Improv Resource Center - Forums
*Wham*. A part of me awakened and burst out of the cocoon of my mundane thoughts. Just as I put my bag in the baggage compartment and I sat down across from her, time seemed to slow down. Moments before I tried to remember train and bus schedules, while trying to find a spot in the train on the Friday afternoon. Normally, I'm not a sucker for the stereotypical blue eyes, blond hair-types the Netherlands typically offer. She wouldn't be found beautiful in the traditional quantity-of-body-mass centeredness of the established jury of the Beautiful People. According to that respect she would appear chubby. However, she moved with confidence and grace. Her gaze of playfulness and sensibility sent my heart throbbing. Because of her playfulness I'll call her Nausicaa from now on. She was of my age: in the beginning of her twenties. Next to her sat her sister, she must be, having the same cheekbone structure. This was obvious, even though her sister was half a decade younger and was rather slim. Sis looked more stern. Maybe she has seen through my ill-disguised fascination for Nausicaa.
Nausicaa talked on her cell phone to one of her friends to heat up a pizza for dinner. She was a little embarrassed about phoning in the train for something like this and our eyes met only for a short moment as she nervously shifted her focus. With every determination and gratification I could muster, I smiled. She looked away, quasi-embarrassed, feigning to be concentrated on the phone call.
She didn't wear any rings on her fingers.
She looked back at me and smiled briefly. The world around me vanished. Struggling for maintaining my normal stature of anonymous traveler, I was looking for an opening to talk to her and focused on breathing slowly to concentrate and remind myself to appear unforced and spontaneous. How contradictory, I thought, so I cooled down for a while.
She was talking to her sister about going to the movies that night. She had seen "Bruce Almighty" a while ago, commenting on how there were so little men during that cinema visit of hers. And that men in general probably didn't like the movie at all. This is where I came in. It happened so naturally. I told her that this wasn't true, because I liked it, although most men would not expect so much moralism in the movie considering Jim Carrey was the lead actor. She asked me if I saw many men leave the movie early, like she had seen a few leave. I had to admit I got the movie from the Internet. Conversation subsided. Ugh, I should have delayed the geek-factor and the complex analysis of a simple comedy film.
While I was thinking my failure, she talked about all sorts of things with her sister, and I was just waiting for the train trip to finish and come up with something witty I should have said. I should have dare said. I was thinking too much about myself, maybe? Was she put off, or couldn't she think of something else and was she just as insecure as I was? Nevertheless, I retreated. I sat back, watching everything and nothing in particular. I spent the next 15 minutes wondering if I had any chance of, and how, I could ask her phone number. Because I won't see her ever again.
I knew I should have talked to her more. I should've made her laugh. At that time, I feared she thought of me as a creep that wanted something from her. Of course, I did want something from her. Her cell phone number, for starters. I feared for my creepiness part when I scratched my day-old beard. And looked down on the Metallica logo of my t-shirt. This, along with my long hair I possibly seemed to her as a angry young man she could never relate to. Just as if I became aware of my image for the first time. I retreated, hating my insecurity. The surroundings didn't allow my, or any, style of flirting, I wishfully reassured myself.
She just continued talking to her sister, like sisters do and I my attention retreated from the physical world. All attention was directed to act normally and stop hating myself. At the first stop of the train I left, entering my original state of calmness between the anonymous mass of people, imaginary placing a tourniquet on the burst of the cocoon. In the hallway of the train station, I wandered off a couple of times because I wasn't that familiar there and I had to read the signs just to get to the busses. After I took the escalator down (=deescalator?), to my surprise, I saw Nausicaa and her sister standing just below me. Once they were descended, they said goodbye and went their separate ways. The sister walked to the buses in front of her. Nausicaa walked to the city busses on the right, where I would have to be also.
This is the time. This is the moment for heroes to walk up and talk to her and ask her.. Ask her what? I couldn't face her like this, I already have given up. After all this pounding in my chest I feared of stuttering, stammering and/or glaring facing her: I wasn't prepared. How could I be? She walked away, not noticing the screams in my head behind her. Beaten, I just waited at my bus stop I had to be at and waited. After a while a friend of mine showed up and we went to another friend's party.
Saturday, 3pm, back in the desolate train going home, I only thought of her. I always feel a bit lonely going back from a party. Recovering from dehydration and the pseudo-intellectual conversations. Thinking about Nausicaa's smile. Wishing I had the guts. Knowing that it would never happen, wished my heart didn't lose control instantly like it did.
