It was love at first sight, Mike thought to himself, sighing loudly at his cubicle in
the corner of the Tisch basement. He had first seen her waiting eagerly in the
Sunday Sundae line. Noticing her hand reaching for the pistachio ice cream, he
mustered the courage to address her.

“Wow, you like pistachio too? I never find any other lovers of the flavor.” She
promptly scowled and muttered, “I thought this was mint chocolate chip. I
fucking hate pistachio. Who the hell eats that garbage?”

Their friendship blossomed immediately, and she invited him back to the table
at which she and her seven floor-mates had crammed themselves. The girls
made small talk about the frat party they had almost gotten into the night
before and the hot RA on the 2nd floor who was probably gay but totally flirted
with them during hall snacks, and Mike tried to keep straight which one was
Katherine, Cathryn, and Qath Lynn. He nudged his phone towards the girl, the
new contact open and his face filled with hope.

He wondered how she’d feel about him. He knew he was different than other
guys. He was sensitive, he was introspective, he was…quirky.

The next weekend, after poring through his contact list and weeding through
the five Sarah’s who had entered their numbers during matriculation, he finally
felt confident enough to text her. With shaking hands, he invited her to the
pregame his roommate would be hosting that evening.

When she didn’t show up that evening, he tried to distract himself from the
disappointment, sipping on Rubinoff and orange Gatorade as he chatted up the
vaguely foreign student in his Spanish recitation. He thought about asking her
where she was from, but a week of Tufts orientation had made it very clear that
this would be extremely racist.

Having received no text back, he thought he would never see his Dewick Dame
again. But he would eventually find her, as many find love, with sweaty hair and
mysteriously wet clothing in the basement of DU sometime after midnight. He
edged over to her, beer in hand.

“You think I look very tan?”

“No, I want to grind on you.”

“You don’t like my shoes? Fuck you, bitch.”

But one thing led to another, and they were soon engrossed in a classic dance
floor makeout sesh. And as the 1:30 am darkness faded to 2 am darkness, they
sat side by side on the curb outside Hodgdon, chomping on Moe’s.

Finally, what he had waited for all these years, a passionate love, someone to
guide him through his college experience. He was so happy!

A few days later he spotted her across Cohen Auditorium as students milled in
for the first Econ class. Waving his hand furiously to motion her over, he
eventually grew impatient and waded through a sea of feet and backpack straps
to the other end of the row.

“Hey,” he stood their grinning.

“Um…”

“Remember me? From the party the other night? I can’t believe you’re in this
class too.”

She surveyed the room. “Yeah, um, literally everyone is.”

After denying his invitation to see an acapella show that evening, she quickly
walked away to join her roommate in a different row. He slunk back to his chair
feeling dejected.

What to do? He thought miserably as the first PowerPoint slide went up. Could
their love ever be? Could he reignite the passion they felt that steamy and sticky
night on the dance floor? Could she fall in love with his quirkiness? Could he
capture the attention of the lovely Sarah…H? T? L? M? uh…something like that.

He’d check later.

TO BE CONTINUED