Two Colleges, Four Girls, One Night & One Life

In all my excitement over the past few weeks, I suppose I've neglected to address two very serious issues: schools and girls. I know, I know, that abrupt and sudden dearth of girl drama must have seemed strange and void-creating.

So college or girls? I think I'll address the former first, and save the best for last. I've been pretty quiet on the college front; I don't think I've told anyone where I'd applied or where I've been accepted out of my own volition. A bit of a pity, on how that last bit of news got out; I'd hate to get everyone's hopes up and then spoil them later on, because as of the moment I'm really not sure.

The college applications process is harsh on most everybody. I suppose the black-and-white... booleanity of it really makes a defining factor between the diligents and the losers in life. But nonetheless, it's harsh, and it's partly because of the big deal that students (and society) make of it. At the K-12 level, no one really cares - you take what is that's closest, or strikes the best balance between education, safety, and convenience for your parents. I'm probably one of few people who ever raised a fuss and lived a melancholy four years about not being able to go to my dream high school, Lowell. You get to the college level, then, and now you're given a choice. And that, with the heavy weight that employers put into the name of your alma-mater, and the fact that it's your very last chance to school and disco... well it makes it the definitive crossroad of your childhood, and life beyond. So it's harsh, to have that dream crushed. To spend a childhood planning your life around a dream and a goal and then to have that opportunity taken away, and told that you won't be having that life. It's not just about the career opportunities that come later, but even the short term, the college life you're going to live. So it's crushing -and abruptly if you're not a realist- to find that you won't be doing the college thing in that childhood-idolized college in the dream region of the world, or to perhaps find that it's community college and at least another 2 years at home with mom and dad and a bleak outlook of never being able to grow up. Oh, it's not so bad, in reality; hope is always there and in 4 years you'll have found the situation you ended up in turned you out alright after all, if you took the time to try hard enough. But rejection is all the same in emotion and magnitude; that taking away of the dream sucks the life out of you, for the time being at least, whether it's coming from Davis or Berkeley or MIT.

That's the boat I find myself in. It's a boat decked full with similar souls alike, like a slave ship. All chained down by hopes that didn't realize. There are others in much more dire situations; they're the ones facing rejection all-around and are looking at 2-year community college, and a UC or State transfer, at best. That's the pragmatic that's different. What's same is the formalism; it's all that same feeling of rejection... Wishes gone and now what's left? After you've spent a childhood developing that plan and dream of life, everything else becomes second-best. And despite how good or viable that recourse you're left to is, it will still always be second best, and your rejection will always be the life you never had, the one you look back at whistfully and wish, "if only, if only."

So for me, MIT will always be that which never was. That Lowell of Colleges that plagues me the rest of my life. Same as everyone else will always wonder and wish, "What if I had gotten into Berekeley?" Or San Diego, or Davis. And it's rendered me without any real enthusiasm for the future - I'll go to college, excell to the best of my abilities... get a master's from University College and spend my life with a decent living as a middling engineer. It's an O-K life, a tolerable one, but it's not the kid inside you who wanted to grow up someday and be an astronaut piloting starships across the galaxy. And you'll be lying to say that you're content. So some people see a choice now... between Berkeley/Stanford. For some it could be a cause of excitement, unbound enthusiasm for the future. Either is great, no doubt, but it'll only appeal to you if you've gone through life wishing for Berkeley or Stanford to be your dream school (and many have)... for me you could put UCLA and SD in the same standing. All I see is a list of not-MIT, not-MIT, not-MIT...

Have I hit the nature of the all-consuming rejection yet? I think that's the spot, but maybe I'm wrong. How do you feel?

On other fronts I am proud to say that there are no less than four girls in my life. Not in the traditional sense; if you took that definition there would be no one. But prom opens up the playing field and makes men desperate... disparate? (sp?) At the very least I can go on knowing I've had two people profess their somewhat attraction. My life's content with the knowledge that somewhere in the world, there is a niche female type that finds me attractive. No it's not a patheticness thing - you've all wondered at the possibility sometime or another, haven't you? Yes... yes. Yes right?

So prom. What exactly does it mean? That the uber-question, because it means so many different things to so many different people. I'm more than content leaving prom to be an arduous night of surviving rap music and hip-hoppers, with the potential to have some sort of fun with some friends. Once upon a time I might have wished for it to be the all out romantic night of my life... I'd seal the deal and finally tell the amazingly sublime yet woefully oblivious girl of my high school dreams how much I liked her, and it'd be the first night of the rest of my life. I'm sure a lot of others still entertain that dream. Prom Truth #1: It's hopelessly unrealistic; deal and accept it, and you'll be a whole lot better off and have more fun that night.

So I find myself now in a situation knowing what I'd want, yet not being exactly sure what anyone else wants. Does she entertain those same romantic thoughts? Does she expect anything more than a fun night out? How much of a party does she expect me to be? But beneath all those questions and doubts, I suprisingly find myself teeming with excitement to have a prom date.

