Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Student Haunted By End Of Vehicular Love Affair

A college student in a coffeeshop told his friend that his relationship of more than a year had just ended because he'd become obsessed with a girl he'd seen only once and never actually spoken to. He explained that last summer, while driving home from college on a two lane road, he'd found himself alternately following and being followed by a beautiful girl in a blue Honda Civic. He said that it had become sort of like a game, that when one of them passed a car they would wait and make sure the other got around as well before speeding on. At one point, while traveling through a small town they'd been stopped at a railroad crossing, and he'd watched in his mirror as she inched ever closer to his window in her traffic lane, only to have the gates go up just as she'd pulled even, an outcome he described as 'perfect'. As they neared his hometown the road split in two directions, and just before reaching the split the little Honda had pulled over, but for whatever reason, he was unable to justify it now, he'd pressed on, afraid to actually stop and make contact. And he'd regretted and obsessed over it ever since. He'd scoured the campus for the car, searched something called 'facebook' for her photo, and spent countless hours sitting in the center of campus just hoping to see her. Meanwhile, his relationship with his girlfriend had suffered. She said he seemed distant and uninterested, and last week when she'd discovered a posting he'd put on Craigslist regarding the experience, she'd decided to break up with him.
The friend asked him how he could possible let a brief experience with a person he never even spoke to become such a big deal. He stated that he passed lots of pretty girl in cars and on foot every day without letting it get to him. Further, he said he could almost guarantee that if the girl turned up tomorrow, she would fall far short of the ridiculous expectations that the student had built up for her.
The student said that maybe he wasn't obsessed with the girl at all, but with the opportunity and the fact that he hadn't taken it. He agreed that because he could not find her, their would be relationship now seemed to posses seemingly limitless potential, which was perhaps what he'd wanted to avoid ruining by pulling over in the first place.
Who'd have thought, he said, you could miss someone you never met.

1 comment:

Wyrfu said...

The guy's a romantic. He'll wonder about that for the rest of his life. Moral of the story? Keep your eyes on the road ahead, the windows rolled up and you should be safe from ever having an interesting life...