I started collage in September of 97. I wasn't quite sure why, or for what, but my first interest was
philosophy. Unfortunately it was about the only thing I could get a near respectable grade in. My parents were throwing a bit of money my way for the education and I could not afford it on my own so trying for a degree in a philosophical field was not an option in my parent's eyes. Either way, I would go between
Columbus State Community Collage and
Ohio State, when I had the money, taking one philosophy class a quarter to help out my GPA and to keep me remotely interested. Towards the end of my collage career I had obtained a new interest in collage...meeting women.
Despite my interest, I was not good at this either. For a While I was asking maybe one woman every two weeks. Not only was I getting a lot of rejections, but they were all bad. If there is one thing I can do well it's take a hint, so when a woman says, "sure I'll go out with you, but I work a lot" I call once or twice to confirm she'll say "sorry, I'm working, bye" and give up. I got that rejection twice, and this isn't a psycho thing, there were, of course, secondary signals. There were many rain checks with no number exchange; a woman who hardly even knew me said she didn't want to damage the friendship. These were rejections for invites to coffee or dinner. What I would have given for a good "no, and now you go over there." At that point I realized that 90 percent of the reason I had asked the last few women out was just to get a decent rejection.
A few weeks and a few bad rejections later, I started a logic series philosophy class. In one day the professor had me. Marrium Bowers, considerably older than me, she wasn't a super model by any means, but her mannerisms, the way she thought and spoke; by God she was as insane as I was (I remember thinking). After class, I was speaking to a couple of acquaintances from the class I think the first thing I said was "I love that woman"...of course it was in jest and followed with laughter, but the strong attraction was there. Throughout the Quarter the attraction grew with her saying things like "this class' purpose is to learn how to make other people feel inferior." Once someone in the class persistently asked what the difference between rhetoric and logic was, her reply was "they are completely different things, that's like me going on a naval vessel and asking where the wings are. you know what he would tell me? He would call me an idiot and tell me to get off his boat." I spoke to her after class about every day...after that class it was just adorable how frustrated she felt. Once during class I started a discussion about how immoral I felt my current place of employment, Jillian's, was. later that week some friends of hers took her there and she seemed to feel bad about it because I said "shame on you." We got closer toward the last third of the quarter and I reached a point that continuing to do class assignments could only lower my grade. It's amazing how a huge crush on your professor can improve your grade, and I earned every bit of it buy my attraction allotted her my undivided attention. I still attended class because I knew I had to ask her out when the quarter ended. Plus, I figured if nothing else she would give me a wonderful rejection. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if she drew up a venn diagram on why we couldn't go out.
There we were, the day before the final which she knew I wouldn't take, and I'm just waiting for the class to empty which naturally took forever because people were trying to catch up. I started helping them just to get them out of there...the nervousness was borderline unbearable. Finally every one is gone and I am walking her out... I ramble out something that was supposed to be "would you like to get some coffee with me?" she says "you know, I have some senior papers to grade right now, but I'll take a rain check." as she bolted up the stairs. What the hell is that? I mean I had stuck around more than a month after I had to, and then until the last student had left the last day and that was the best rejection she could provide. Could she have not expected it? Further evidence to the theory that women have lost touch with the art of rejection. I guess the humor in it relieved any hurt, and that's good, but I would have felt much better if she would not have tried to spare my feelings, which sounds pretty odd but makes perfect sense to me. I hope to speak to her again sometime but I fear it is too late...lost opportunity.