...to whom I've not fully accepted yet. Prom Truth #2: The best thing you can ever do is to go alone - no pressure, no drama, all party all fun. And in truth, that's all I want from prom night, and in truth I'd think it'd work out best, for everyone, if we were all to go alone. She wouldn't have any expectations, and I wouldn't be put in an awkward and uncomfortable position. And what fun would happen, would happen... It'd be the best for everyone... if she didn't have her heart set on going with me. Which I was fairly certain of at first, but after-hours conversations and third-party information has thrown even that into limbo. Of course, I'm not her first choice. She'd have her heart set on going with someone else, if she had her way, but she can't, and now she wants me. But who would ever settle for second best? If I had a choice in it, and the stakes were as simple as one prom night rather than 4+ years of education, I might well decide that after MIT, Berkeley or Stanford wouldn't be good enough, and take my contentment with UC City College. If I were in her same boat, I'd just as well decide to be alone, rather than find my second best after rejection from my first-best.

But that's not me. My reality is that I haven't got any first-best, which is why I'd be more than happy to go with any of the aforementioned four ladies. I'd never and don't see any of them as a second-best, nor first-best... they're just... each in a class of their own, that class being varying perspectivies on contentment. And what of her thoughts? By virtue of her asking, I'm not a second-best; if I was she wouldn't have bothered asking over her first-best. So I'm her first-best, along with him and everyone (anyone?) else, and her second best is... not going with anyone at all. I think if anything that is her bleak college rejection. The question now is: has she got another person in mind? If she does it's great. If she doesn't, I'll stand before her on Monday as her dream maker or dream crusher.

Prom Truth #3: If you're a party guy, finding a party girl and making it casual is an acceptable alternative. The problem here is, I'm not a party guy. I've never been, and I don't know if I can remake myself into the form of one. Maybe that worked once in Italy. But it was a different setting, and more importantly different music. But I suppose if I tell her yes, I'll be compelled to. Because I can't bear saying yes and then going on to ruin her night with my lack of sociability and ability to dance! Oh, prom committee, won't you please hire a live band?

Prom Truth #4: If you do happen to find yourself chained to someone, make sure there aren't any expectations. All these problems, are of course, presuming she wants it to be the night of her life. It won't be of course, because I'm not her first-first choice. But she wants it to be a night, and I'm finding myself lacking the capacity to deliver on that; with me it might well be a horrid night, which would end up worse than giving her the early advice now to find someone else, and at a last resort go alone rather than to shack up with a lame sit-around like me. At least, I assume she wants it to be a night. Perhaps she doesn't? Then it could be all casual and I'd be at ease, and everything could go splendidly. Why don't I just ask her then? Because I haven't yet found an excuse to reveal that I've succesfully stalked her screenname.

We'll see how that unfolds in the coming weeks. I suppose it might be more or less settled? Before this happened I had another, then another, then another in mind. First there was... the former Ms. Girl of my Dreams... and it's been tumultuous, beyond what I can describe here, over the past year... a few weeks ago (only a few weeks!), I thought things had changed radically... but now it's back to that same, aquantince-like chasm... made more awkward by the fact that I thought things had changed and were different. Perhaps this is as far as "different" goes. In any case... it's been slowly detiriorating to the point where I've completely misplaced my own feelings. Or perhaps they've gone away altogether. I really don't know where things go from here... and of all people, I think she may be the one person who'd be more disinterested in this whole prom deal than myself - I doubt she'd want to go anyway, with or without me. It'd be all awkward, and no fun... and to be honest: without the romance bit, which seems to be gone from both of us these days, what is there left?

There's of course the cool girl. I'd imagine it'd be fun, and casual to the max. But like the girl who asked there's this sense of awe and insignifigance... she's much "too cool" for me, and even if she'd say yes, there's the sense that she'd be on a completely different level of fun and sociability that I could never keep up with.

Then there's of course the one who actually asked me. I already detailed all the tribulations above... And it could be fun, if I could possibly keep up. But what about the rest? I don't know how comfortable I'd ever be. I know her fairly well, but I'm not what you could ever call intimate, or intimate to the level where I could feel intimate. So as much as I think I could keep up conversationally (I've developed my adeptness in that, at least), it would still be upkeeping a conversation. "Hi, sexy stranger" rather than the flowing jazz times of two good friends.

Lastly, there is perhaps the person I would most want to go with. Not because of any sort of attraction there, or not even because I'd want to have fun dancing that night. But of anyone, she's the only person I know who I could be completely and 100% comfortable with. Where I wouldn't have to do things extra and worry myself over becoming something of her dream date, although I wouldn't mind doing any of that... because it wouldn't have to carry any weight with it, as my mind forces myself to do with almost anyone else. But I don't think she's really that enthused to go, and even if that wasn't the case it'd be a lot of trouble for her to, so...

...we'll see. Or maybe you should all vote :P