Comforted myself with the thought that she will never ever understand me, just like anyone else I have been involved with. I didn't need her rejection back then, because that would have ruined my entire weekend. No, I don't need her to understand me. Only need her to hold me and smile, and never let go. More I wouldn't dare to ask.
Blah. Booze, fatigue, loneliness talking. Even if I had the guts to ask her out, and she didn't reject me, I would only enter a stream of confrontations I could fuck up, and feel bad about. How paradoxical. If I didn't care or feared, I wouldn't fuck up? This insight made me want to crouch into world's smallest corner and deal with everything from there.
Looking back at how all my inner-strengths and confidence evaporated as she walked by. Utter nihilism and self-loathing surged through several concurrent thinking processes in my brain, figuring out what I should have done. If she had looked back I would've looked like a rabid dog drooling for seeing its lunch. I was slowly melting to a green, radioactive ooze to be locked up in a containment vat for several half-lives until I was harmless enough to be destroyed.
This is what I thought of I should have said: 'From the moment I saw you, every fiber in my body screamed at me to talk to you. But I only dare to ask you now: would like to go for a drink with me some time?'. I think it's a typical male role to think of concise words to tell his love-interest of his desire, without appearing too much vulnerable. While to her, me blabbering something incoherently, trying to ask her out, could be sufficient to be found cute. Saying something that sounds too cool and distant, however would turn her off. Using this path of wishful-thinking, shyness is a weapon. Although this didn't make me all-powerful.
I don't look shy at all. I look like I'm angry at everything I can be angry at. This is, of course, a shield masking my anxiety. She has power over me, and she'll never know. The power to ruin my weekend, or to feel like I'm on top of the world, at least for a little while. I don't like myself to be out of control. As a result, because I had power over the decision to talk to her, I let her pass by. How Darwinically self-destructing.
I just need to get out more and meet people, right? That alternative is to go Casanova on women I don't care about, so I feel confident and could face either affection or rejection? That's pathetic. I know I have trouble with seizing opportunities I didn't see as a possibility before. Basically, this concept defies the control mechanisms of the Geek I am. I'm sure I'll explain later.
So, yeah, I only need a pretty girl sit in front of me in a train to enter a downward spiral of rational and emotional nihilism. Guess what. I haven't even started with what I intended to write. But no, I'm not going to talk about my endless stream of newly wish-to-have-acquired love-interests. I hope. Statistically speaking, I will not encounter a Nausicaa again. Too bad you can't base anything on statistics.
Btw, please pronounce Nausicaa as 'naw-SIK-ay-uh'. In my native language it doesn't resemble to an off-putting word like 'nausea'
How appropriate, listening to this right now:
"I want you to make me. I want you to take me.
I want you to break me. And I want you to throw me away."
Nine Inch Nails - Throw This Away
Nausicaa talked on her cell phone to one of her friends to heat up a pizza for dinner. She was a little embarrassed about phoning in the train for something like this and our eyes met only for a short moment as she nervously shifted her focus. With every determination and gratification I could muster, I smiled. She looked away, quasi-embarrassed, feigning to be concentrated on the phone call.
She didn't wear any rings on her fingers.
She looked back at me and smiled briefly. The world around me vanished. Struggling for maintaining my normal stature of anonymous traveler, I was looking for an opening to talk to her and focused on breathing slowly to concentrate and remind myself to appear unforced and spontaneous. How contradictory, I thought, so I cooled down for a while.
She was talking to her sister about going to the movies that night. She had seen "Bruce Almighty" a while ago, commenting on how there were so little men during that cinema visit of hers. And that men in general probably didn't like the movie at all. This is where I came in. It happened so naturally. I told her that this wasn't true, because I liked it, although most men would not expect so much moralism in the movie considering Jim Carrey was the lead actor. She asked me if I saw many men leave the movie early, like she had seen a few leave. I had to admit I got the movie from the Internet. Conversation subsided. Ugh, I should have delayed the geek-factor and the complex analysis of a simple comedy film.
While I was thinking my failure, she talked about all sorts of things with her sister, and I was just waiting for the train trip to finish and come up with something witty I should have said. I should have dare said. I was thinking too much about myself, maybe? Was she put off, or couldn't she think of something else and was she just as insecure as I was? Nevertheless, I retreated. I sat back, watching everything and nothing in particular. I spent the next 15 minutes wondering if I had any chance of, and how, I could ask her phone number. Because I won't see her ever again.
