I wrote this a year ago for my English class. I just found it on my computer and thought it was pretty funny. I definitely had the most fun writing this particular essay. It's better though when you know the guy like I did and can hear everything he says and his tone of voice as you read it.....but here it is:
“Squiggly
line in my eye. Why are you there in my eye? Only…when I try to see you; you
run away.” Michael states in the thoughtful poetic voice. “Write that
down…could you read that back to me? Read that back to me Madison.” Secretly he
is reveling in the attention is he getting. “This is so much work! I could be
not chasing girls right now!” he mocks.
Relaxing on the
apartment recliner in the corner, the strawberry blonde began to reminisce on
his past experiences like he is in a shrink’s office. There is a “15 items or
less” lamp from Broulim’s carefully propped up against the wall to his left,
looking as if it will topple over at any second on to the resting man.
At 23 years old Michael
has had his share of experiences with women. Because of this, he has a set of
rules to save him from getting hurt and pursuing a girl who has no interest in
him. One of his major rules is that he does not chase women. At first, girls
might say this sounds like a foolish idea. There are “too many girls in the world
to become a tool and chase.” He states. His friend Jonathan who also applies this
rule defines a tool as: “Not a jerk. Knowingly letting her use you, with hopes
of getting some action.” “That is a tool!” agrees Michael. To these boys this
makes perfect sense.
After coming home
from a mission in Ireland, Michael started to notice the games girls play. He
was not into that at all. During late night “pillow talks” with his friends
Brent and Jonathan, Michael started to become agitated with how women worked.
“Here is the difference between guys and girls,” Jonathan states, “with girls
it’s a head game. Guys are willing to do whatever it takes to get some action.”
This meaning that guys aren’t totally fixed on how the girl feels about them.
They aren’t going to test the girl. After some discussion, the three men decided to make this new
rule. Don’t chase. It saves a lot of trouble, money, and pain.
Michael sees chasing as trying to make
things work with a girl when she has no desire to be with him or when he has to
work hard to get the girl. The problem with this is, many girls like being
chased. It makes them feel wanted. If they don’t text a guy and he answers back
with another text that obviously means he wants her right? Wrong. “You are
going to base our relationship off of a second text?” Michael questions. His
tone suggests that that is a bad move on the girls’ part. “Why would she test me to see if I like
her? Isn’t me liking her enough?” He cannot understand how women could have
such low esteem that they have to play games with their men to make sure he
likes them. “If she doesn’t ever text you back, that is just being rude.” Says
Jonathan.
“I will give a
girl so many chances to respond to my…interestedness?” Michael says dragging
out the “my” while thinking to himself how to better word that. To make sure he
is not chasing he has a sort of boundary for himself. He has decided that if he texts a girl and she does not
answer back within a certain amount of time then that is it. He will “drop her
like it’s hot.” His friend Brent who also follows this rule, backs him up
saying, “Here in Rexburg, girls always have a phone on them. You can almost
guarantee it, so if she does not answer then it is on purpose.”
Like with all
rules, there are always exceptions. Michael swears that there are none to his rules;
however there have been times where he will bend the rule. “Every time I do
though, it comes back and kicks me.” One exception was with a girl he called “Katniss.”
–he likes to give nicknames to everyone he knows. Katniss is a girl from his
music class that he had been sitting by and talking to. After getting to know
each other better they finally exchanged numbers. As a normal person would, he
decided to put the number to good use. So that weekend Michael texted her and
asked if she would like to go to the movies. After three hours of her not
answering back, he was considering dropping her. “If she doesn’t answer back by
tonight I am done with her.” Literally five minutes later and to his relief she
answered back. After hanging out a
few times Michael became interested in her, but unfortunately for him she
decided to not answer his texts. This was a big mistake on her part. “That’s
it. I am dropping her.” His closest roommate Corbin thought this was a bad
idea. “I see…” He pauses for a second then continues, “the logic… and I can
agree with it to a point, but to the point he takes it I disagree.” So he talked Michael into texting her again, “a couple of
times actually,” realizes Michael. In the end however, at least “when he
dropped her later, it was for a more founded reason.” Corbin explains. He
decided that she was not worth the effort and she was not making it any easier.
No chasing also
entails that if he asks a girl to hang out and she says she is busy then he
will ask about going a different day. If she just so happens to be busy again
then it is done. She is obviously not interested and is just making up excuses.
When asked about
his latest girlfriend he says with a laugh, “No! Not at all!” referring to how
hard she made him work. “I met her at a dance workshop. We went back to my
apartment and watched a movie. We were cuddling like the first night!”
To Michael so far
this rule has worked out well. “I have gone on quite a few dates…I go on a date
at least every weekend. I have loads of girls that come over and hang out. But
I guess you can say it has failed because I don’t have a steady girlfriend. But
it is all just how you look at it.”
Corbin has this to
say, “no..?” questioning how he really thinks it has worked out. “Because he
doesn’t give people enough of a chance, but the other part is that I don’t know
if you can make that kind of a judgment because a lot of the people haven’t
worked out for a legitimate reasons, one being they are waiting for a
missionary and won’t give another guy a chance; up here in Rexburg that’s like
98% of the girls. The other 2% you have to find.”
Michael does not
see his rule as holding him back and making him miss out on the ladies. “If I
really, really wanted to I could play their game and get them. Then we could do
this on agreeable terms, but the initial front puts me off.” With this,
Jonathan agrees saying, “Obviously you miss out on some action, but you’re not
missing out on anything good.”
He especially does
not like it when they make him chase on the first date. To him a first date is
strictly to get to know the girl. “Super non-threatening. I am not going to make
any advances. You should feel super safe.
This is a first date. The whole point is to get to know me, and you are
going to make me chase!?” He states as he points harshly to nothing across the
room. The chair rocks from the force of his pointing. “There should be no
reason to chase. I don’t know if they are cool or not. I am trying to get to
know them.”
The ideal
situation for him would be if he called a girl and asks if she wanted to go out.
If she cannot, then her next best move would be to set up another day that
would work for her. It is best when they make it clear that it doesn’t work,
but it can. The biggest thing to Michael is that “they make it easy to hang out
or date. There is a difference between chasing and waiting.” When he asks them
to hang out and they say, “oh another time” that is when he knows what is going
on. In that case he says, “yeah definitely!” He then whispers in a quick
muttered voice to nobody on the side “there’s not another time!”
As more things
happen with girls Michael makes more rules to help him survive the dating life.
He finishes with, “you make a rule out of the experience. It’s like a girl
survival guide.”
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