A long, long time ago, when i was in community college in Illinois, i had a classmate named Kasper (obviously, that is not his real name). He was a mega-babe and by far the most hilarious man i had met since moving away from home to a place where i knew no one except extended family who lived 45 minutes from where i was working as a live-in nanny. The family i worked for was (still is) awesome, and while i was content with my living and working conditions, i was lonely. I had made no friends outside of the cul-de-sac and none of those people were my peers in any way. I just didn't do anything except work, create art in my hella sweet suite in the basement, write letters, talk on the phone endlessly with all the friends i had left in Iowa, and spend hours reorganizing my expansive Pez dispenser collection. In the first six months i lived there, the lady of the house kept encouraging me to go to college, to figure out what would come after being a nanny, to challenge myself and put my "obvious intelligence" to use in bettering myself. She convinced me to get an education and helped me enroll in night and weekend classes at the county college 20 minutes from our house. Oh, the perks of living with a brilliant school counselor...
I excelled at my first two semesters although i had a hard time relating to the kids in my classes. They were all several years younger than me and had all come from very different (far more privileged) backgrounds. Working in groups was like being thrown into a group of derelict aliens. After a year of not meeting anyone who i thought possessed any of the qualifications i require for friendship, and after about the Nth time some idiot 18 year-old boy said, "Cold out there?" while eyeing my chest as i came in from a snowstorm, i came to the conclusion that i was simply not going to make friends. And then, in Spanish class, i met Gata and in Math for Teachers i met Kasper - all in the same week. Gata was the funniest girl i had ever met and easily the coolest and most interesting person i had met in years. I had thought all the cool people were already my friends and that they all lived in Iowa and that people from Illinois were pretentious jerks. She proved me wrong and i am forever grateful. Now Kasper...he was funny too, but also kind of dark and mysterious. He had these brown eyes that i wanted to live inside of, or else rip from his face and keep in a jar. I would get so nervous before class that i almost felt like puking. He would come in, look around for me, and then take a seat as close as possible and proceed to ignore the lecture portion in order to show me pictures that he drawn or things he had written. If i came to class late, he always had a seat for me. We worked in groups or pairs together exclusively and talked about music and art and deep things. After class we'd go to the cafeteria or the commons and just hang until the school closed for the night. If i happened to be looking stressed or unhappy, he would go out of his way to make me feel better. We never talked outside of school but i thought about him constantly and talked about him to Gata even more. One weekend she and i had plans to meet some other friends at a bar to see a local band that did a pretty decent rock cover show. Gata convinced me to invite Kasper to meet me there. I somehow managed to ask him without throwing up all over myself or having a stroke and to my utter delight his reply was, "Hell yeah - i love their show. Can't wait!" And so Saturday could not get there quickly enough. I wish that the world had ended at that moment.
Saturday night i sat at our table breaking my neck to see the door. Eventually i started to think he wasn't going to show and gave up watching the entrance like a hawk. I was having a good old time with Gata and some other classmates when someone taps my should and i stand and turn to see Kasper...with a really pretty redhead on his arm. He introduces us (i can't remember what the fuck her name was because really all i could hear was the blood rushing out of my heart and brain and some voice inside me saying. "You stupid bitch. You really thought this was going to be a date, didn't you? You sad, sad stupid cow."). After the intro, the redhead says she's going to get a drink and Kasper leans in, all smiles, and says, "I can't believe she said yes - i've been working up the nerve to ask her out for months." I opened my mouth and heard, "Oh, how extraordinarily awesome that must be. Hope it goes well." Then i turned back to my table, drank my beer and Gata's, ordered shots and another round for everyone except the traitor and his red-haired hussy. I proceeded to get as drunk as possible as fast as i could. Needless to say, Kasper and his date found another table and spent the whole night gazing into each other's eyes and giggling with their heads together. They didn't even watch the goddamn band, the losers.
The rest of that night went as expected. I was feeling hurt and embarrassed, but above all pissed off. I was mad at myself for misinterpreting his friendship for something more. I was really honked off at him for spending all this time talking to me about everything in the world besides that dumb slut he brought ON OUR DATE. And i was incredibly angry that i had just looked so stupid in front of my one and only friend in the entire state. Gata was awesome about it though - she offered to cut his brake line or punch the girl in the face or follow Kasper to the bathroom and cut his balls off. You know, all the things a best friend does. In the end though, it was me who got punched in the face that night. I ended up getting jumped by 3 horrible cunts over a misunderstanding about the stupid drummer's sweatshirt. That's a story for another time.
Anyway - that is why i never actually believe anything that i think i know. My heart is a big mean jerk that can trick my brain into almost anything given the chance.
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