I knew I should have talked to her more. I should've made her laugh. At that time, I feared she thought of me as a creep that wanted something from her. Of course, I did want something from her. Her cell phone number, for starters. I feared for my creepiness part when I scratched my day-old beard. And looked down on the Metallica logo of my t-shirt. This, along with my long hair I possibly seemed to her as a angry young man she could never relate to. Just as if I became aware of my image for the first time. I retreated, hating my insecurity. The surroundings didn't allow my, or any, style of flirting, I wishfully reassured myself.
She just continued talking to her sister, like sisters do and I my attention retreated from the physical world. All attention was directed to act normally and stop hating myself. At the first stop of the train I left, entering my original state of calmness between the anonymous mass of people, imaginary placing a tourniquet on the burst of the cocoon. In the hallway of the train station, I wandered off a couple of times because I wasn't that familiar there and I had to read the signs just to get to the busses. After I took the escalator down (=deescalator?), to my surprise, I saw Nausicaa and her sister standing just below me. Once they were descended, they said goodbye and went their separate ways. The sister walked to the buses in front of her. Nausicaa walked to the city busses on the right, where I would have to be also.
This is the time. This is the moment for heroes to walk up and talk to her and ask her.. Ask her what? I couldn't face her like this, I already have given up. After all this pounding in my chest I feared of stuttering, stammering and/or glaring facing her: I wasn't prepared. How could I be? She walked away, not noticing the screams in my head behind her. Beaten, I just waited at my bus stop I had to be at and waited. After a while a friend of mine showed up and we went to another friend's party.
Saturday, 3pm, back in the desolate train going home, I only thought of her. I always feel a bit lonely going back from a party. Recovering from dehydration and the pseudo-intellectual conversations. Thinking about Nausicaa's smile. Wishing I had the guts. Knowing that it would never happen, wished my heart didn't lose control instantly like it did.
Comforted myself with the thought that she will never ever understand me, just like anyone else I have been involved with. I didn't need her rejection back then, because that would have ruined my entire weekend. No, I don't need her to understand me. Only need her to hold me and smile, and never let go. More I wouldn't dare to ask.
Blah. Booze, fatigue, loneliness talking. Even if I had the guts to ask her out, and she didn't reject me, I would only enter a stream of confrontations I could fuck up, and feel bad about. How paradoxical. If I didn't care or feared, I wouldn't fuck up? This insight made me want to crouch into world's smallest corner and deal with everything from there.
Looking back at how all my inner-strengths and confidence evaporated as she walked by. Utter nihilism and self-loathing surged through several concurrent thinking processes in my brain, figuring out what I should have done. If she had looked back I would've looked like a rabid dog drooling for seeing its lunch. I was slowly melting to a green, radioactive ooze to be locked up in a containment vat for several half-lives until I was harmless enough to be destroyed.
This is what I thought of I should have said: 'From the moment I saw you, every fiber in my body screamed at me to talk to you. But I only dare to ask you now: would like to go for a drink with me some time?'. I think it's a typical male role to think of concise words to tell his love-interest of his desire, without appearing too much vulnerable. While to her, me blabbering something incoherently, trying to ask her out, could be sufficient to be found cute. Saying something that sounds too cool and distant, however would turn her off. Using this path of wishful-thinking, shyness is a weapon. Although this didn't make me all-powerful.
I don't look shy at all. I look like I'm angry at everything I can be angry at. This is, of course, a shield masking my anxiety. She has power over me, and she'll never know. The power to ruin my weekend, or to feel like I'm on top of the world, at least for a little while. I don't like myself to be out of control. As a result, because I had power over the decision to talk to her, I let her pass by. How Darwinically self-destructing.
I just need to get out more and meet people, right? That alternative is to go Casanova on women I don't care about, so I feel confident and could face either affection or rejection? That's pathetic. I know I have trouble with seizing opportunities I didn't see as a possibility before. Basically, this concept defies the control mechanisms of the Geek I am. I'm sure I'll explain later.
So, yeah, I only need a pretty girl sit in front of me in a train to enter a downward spiral of rational and emotional nihilism. Guess what. I haven't even started with what I intended to write. But no, I'm not going to talk about my endless stream of newly wish-to-have-acquired love-interests. I hope. Statistically speaking, I will not encounter a Nausicaa again. Too bad you can't base anything on statistics.
Btw, please pronounce Nausicaa as 'naw-SIK-ay-uh'. In my native language it doesn't resemble to an off-putting word like 'nausea'
How appropriate, listening to this right now:
"I want you to make me. I want you to take me.
I want you to break me. And I want you to throw me away."
Nine Inch Nails - Throw This Away