FLJ, Part 1 –

It was noon on the first day of class, and I was scheduled to go to lunch with one of my professors and 5 other students.  Once we were seated at the restaurant, the professor asked each of us to introduce ourselves, one by one.  The guy at the opposite corner of the table went first.  I hadn’t noticed him until he started speaking, but as soon as he opened his mouth, I became very interested very quickly.  FLJ, as I like to call him, was a mix between Don Draper of Mad Men and Tim Riggins of Friday Night Lights.  He spoke smoothly, didn’t say much, had long greasy brown hair, a great body, and clearly didn’t care what anybody thought about him.  In other words, he was hot.

I sort of have this thing for enigmatic bad boys, and FLJ seemed to fit the bill.  So after lunch ended, I caught up with him outside of the restaurant and introduced myself. 

That Wednesday night, when I was at a local dive with some friends, FLJ walked in and interrupted a conversation I was having with a different guy. He and I talked for a while and then he slickly asked for my number.  We split up to talk to other people, and minutes later, he slipped out of the bar without saying goodbye.

The next night I ran into him again, this time at a different bar.  We talked over a couple of beers, and then FLJ noticed the pool table next to the bar and asked if I wanted to play a round.  As FLJ was selecting a cue, I told him that I didn’t really feel like playing pool.  “What do you want to do?” he asked.  “Kiss you,” I said with a smirk.  And with his hand around the back of my neck, he kissed me.  We made out for a little while, my lower back pressed against the edge of the table, and then he suggested we leave.  FLJ walked me back to my apartment and then asked me if he could take me out that weekend.  I told him to call me.  He kissed me on the forehead and left.

The next day, FLJ called, and we decided to meet for lunch on Saturday.  The day came, and FLJ picked me up at my apartment.  Over miso soup and tuna rolls, FLJ opened up.  We shared stories from our childhoods and talked about other things you would expect to cover on a first date.  He asked what I was doing that night and I told him I was meeting a few friends from college to watch our alma mater’s football game; I invited him to join us.  He said he would probably come, but that he would get back to me.

I hadn’t heard from FLJ and it was getting close to the time when I had to leave for the game, so I texted him to see if he was going to come.  He didn’t respond, and so I went without him.  I didn’t hear from him for the rest of the weekend.

The next week in class, FLJ completely ignored me.  The only time he ever acknowledged me was if we happened to be passing through the doorway of our classroom at the same time.  I was convinced that he had lost interest.  But when I saw him out at a bar that Thursday, he approached me, told me I looked “really good,” and asked me if he could buy me a drink.  Was he suddenly interested again?  We talked for a while, and once again he left the bar without saying goodbye. 

Over the next few weeks FLJ was back to ignoring me, but every once in a while he would do something to make me think he might be interested.  Despite his apparent lack of interest in me, my interest in him only grew.  I latched onto and overanalyzed every interaction we shared.  I convinced myself that FLJ liked me, but that he was just weird and incapable of dating anyone.

I started to move on (or so I told myself), and that’s when I found out that FLJ had found himself a girlfriend.  The guy that I thought was incapable of really liking anyone had not only found a girl who he thought was worth dating, he had officially made her his girlfriend.  Worst of all, she was also in our graduate program.

I couldn’t believe it.  The entire time, FLJ had been capable of and amenable to dating, just not dating me.  That’s when I realized it wasn’t him; it was me.  FLJ never asked me on a second date because he just wasn’t that into me.

I spent the rest of the semester getting over FLJ, while he spent it getting it on with his girlfriend. 

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