Submitted stories

This is the repository for the many, many story submissions I have received since opening this site. You can return to the master list with this link or the navbox, or just by taking the "?story=blah" out of the url.

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Jenny
2003-07-24

The descriptions on your site sound exactly like my life. I never thought I could be in this situation... people in the movies, other people, but not me.

I made friends with a guy whom I had gone to school with, but never really known until then.

I couldn't believe it when we had all these meaningful conversations about life and a whole lot of stuff that most of the people I know just get very uncomfortable discussing, or they don't pursue it enough. It was so great that someone else could see things and be interested in them with more depth.

Anyway, I didn't even realise myself that I was falling for this guy until one day I was visiting at his house and he asked me to brush off some stuff that had fallen on his shirt. Just actually helping him clean off the sleeve and standing close to him sent such a jolt through me; I thought it would show all over my face right then but nobody seemed to notice.

He caught on really fast though; I think probably because my face would light up when he came into the room and I would just focus on him. Plus he knows a great deal about psychology and body language, etc. Then he showed me photos of him and his girlfriend and told me, pointedly, that he had a friend he thought I would like. I got the message. That was so awful; but obviously just because I had to respect his feelings on the matter didn't mean mine were getting any easier. I wrote a 6-page essay on how I felt and then tore it out of my journal. There hasn't been a day since then that I have not thought of him, very often.

He and I have actually become closer friends; but nowhere near close enough; now he's engaged as well. One day, too, I had a fight with another mutual friend who knows about my feelings, in front of HIM and this second guy just told him that I liked him. I was ready to sink into the ground right then!

What was so great was that he didn't laugh at me or anything; he waited until we were alone and then he told me that love didn't come in just the form of romance and that in giving love to and caring for people, these things happened; that people would simply like being around you and want to be with you all the time.

That was even worse than his first rejection -- he thought it was just this reaction that I was experiencing; and I really didn't have any argument to counter this confusing explanation. I mean; I don't see crowds of people coming to hang around him because of how wonderful he is. But I still feel strangely wonderful when he comes into a room and I would cheerfully dump everyone else I was speaking to and just stay near him.

In any case, I still feel especially privileged to call someone like him my friend; because he just understands about everything, it seems.

I'm prepared, too, to go on and find someone else, but the problem is that now anyone else has to meet new standards that I have raised since I met him, and that is a tall order for anybody to fill.

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