Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 19:16:33 -0500
From: One Shy Rugrat <one_shy_rugrat@hotmail.com>
Subject: College Section: Losing Myself - Chapter 3 - Hinting Messages

Warning: This is a story about two boys falling in love. If it offends you,
please don't continue reading.

Copyrights@ 2001. One Shy Rugrat. All Rights Reserved.

		       Chapter 3 - Hinting Messages

     Struggling to convince myself that I'm no freak, I garnered enough
courage to finally send him a message through the Internet. I felt it would
be best for both of us to communicate online because I was afraid I might
become too obvious if we talked in the cafeteria. And the most important
thing is I wasn't sure if he was homophobic or not. If he was, I wouldn't
want to endanger myself or cause a frenzy at residence. Through careful
observations, he wasn't too talkative and didn't have too many friends so
it was possible that he wasn't as accepting as the other open-minded people
on campus. Either he was gay and hence explaining his shyness, or he's just
a straight shy guy. I seem to always misinterpret so I wasn't going to take
any chances.  After all, I just came to university and I won't want to
become some kind of outcast and alienate everyone around me. I already knew
some of the new friends I've made are very homophobic. When they discovered
there were many gay guys living at our residence, they weren't very fond of
it.  Sometimes I had the urge to tell them, "Hey, I'm gay too. You want to
start hating me too?" but that idea won't have worked well so I just kept
quiet and pretended as if I'm straight. I had plenty of female friends and
some of the guys I knew were, perhaps, fond of my ability to communicate
and befriend the opposite sex. I really thought nothing of it and sometimes
wished I was able to make more friends of the same sex.
     Having spent a few hours thinking of how I should explain to Sam why I
would have his contact information and other potential questions he might
fire, I finally messaged him.  Basically reintroducing myself to him and
asked him if he still remembers the conversation we had last Friday during
dinner. I crossed my fingers and hoped that he would reply to my message
before I finally clicked the send button. Being extremely nervous, I
decided to go offline and get some sleep, maybe tomorrow I'd be surprised.
     Getting up late the next morning, I had no time to check my message
and headed straight to class. Wondering all day whether Sam had replied to
my message or not, I could not concentrate.  I blindly jotted down what the
lecturer had to say and didn't pay any attention to what he had actually
said. I have this ability to mechanically copy things down despite not
concentrating on what is actually being said. It is like all the content
goes in one ear, then down on paper and out the other ear. At lunch, I
looked for Sam but failed to find him anywhere in the cafeteria.  I might
have seemed mesmerized because a lot of people thought that I was unhappy
that day because I usually smile and talk a lot.
     "Louis, did you watch last week's episode of Dawson's Creek?", asked
Charles, a guy I met during Froshweek. "Yeah.", was my answer and I
continued eating. I remember during Froshweek, I had told Charles that I
watched Dawson's Creek because many of the guys we were talking to thought
Dawson's Creek was a stupid show with a bunch of screwed up kids, each with
their own adolescent problems. And everyone who watched the show knew Kerr
Smith played a gay character on the show, Jack. To say the truth, I did
findJack's plot line identifiable but I was mostly interested in his best
friend Jen's rebel plot line. So when Charles suddenly asked, "What
happened to Jack?"  I really found it strange he would ask me that. I have
always thought that guys who watched the show only paid attention to Katie
Holmes, who played Joey Potter, because she was hot. Realizing I hadn't
answered his question, I told him the development of Jack in the show and
our conversation ended. When lunch was over, it suddenly hit me that
Charles might be gay and was hinting it to me. I found it both funny and
sweet that someone had a crush on little old me.  Considering the fact that
I have only knew him for several months,I decided to play dumb and
pretended not to take that question too seriously because I wasn't about to
jump out of the closet just like that. I did, however, wondered how it was
possible that someone was attracted to me. I have always thought of myself
as modest looking and wasn't close to being a muscular jock or a hot beach
boy. Though I knew some girls had crushes on me during highschool, I was
flattered by their admiration but just continued to live my life as it is
because of what I wanted. I was overjoyed by the possibility that Charles
was interested in me but the sad thing was I didn't find Charles attractive
at all. All that was on my mind was Sam.


That's it for now. Hope you enjoyed the story so far. If you have any
comments, feel free to contact me at one_shy_rugrat@hotmail.com or if you
have any questions that is not related with how the story is going to
continue in the future. I will continue writing the story depending on the
number and what the responses are from my readers, that is YOU! Did you
guys shop til you dropped on Boxing Day?