I have not slept at all this week...well..to say "at all" would be an overstatement, but, I havn't slept very much and when I did sleep it was very low-quality sleep. This is due to a number of factors...I had 30 video tapes to make and barely enough time to get them done, so on Sunday night I set my watch timer to go off every two hours (the duration of the video) and I would get up and swap the tapes, thus defusing my REM sleep cycle. Add to that the worry that I wasn't going to complete the tapes on time, plus the worry of all my end-of-semester assignments creeping up on me (including that FSCKING 11 page research paper!) and just with that I probably wouldn't be able to sleep.

Then there's Steph...If you've read any of my "Good, Bad, and Geeky" posts, you know how I feel about her. I decided that the time was nigh for me to finally tell her how I felt. Let me digress here for a moment. My brain is very strange in that when I want to do something I must plan it out first, every teensy, tiny detail. Lately I've been lying in bed thinking about how I was gonna' tell Steph, exactly what I was gonna say, exactly where we would be, precisely how I would touch her shoulder JUST right while I was talking to her, as if to say "Yes, I am sincere about this." Every little detail. Then, if I wasn't thinking about that, I would be thinking aobut how she might respond, which, being the way I am, usually wound up with me worrying about what would happen if she didn't feel the same way I do. Then, if I wasn't thinking about that, I'd just be daydreaming about her in general; holding her in my arms, giving her a nice long hug, holding her hand, walking down the beach together, etc.

As you can see, with all these things, it's no wonder I couldn't sleep. Then, Wednesday night I decided to do something about it. I'd had enough, I hadn't had a chance to see her, and I probably won't have a chance for another week or so (she's busy and so am I), I had to get it out, i had to tell her, but doing so over the phone seemed so tacky, as did e-mail. I really wanted to tell her in person, but that seems like I'd NEVER get the chance. So, sleep deprived, eyes blurry and mind fuzzy (yet firmly fixated on her), I decided to write her a letter, an actual snail-mail, 34� stamp on it letter. Four hand-written (in cursive even!) pages later, it was folded in thirds and placed in an envelope.

I am almost certain she has received it by now, but, ALMOST is the key word there. Even if she has received it, I'm still worried about what she will think, but, in some way, just getting it all out seemed to help me relax a bit. Relaxation never lasts long for me, though, so I'm still kinda' worried.

Did I do the right thing? Should I have waited and actually told her in person? Man, I hope she e-mails me or calls me or something tomorrow!

My story is similar, I met her in a college classroom, and we seemed to be hitting it off. She was a mix of beauty and brains that don't often collide. Once, she admitted to synchronizing her watch to NPR time... I wanted to marry her on the spot (yea, so I thought)... I think I managed a look of surprise (I was shooting for impressed).

Everything she ever told me etched itself into my brain instantly. Dates, numbers, hobbies: It's all still there - all this time later I can recall conversations verbatim.

When thinking of telling her how I felt, I mapped out conversations in my head hundreds, maybe thousands of times. I had every possible scenario imagined - so that nothing that she said could ever surprise me. It was a constant that she was nice, so that saved a lot of troubling thoughts.

I let too much time pass. Sleepless time. I didn't have an alarm to wake me up, I would just get up after 2-3 hours of sleep, and then go for a whole day before 2 or 3 hours of sleep again (months of this - and that, in itself, was entertaining). I decided that while I was out and about, I would do something to take my mind off of stressing about this, so I started reading everything backwards for fun - It's over 2 years later, and I still read everything backwards (I know how to make it stop, but I'm not sure I want to, it's still fun). Then the class was coming to an end, and I knew I needed to act. She invited me to an event she was hosting with the student activities group she was in, and I knew I would ask her if I could call her (the fact that I think it's rude to call without permission parallels yours). So I went, and only 20 minutes into the event, the entire campus lost power (for no reason) and the fire alarms were going off (it happens when the backup generators kick on), sending everyone into the cold night, away from the tribute to Thelonius Monk (I'm really not into jazz anyway - she admitted she wasn't either) but it sent her scrambling to take care of loose ends with others in her group, and me towards my car, laughing in the night about how events had occurred so outside of my vision (not a psychotic laugh or anything, maybe a chuckle).

