushed on her. But then again, distance makes the heart grow fonder.
Let me explain the problem with spatial distance and the problem with regular exposure to individuals. In psychology there is a term called the mere exposure effect. If a person passes another person a few dozen times in the morning or in class both of them will probably experience a pull towards each other. Some times it's unrequited intrigue and an incandescent infatuation. Sometimes I'm prone to misinterpreting relationships as romantic relationships simply because of spatial proximity and the regular hangouts I have with the other person. If I hang out with that person every single day I am prone to unconsciously considering them as more than a friend because my definition of a friend holds out hope for more than just friends. If a person sees me for a long period of time every single day, I interpret it as more than friendship. I interpret it as a certain bonding. The word bonding indicates intimacy which friendship does not implicate. Now intimacy has its strong borders. Intimacy indicates a boundary in which my friend would have to keep me close to their heart, me and only me. This specialty of me and only one makes me feel safe because they are stable in our relationship. It keeps me safe knowing that I am their one and only. I become reluctant to introduce her to my friends because I don't want my or her friends to steal her away or occupy her time that she has with me.
I easily confuse excessive time spent with a girl to be a possible relationship. I take the dynamic to indicate that she has a certain liking for me while in reality she may not feel anything at all. I am the only one, most of the time, to produce these very feelings and to call upon this interpretation of whatever feelings I think exist between us when there really are not heated emotions between us. This easy confusion foreshadows the crumbling of relationships and it clearly assumes that love is the answer to every coupling with a girl. I easily see my time with a girl to be a relationship and this completely devalues the event of a real romance. If I come to take every hangout with a female to be love, then love is devalued and overlooked when love really visits me. I end up cheapening love by seeing it in every girl that I meet or spend time with. My friends always ask me, Do you like every girl you see? This question heavily applies because it seems that I've taken an interest in almost every girl that I've encountered or are friends with. But if I haven't hung out with them I seem to ignore them and not talk about them. But if I did spend time with them I will take it that they enjoy my company and that they might possibly want to hook up with me. But in reality they don't have feelings for me and I'm mostly a little brother figure or the cute, smart Asian boy who helps them study through midterms.
Sometimes I wonder if that is the case: am I the boy wonder of the class who volunteers to be nice and give out notes for absentee girls and to hold study sessions for the class out of sheer generosity. I'm making generosity sound bad and demeaning. It is not. I'm also making myself sound incredibly selfish by asking something in return from these girls. Just because I hold study sessions for them and I let them borrow my notes does not mean I can obligate them to treat me kind or smile at me or fall for me. I cannot entail this upon them. I cannot use my services as an invitation for hitting on them or annoying them with my advances. If I do, it would be misusing them and using them for means to a certain end. It would be grossly distasteful and disrespectful.
Sometimes when I walk around with Leah, I ask myself does she regard me as the smart Asian and does she want me to be seen around her as a smart friend? Does my walking around her or being near her say something about her? Does she want my presence to tell others something about her? Maybe my presence means that is more educated to be talking to me? Or maybe my presence illuminates hers because I'm known around the school. Or maybe she doesn't care about that because clearly she's generous and it doesn't matter who she's speaking to as long as she is speaking to them because she really wants to; if she didn't she would walk away because she has free will and I'm not keeping her there against her will. Does she regard me as smart? Do I want to be regarded as smart? Do I want to be regarded as smart by her? Does she need to confirm this with me? It is not important because whatever she thinks about me will eventually morph from moment to moment and from day to day. She probably thinks I am annoying and my breath stinks most of the time. But some times she can find solace in talking with me, or at least I hope so because she seems to enjoy talking with me. But then again she's always exhaused, maybe I'm her saving grace as a palette for emotional relief which I'm ok with because that's what classmates are for.
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