#87. On Fire (Saturday, September 21, 2013)
What was your best day…of doing something crazy, and then one-upping that by doing something even more crazy?
Part 1
For anybody who’s been reading all the entries up until now, I’m pretty sure the foremost question on your mind is this: Between all that social awkwardness, do I ever get a girlfriend?
Well, the answer to that question is, surprisingly, yes. Her name was Chenling, she was in my MA Economics program at Duke, and she originated from Wuhan, China (where the girls are well-known for being tough and demanding). And the year and a half I was with her was one of the most miserable periods of my life. Yet there was that very brief window right at the beginning – those fuzzy few weeks between when a relationship kind of starts and when it becomes official – when the whole thing was actually pretty nice. (I think we call that “only being in it for the chase.”)
I had first met her about a year earlier, the first week into our Master’s, when I ran into her in the grad office. We didn’t talk much, but I guess we remembered each other. In the intervening year, there were a few small moments that I guess sort of slowly built up to a crush. Then shortly into this September, maybe pushed by some distress I’d on that front a few months ago, it quickly grew into a full-blown thing.
The day before, on Friday, I was playing my usual afternoon basketball with the crew on the courts on East Campus (Jason Simonsen, Chun-Keong (CK) Lim, Isinachi Ebute, Colin Garcia, Viktor Belyakov, Trevor Morgan, plus some PhD students and postgrads, #104), after which CK, Isinachi, Colin, and I decide to drive out to this Mexican place for dinner. Outside the gym, we run into Chenling, who’s there to do some singing thing. We talk briefly, then go our separate ways.
So the four of us eat our delicious Mexican food and CK drives us back to campus, mentioning that there’s a plan in the works to go out drinking in Chapel Hill tomorrow.
Back on campus, I’ve been studying in the library computer lab for a couple of hours when I see that it’s just Chenling and I there. She comes up to me, we talk a bit, turns out we’re both ready to leave, so we decide to take the Duke Van to our residences (two minutes apart) together. And while we’re waiting, I ask her—as some tangential continuation of an ongoing conversation—whether she has a boyfriend. She says no; I file that away. Then, after the van drops us off at our spot and we get off together, with a level of ballsiness that comes to me for the first time ever, I start a conversation:
Me: Hey Chenling. I just wanted to tell you, I like you.
Chenling (kind of surprised): Oh, OK.
Me: Yeah, I do like you. I’d definitely like to know you better.
Chenling: Me too. I definitely want to know you better too.
Me: All right, then. I’ll see you around.
Then I shake her hand (because that was the most appropriate thing to do in my mind at the time) and head back to my place. Once I get in, this insane mix of relief and self-accomplishment washes over me; this is completely uncharted territory! I blast Ellie Goulding and Calvin Harris’s “I Need Your Love”, then comfortably watch a stream of We’re the Millers – all while this sticks in the forefront of my mind.
Part 2
The next day, Saturday, I go to a seven-hour Magic event with Bob (a classmate from China who’s also really into Magic); and that feels like a whole day on its own. Then, early in the evening, after that’s done, CK follows through with the Chapel Hill plans; but I’m indecisive, so at first I say no. At this point, my mind is still occupied with the whole Chenling thing and how I have no idea whatsoever what to do next. (Also, while checking our call history on my phone, I accidentally tap her number and hang up immediately after. That did not help.)
Later that evening, I even have time to have a long Skype chat with my parents (no mention of this girl) and Facebook message chat with my Waterloo friend Kurt (#115, no mention either); then start making dinner on the stove.
Halfway through that, perhaps wanting to get the Chenling thing out of my mind, I have a change of heart. I text Jack Salvador (#104) and ask if it’s too late to pick me up. He says no (they just started leaving), as long as I get CK’s first beer. So I’m in. They come by in ten minutes, I hop in, and off we go to Chapel Hill.
On the way there, I get this strange positive feeling. Like, isn’t it cool that I’m just going out drinking with my buddies, as if nothing has changed since the last time we talked. When in fact, everything has changed – and they don’t know it yet.
We get there, meet up with a bunch of other classmates (Chenling not among them, as expected), then get to a bar. It’s packed, no doubt with a large contingent of UNC students. We down our drinks, we down more drinks, I have my first-ever vodka Red Bull. (There was actually some kind of line, but this random girl standing there went in specifically and got one for me. After I relay this story to Colin, he goes: “Man, why don’t you go ask her to dance with you?”, bringing that strange positive feeling back again.)
The whole thing just feels so surreal to me. It’s actually a really, really good time. The place gets wilder and wilder, a giant dance crowd forms to Kesha’s “Blow”, I’m getting really into it, then…I stop and just stare ahead. I don’t know whether I turned off the stove before I left, and suddenly think my apartment might be on fire.
So I go up to a bunch of the guys and repeat that concern. They all think I’m completely out of it, which doesn’t help my growing worry. Thirty minutes later, we make our way outside, and plan where to go next. I decide to call Jakob, my neighbor and fellow (lower-year) student in my program. I ask him if the house is on fire, and he tells me he’s in Pittsburgh (with his girlfriend at CMU).
Well, the worry has gotten to be too much. So, when I see a group of taxis parked on the side of the road, I walk up to one of them and ask: “Does this go all the way to Durham?” The driver answers: “It can if you want.” And I hop in, apologizing to the guys for cutting my night short.
After forty minutes, we arrive at my apartment. Which is very much still standing. I thank the taxi driver profusely, give him like a 50% tip, and walk up to the room to see the stove had been turned off.
Phew.
Given the circumstances, and what was to follow for the next year and a half, that was one wild night I definitely needed.