The Birthday Talk

Senior Class Byrd Stadium Night - its appeal was almost as underwhelming as its attendance.  I climbed countless stairs with a few friends, joining several dozen seniors who were already staring out at the boring and overly familiar College Park skyline.  Why would I waste my 23rd birthday humoring the SGA's party planning committee, when I could be wasting my 23rd birthday playing video games in my dorm room?  Of all the possible answers to that question, I only really cared about one, but that answer was running late.  You showed up at Byrd with your own posse, and our group proceeded to enjoy each other's company while pretending that climbing Byrd was cool.  When we finally got around to leaving, I told you stories of how much cooler it was to sneak into the Comcast Center than Byrd.  Since George Jin was walking with us, he was also captivated by these stories, and had no choice but to accompany us.  This was probably for the best, as we could now easily justify the activity as hanging out in a group.  I tried to carry myself with all the confidence and coolness of someone who had snuck into Comcast at will throughout his college career.  Someone who couldn't care less what anyone thought of him.  Except maybe George.  I have always wondered what George thinks of me.  We dropped him off at the View before beginning the 3 minute journey to Centreville.  You later shared that you wanted to throw up during these 3 minutes, because you were afraid of your feelings for me.  How convenient.
 

We spent the next 2 hours sitting in your car, staring at the American flag on top of that stupid crane, trying to communicate.  We had never discussed our friendship before, and the elephant in the car was painfully obvious.  I loved our friendship, but I didn't want to risk things getting weird and losing what we had.  My goal for the conversation was simple: to express my appreciation for your friendship and my desire to continue to pursue friendship, while still entertaining the possibility that things would someday change, but not at all insinuating that things had already changed and certainly not giving you the idea that I liked you as more than a friend.  Simple, right?  Understandably, it took me 2 hours of stammering to communicate those simple ideas.  To be fair, I was doing my best to suppress any romantic interest that dared show itself to my conscious self.  I did not lie to you, though I may have been lying to myself.  Throughout the pre-dating phase of our relationship, I tried hard to avoid guessing how you felt about me.  I had to virtually stop listening to parts of this conversation in order to maintain my blissful ignorance.  At one point you started telling me how I checked all of the boxes on your list of qualities in a guy.  I'm still not sure why you told me that if you didn't want me to think you were hopelessly infatuated with me.  Oddly enough, I had no idea if you liked me or not.  Now, after hearing about your feelings, I'm not sure how I didn't figure it out.  I guess you are pretty smooth.
 

I remember going back to my room, hoping that somehow the last 2 hours would be good for our friendship.  What I didn't realize is that the elephant was still sitting happily in your back seat, waiting.