Encounters of the Adorably Awkward Kind

(Two months ago, I wrote this as a fictional introductory piece for a creative writing course. Ultimately I concluded that I hated it, & ended up submitting a poem instead. Now that I come back to it, & am no longer interested in the person I wrote it about, it actually seems kinda cute, & only a little bit crap.)

“Um… So, tell me about yourself!” he chirped, a little too cheerfully. “I mean, I know you do improv, obviously, but… what else do you do?”

I giggled nervously and readjusted myself in my seat. “I play music. Guitar, piano, ukulele, singing, writing my own songs… And I like to hula hoop, and write…”

“Do you write about me?” he asked, and suddenly my body filled with guilt as I realized it was a serious question.

I sipped my latte to stall for time. “I write about everyone in my life. It’s not a big deal. I don’t write anything bad about you. I mean, obviously I think you’re pretty great, so…” Another unattractive nervous laugh. This was not going well. “Uh, you tell me about yourself now!” Smooth.

He looked so cute. It was extremely difficult to listen because I was too busy staring. I nodded periodically to make sure he felt I was keeping up, but mostly I was thinking back to the terror I’d experienced when, a week before, I’d finally gathered the courage to march up to him and ask him if he’d maybe, um, I dunno, like to get, like, a coffee or something sometime, or whatever. And he’d said yes. Simple, like it was nothing. And here we were.

“That’s so interesting. You’re so interesting,” I replied enthusiastically. I meant it, even though I hadn’t heard a word. I mean, there’s a reason I asked him out, other than his obvious physical charms.

He took a big bite out of his espresso-flavoured brownie and I glanced surreptitiously at the clock. A few long seconds ticked by.

“So… Are you my girlfriend now?”

My stomach pretty much fell to the bottom of my abdominal cavity. I swallowed. “Uh. Do you want me to be?”

Just as he went to speak, more words poured unstoppably out of my mouth: “Because I’d be into that. But only if you are. I mean, I know we’re both super busy. So I don’t know if it’s for sure the best idea. Even though I want to. I guess. Do you?”

“Yes.”

And just like that, my lungs filled up with happy and my blood was pumping happy and my pores were dripping happy. It hurt to breathe and all I could do was smile, and then I started to laugh, and then so did he, and it was, hands down, the best date I’ve ever been on.