Kayla and I corresponded via email a lot over that summer. We logged about 250 to 300 messages in that short time and as much as I loved being in touch with her, it was just awful not being able to tell her how I felt. Especially when when she would keep talking about her boyfriend. Here's something you may not know, ladies: your guy friends don't want to hear about your boyfriends. The vast majority of the time, we just don't care and it feels very emasculating especially when you ask for our advice in those situations. We aren't one of your girlfriends, so don't drag us into your relationship drama. "Why?" you ask. "If you are a real friend you will want to help your friends in their relationship problems." Not true, and I'll tell you why. Because if you have a guy friend, he most likely has a crush on you, or at the very least feels protective of you because you are like sister to him. So when you talk about your boyfriends and whatnot it makes us feel hurt or makes us feel aggressive towards said boyfriend. And in every case, we learn to hate him.
Now that that is out of the way, I will proceed to contradict myself and tell you why exactly I learned to be thankful for Kayla's boyfriend updates.
It was very close to the end of summer and school was starting back up. It was the beginning of my Sophomore year and Kayla's Freshman year. I emailed her to see how her first day went. This is the message I got back:
"All in all it was a good first day of school, but between all my extra curricular stuff and my nasty break-up yesterday, it was rather stressful."
I think I read that message 10 or 15 times just to make sure I wasn't seeing things. By the time I was sure that what I read was real, I could barely hold in my elation. Just like that The Summer of Darkness was over. The months of sadness were all of a sudden replaced by something else: hope (not my sister, but the feeling.)
When I emailed back, I tried not to let my joy show. I simply said, "I'm sorry, that's too bad. You seemed really great together." It seemed like the best thing to say. What I really wanted to say was, "Kayla, I've been crazy about you since the day I met you. I've been dying to tell you that for almost three years now." But now, it just didn't seem like the right thing to say. If I truly did like her, then I needed to give it some time.
And with that, The Summer of Darkness ended, and thus began Celebration Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment