The Note, Part II: Why I'll never write another

It was my first year of college. I was fresh and alone at a school far enough from home that I didn't know anyone. The campus, though only mid-sized, felt huge. I was awash with the power and excitement that comes with being anonymous in a brand new place.

I knew only one person at the university -- a girl I'd become friends with through sports in high school. She was a year older than me and I always looked up to her -- she was that girl who seemed to have it all figured out. Every high school boy with a pulse was simultaneously a little afraid of her and completely obsessed. She had gotten a scholarship to play ball at the university I attended, but during my first couple months at school I was busy getting settled in my sorority and breaking up with the then-love of my life (a whole 'nother story), so I hadn't seen her, though we talked occasionally on the phone.

One late weeknight a few months into school, I found myself in the campus library late, writing in a computer lab. There were people at every computer, which were laid out in rows with computers back to back. As I worked, the guy in the computer facing me caught my eye. He was tall, had hazel eyes and sandy blonde hair and rakish, crooked smile. He was a couple years older than me, I guessed, from all the muscles. Clearly an athelete, and brazen; periodically he leaned around his computer to catch my eye and sort of half-smiled and nodded.

I was flattered by his attention, but it was a computer lab and I was a goody-goody 18-year old who had had a grand total of one long-term, intimate relationship, like, ever! I pretended not to notice, all the while my thoughts were racing: what do I do? How do I act? Holy Christ! My life is AWESOME and TERRIFYING all at ONCE!!

Nobody was talking, so saying something clever wasn't an option (both because it was dead-silent and I was not clever in the least). And I was supposed to be working. I was in waaay over my head, but was determined to "sieze the opportunity" and "make the most of my college experience" and shit. And then, it came to me. A note.

A Note.

Discreetly, I wrote him a Note right there in the computer lab. It was too long, and went into too much detail about how I didn't know anyone here and what, hypothetically, we could get together and do, like maybe coffee or a movie or something. (I am SO cringing as I write this). Worse, I remember leaving TWO numbers at the bottom of the paper -- one to my room and one to my cell phone. TWO NUMBERS! Can you imagine? I might as well have left him a lock of hair, blood test results and a pee sample too, but I thought I was being verrrry cool.

I finished up at the computer, and, very smooth-like, stood up, walked around the table, and slipped my note into his Biology book on my way out.

I barely made it out of the library before being near-paralyzed with dread. I had been so confident a moment before, all hopped up on hormones and adrenaline -- but once I stepped outside the library into the night, the reality of the half-page long note I left for some random athelete in my new university library was enough to nearly break me out into cold sweats. If I could have burned the place down with him in it, I would have.

A few days went by and that Sunday morning, I got a phone call around 9:30 a.m. It was my old friend from high school on the other end.

"I had the craziest night! You'll never believe it..." she launched into a story about the night before, focusing particularly heavily on a handsome basketball player she met there. "So we went to his house," she continued. "No funny business, but this morning, I hopped in the shower with him." (At this point, I shriek as if my virginal ears just caught on fire. She SHOWERED with a GUY. Holy shit.)

"And when we got out," she continued, but at this point she starts laughing, so words are coming in bursts, "On the floor... by his wallet... was this crumpled up paper... and the handwriting looked familiar, so I... picked it up... and..."

I about died on the spot as she, between fits of laughter, essentially read me the note I'd left with my little library crush a few days before. She thought it was the funniest thing in the world, and, if his hysterics in the background were any indication, so did he.

"Wait a minute," I gasped, between my own horrified gulps, "You mean... you... took... a SHOWER with HIM?!!"

Yep, the only person on campus I knew not only beat me to my library crush, she SHOWERED WITH HIM, and then they, naked, read the most embarrassing note I have ever written. And then called me to replay the incident with me as their witness.

For the rest of my college existence, every time I was out, I inevitably ran into GooglyLibraryEyes and all his buddies, who mercilessly gave me shit, and somehow magically never fucking forgot it or cut me some slack. Let me tell you, by the end of my college career, he wasn't looking attractive anymore. I don't think. To be honest, I never looked at him directly again, afraid my eyes would be burned by the reflection of my own stupidity shining off him like a "neener-neener" beacon forever.

That was the end of my Note-writing career. Thank God I had a sense of humor or I mightn't have survived it.

Lesson: The Note gets read. Often. And by way more people than you intend.

So now its your turn to share hideous come-on stories. Can you beat this? I doubt it, but could really use a little morale boost now, so if you wouldn't mind trying...

:)