About Mr. Deal-or-no-deal

Mr. Deal-or-no-deal is this cute guy in my lit class that is moderately attractive but a provacative dream with me and him making out made me see him in a different light. We were grouped together in one class and had another class together, so I saw him pretty frequently. We talked, we laughed, we had boring discussions about books we didn't care about. I started noticing his cute hair, the way he dresses (preppy-meets-skater, like how he wore a stripped grandpa-esque sweater with slip on Vans), his talent as a writer. We had an instant connection after I commented on a band shirt he was wearing, a mutual favorite, and it was nice. We are both creative writing majors, so it was cool to be attracted to someone who was also a writer and understood my writer frustrations. I call him Mr. Deal-or-no-deal because in one of his stories, the narrator notes that particular show is being watched by a character. I promptly laughed out loud as Mr. Deal read that, and he laughed too. It was a great moment between us.

So a couple of weeks ago, during yet another mindless group work session, we finished our "discussion," and I mentioned a story I had written. Mr. Deal says, "Oh yeah, you talked about that in [...] class last semester." Uh, I did? I completely did not remember him being in that class with me. "Yes!" he insisted. "You told me about how you [...]" Oh, yeah, I guess I did know you. God, I'm an asshole! As I'm thinking this, I promptly burst out laughing. (It doesn't take much to get me to start laughing, and when I do laugh, I do so freely.) He looked embarrassed, and I said, "Well, I'm sorry about that. How about I buy you a beer at the Pub?" He tells me he doesn't drink beer, so I go, "Oh. Me neither," and change the subject to what classes we will take next semester.

After class, he comes up to me, and says, "So you owe me a drink, I'll take you up on that." I say sure, and we stand there kind of awkward, kind of mumbling this like, "So, do you want my number?" "I have your email address, don't I?" "Yeah..." "Oh, sure." Then I finally say, "I can just email you later." He says ok, and then we leave.

I decide to email him that night, and it goes something like this: "Hey Mr. Deal, Here's my number, good for one non-beer beverage of your choice: (xxx) xxx-xxxx. -Josephine" I keep refreshing my browser, to see if he responds. Nope. But the next day in class, he comes up to me and says, "Hey, I got your email." Oh, yeah? "Yeah, and I'll definitely take you up on that offer sometime." Oh...ok. I always hate when people don't respond to emails. I had emailed him earlier in the semester about an assignment, with no reply. I asked him the next class meeting if he got my email, and he just said, "Yeah, I did." Um, OK? Thanks for letting me know, dude...

The next time I saw him in class, we kind of chatted about random stuff for a quick minute and that was about it. As I walked out of that class though, it was strange what happened. I was walking out talking to a classmate on my left, when Mr. Deal walks up on my right. He walks next to me for a few steps, then bumps my shoulder with his. Whoa, wtf? I'm still talking to my classmate, and don't know what to do, so I bump him back and keep talking to my friend. I reach the doors and stop to keep talking, and Mr. Deal leaves, walking through the doors. After I finished my conversation, I realized that maybe Mr. Deal had been trying to get my attention. After all, we had never had any touching or anything like that, and I started to agonize that maybe he was trying to ask me out. Darn. I jogged up to his direction, and saw him walking, a block away. I debated whether or not I should run after him, but decided not to, for fear of looking like a crazy person.

The next day, which was the last class, we said hello and it was kind of awkward. I tried to look cute and smile, and he seemed kinda nervous, but eventually we parted uneventfully. He mentioned how he was going to call me sometime to get "Jamba-juice, or something" and I told him that I would really like that.

So that was officially a week ago. I keep checking my phone for any missed-calls, and my e-mail in case he decides e-mail is not so scary. I chalked up the lack of activity on his part to finals (which are going on now), and my bumping shoulders with him (seriously, who does that? grr!) I'm definitely agonizing over everything. Was he even interested? Is he just shy? Was he giving me signals? Should I email him again, encouraging him to call me (ok, that was at a very low, desperate-ridden point). Right now, I don't see anything happening with me and Mr. Deal, but it's nice to think it would. 'Cuz in my dream, he was a great boyfriend.