July 7, 2002
Boys Suck
I ate Ramen noodles and am now musing over a bowl of chocolate ice cream because I am both hungry and sad. It's a bad habit to eat when you're unhappy. It's also rather a difficult one to break considering I don't even know when I started doing it.
I expect too much. All girls do, I think. Even the ones that think they don't.
So last night Mike leaves, after I declined his offer for a ride home, and then I am surprised to find him down at the bus stop having waited for me to come down. And then he keeps me company until my parental unit arrives to take me home. I am swooning, obviously.
Today I see him back at the grill, but he does not see me. And, just as yesterday, I do not enounter him on any of my breaks. I think, maybe I'll get ahold of him by the end of the night and he can take me home. He came out last night and said goodbye, isn't he sure to do the same tonight?
No.
I hang around, taking my time doing the labels. I talk to Owen. I torture Landon and Justin as they eat steak. At about half past eleven I go up and try to call Dad, having seen hide nor hair of Mike, but Dad doesn't pick up. i want to go back in the kitchen and see if Mike is there, but can't do it. Owen does it for me.
And Mike seems to have left. Without a word.
I go back and try to call Dad again, and he finally picks up. Says he's on his way. But stupid girl me is crushed. I bid farewells to my busboys and head to the back elevator to depart. One of the other cooks smiles at me and says, "He left about twenty minutes ago, Jillian."
Twenty minutes.
I'm angrier with myself, of course. You can't anticipate consistent and rational behavior from boys. That's unheard of. And yet, just like any other ignorant girl, I do just that. With each new boy we think he will be different than the last. But he never is. He's just the same, just as... thoughtless.
If you're a boy reading this, you're thinking, what is there to be upset about? If you're a girl, I can only hope that you are nodding, else I am one of a very unlucky few.
I'm not mad at him. I have no right to be. He isn't obligated. I'd like him to be. He gave me the impression that he would like to be.
But that doesn't mean we are.
It probably didn't mean anything. But I'm going to continue thinking that it did, just because that is how I am.
And I just really enjoy torturing myself.
This is why I hate boys. Not because of what they do to me, but because of what I do to myself when I let them in. They don't even plant the barbs. I do that, and then drive them in. I wait for the blood and the pain like some masochistic vampire, and then I lap it up. I love the agony, if only for the slightest promise of a second of bliss.
And that is the greatness of it. You hate and bitch and moan and cry and whine and worry and cry some more. And then they look at you, or the phone rings, or they take your hand, or they smile. And then it's alright. Everything.
Dating is just confusion at its very worst and best. You never have any fucking clue what is going on, and you live from moment to moment, constantly suspended in a place of like or dislike, kiss or not to kiss, tongue or no tongue? And what does that mean? If he kisses me, is it because he likes me, or because he thinks he should? Or becase he thinks he might get down my pants? Or because he's desperate to forget about his ex-girlfriend? And if he means it now, will he mean it tomorrow or the day after? Will he mean it as much? Was it something I said? Something I didn't say? Did or did not do? Am I a bad kisser? Am I boring? Am I concieted or naive or ignorant or flaky or all four?
Why should I care what he thinks? He's just a boy.
The smallest of glimpses. And that's just since Tuesday.
It's not been one week and I've already turned it into him wanting absolutely nothing to do with me ever again, or at least not very soon. Like tonight. Or tomorrow.
I believe it. I'm not just being quaint for my diary. I'm not exaggerating. I think that I must have said something, or let something slip to one of my coworkers that was then said to him. Jessica asked him if we were dating. He said he'd taken me out.
But he wants to take me out again, didn't he say he did? Didn't he say that very first night that he would like if I could be his girlfriend?
And I think now that could change, just because of what someone else said. I think, he's had a crisis of commitment! He's remembered he's a male!
And then I think, you want commitment?
And then I answer, no, but I want him.
Had he waited twenty minutes, had he come and said even a brief goodbye, these thoughts would be saved for another day. Surely they would be in the near future, but they might not be tonight. They had to be sometime. Why tonight?
Tomorrow I'll wait for the phone to ring. And it won't.
Welcome to Girlhood.
Surprises are rare here.
astera at 12:33 a.m.