Months passed.

It was becoming more obvious I wasn't going to bump into her randomly, and that I needed to do something about it.

I wrote a letter.

It was three very full pages, typed, and included my perspective of events since I met her. I poured over it hundreds of times, editing it to perfection. It really was a work of art. I explained how insane events (yes, there were others) kept keeping me from telling her what I wanted to. I think I worked on it for a month, making sure it was perfect. But then I put off mailing it. I knew standing at the mailbox would be a hideous event and I dreaded it. So one night around 2AM I made my friend come pick me up (I didn't feel like driving to the post office to do this alone) and I dropped it in the mailbox with as little thinking as possible (I think the guys who get girls all the time do so without thinking, so it's an occasional strategy of mine now, but it's hard to pull off (the lack of thinking)).

I knew she was nice (hell, that's one of her best qualities) and that she'd call me. A fitful week passed. I wondered if she got the letter, and when she would call me. Finally she did. She told me she'd never received anything like it, but that she was "quite seriously involved" with someone. "Of course she is, she's perfect", I knew. She said we should be friends, and that she liked talking with me. That I have different perspectives on things we talk about than anyone she knows. And yes, I was surprised by this conversation, despite how much vision I tried to have about it.

Sigh.

So, that was quite a while ago. But, the good thing about college is that there's always another really great girl (no matter how picky you are - which I am), and so I'm currently worrying about another (I may have a shot, things aren't looking bad. She's beautiful and smart AND she's thinking of going into engineering! So few girls are in the engineering building (which is where I spend my time))

My sleep patterns of late are messed up, and I'm worrying about my diet and physical condition all the time. Lifting weights, eating salads, etc. I seem to think that in order to deserve someone like her, I need to be better than I am. And so I'm at the point where I'm Starting to imagine conversations, and how feelings will be revealed. My pattern is for this to happen every few years, botch it up, and then move on. The pattern is sorta self destructive, I suppose. The difference now is that I'm the president of a student organization who can invite her to events, so I have as many opportunities as I need to do whatever it is I need to do.

Bah, who needs this! (not like I can stop it).

Anyway, congratulations on your first post and welcome to the boards!

How'd your letter turn out?

quote:

---

Originally posted by DigitalArchmage:
How'd your letter turn out?

---

Awww ya' had to ask huh?

Steph doesn't want to "get into a relationship just before [she] leaves for college." I guess I can understand that, but it's still not fun to swollow. Not everyone can be obsessive-compulsive enough (like me) to maintain a long distance relationship, I guess. Ah, oh well!

quote:

---

Originally posted by DigitalArchmage:
Can raw brainpower alone solve this? Surely someone's done
it...

---

No, of course not! If raw brainpower could do it, I'd have figured it out by now, after all, I'm a genious. Okay, so, maybe not! This is something beyond the limits of the brain, which is why geeks tend to have so much trouble in this area. How frusterating! Oh well...keep on geekin' I guess! heh

quote:

---

Originally posted by FatGnome:
11 page research paper. heh heh I finished a 10 pager yesterday and have just finished my research for a 10 pager that is due tomorrow. Don't stress you will do fine on that. You just need to learn the survival technice I have used for the past 3 semesters. That is to just figure that it doesn't matter. I mean what is the worst that could happen? You fail a class you loose your schoolarships and you have to work a little harder after coming out of school. I find that working hard is easier on my system than Worrying. Also I find I do a better job when I don't realy care anymore because I don't spend time worrying about how good it will be. (That and I stop editing as I go so I get all the content in that way.) And the Girl thing... Well just look on the bright side if something goes wrong will it be worse than before?

---