This Plays off Like a Romantic Comedy

It all started winter break of her freshman year in college. She was at home, succumbing to her addiction to instant messaging and having a long-winded conversation with her best friend about what activities they would be doing over break. A window popped up. She didn’t know who it was, had never heard of the screenname or anything, but since she had a well-trafficked website, she assumed that it was a fan who was just dropping a line.

It wasn’t.

The owner of the screenname told her his name was Joel, and that he had seen her around at school. He asked her if he could friend her on the Facebook. She was a nice girl, so she said yes and didn’t think anymore of it. Apparently, he lived in the building next door to hers, one floor up. She knew one of his suitemates. They had a class together the quarter before. Joel didn’t seem that bad from his picture. He was a typical Asian male with squinty eyes and a nerdy complexion, but she hoped that whatever he lacked physically would be made up for by his personality.

She busied herself over break and completely forgot about her new acquaintance except on those rare occasions where she found time to surf the Facebook. He didn’t try to contact her again, so she put him out of mind.

A few weeks into winter quarter, she received another instant message from Joel. After talking to her for a few minutes, he asked if she would mind meeting him for lunch the next day since they were friends, and they should get to know each other. She was terribly confused and borderline freaked out. Who said they were friends and neglected to inform her? She had only talked to the man twice, and they weren’t significantly notable conversations.

After consulting for a bit with her roommate, she consented to meeting him for lunch but only if her roommate Amelia could come with her. She then began to formulate a plan along with the rest of her suitemates who agreed to stake out at a nearby table should things go horribly awry.

The next day, she approached the dining commons with extreme apprehension. She hoped against hope that maybe Joel wasn’t very photogenic and that he truly was better looking in real life. She scanned the busy room for someone who resembled what she had seen. An extremely short, extremely geeky looking man waved her down. She almost screamed and told her roommate they were leaving right away. Amelia forced her to get her food and go through with the ordeal, and so she convinced herself again that he must make up for his atrocious looks with personality.

However that wasn’t the case. She was extremely attracted to men who could make her laugh, but throughout the alleged lunch date she was absolutely miserable. Not only was Joel ugly, he was totally uninteresting as well. He had also invited some friends, and she ended up liking them much better than she liked Joel.

As soon as the lunch was over, she strictly forbade Amelia to ever set her up again. She promptly blocked Joel from her buddy list and avowed to find a boyfriend who was not only good-looking but brilliant to converse with as well. She proclaimed that she would never settle for less. She wanted someone to protect her from the creepies. Someone she could count on when she said, “This is my boyfriend, so leave me alone.”

She developed a crush on the half-Italian, half-Japanese boy who worked in the dining commons. Anthony was a friend of Cianna, the girl who lived next to her. Well, more accurately, he was a friend of her boyfriend Gordon’s. Either way, she ended up developing a huge crush on him, which was elevated after they officially met walking home in a group from a dance.

Over the course of the quarter, she would run into him on occasion at the dining commons, either when he was working or when he was eating. Her suitemates tried their best to get her to talk to him, but every time she goaded herself to, she failed miserably when her courage floundered.
But spring break arrived and nothing had happened. She found herself generating waves of jealousy over nothing when Gordon told her about the Asian girl who had attracted Anthony’s attention. Upon going home, she realized that this was no way to live, and got over her crush quite rapidly after not seeing him for a week.

Spring quarter came along. She had given up on finding love. There was no need. The possibilities of stalkers were far from her mind now. She had stopped running into Joel every time she left the suite. She was totally over Anthony. Nothing could get her down, yet she was lonely.

At night, long after Amelia had fallen asleep she would stay awake, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling and praying. She was somewhat religious. As a Catholic girl, she would go to Mass on Sundays, and she believed in God and Jesus and the saints. There were things she disagreed with, of course, but every now and then she would feel the need to pray. She thanked God for her family, for her friends, and for the gorgeous Southern California weather. She asked Him to protect her younger siblings and her ailing mother. And then she asked for a favor for herself. She asked for a nice boy, a good-looking boy, a smart boy. She asked for someone who could be shy, big-hearted, and funny at the same time. But just for good measure, she also added a few hints on what kinds of physical attributes she would like: dark hair, blue eyes… she tingled at the thought, and nice hands…. Nice hands were a must. As she drifted off to sleep, she remembered something one of her small church community members had said during one of their sessions: “If you keep a journal of all your prayers, when you read back on them later on, you would be surprised at how many of them actually come true.” She smiled before yawning and closing her eyes.