Friday, February 14, 2014

So I met a girl...

Yes, I meet a lot of girls. But some are more special than others and I've yet to have anything special between any of them.

So here is [perhaps] yet another blog about a girl. I can't even recall if I've written about other girls here before. What the hell.

It was yet another cloudy winter day in Frankfurt, Germany in Nordend, the city's more well-to-do district, laden with gourmet restaurants and expensive bakeries. I was fresh from my trip to Cologne with a girlfriend, to whom I confessed my affection for her. Suffice to say (as I'm about to be talking about another girl), she did not return the emotion, but enjoyed spending the weekend with me nonetheless.

It was fabulous. I could tell this girl anything I wanted. And just like any inexperienced lover (like moi), you tend to fall in love with just about anyone that seems vaguely viable; attractive, intelligent, easy to talk to and of course, funny.

But this girl was the most special up until that point. She was actually also the first girl I was attracted to, with whom I slept in the same bed. But did nothing with.

Enough of Cologne, and we find our main character  back in Frankfurt, a young 21-year-old Michael Lenoch, recently filled with the confidence required to speak with an attractive young female and the illusion of spending a weekend getaway with a girl he thought he had a chance with.

Michael then sensed a great feeling of loneliness come over him. All throughout the day, he found himself speaking with strangers (both men and attractive women) in a shallow attempt to fill this newly-created void of a female companion.

Then later in the day, Michael was going to the post office to return some shoes. Along the way, he saw an attractive blonde and took the opportunity to ask her where the post office was. Michael, of course, had a general idea as to where the post office was, but took advantage of the situation even so.

Happily, the bright-eyed young blonde told Michael that she, too, was headed to the post office. The two walked and talked on the way as well as in line. Michael assumed the girl was older than he was due to the different education systems in the United States and Germany, but after he shared that he was 21 and studied at Goethe University, her blue-green eyes widened for the surprising number of similarities between the two and seeming destiny that brought the two together. Seems like the makings of movie, does it not?

At the post office, Michael had to tape up his package and the girl was keen to help him. This piqued his interest. A nice and attractive girl who is my same age and studies at my same university? Meant to be? 

The opportunist that Michael is, he took advantage of the situation and asked the girl to coffee. To Michael's surprise, she had said yes! The two went to a local coffee house they'd both heard good things about, Café Caramel. Over coffees and a small lunch, the two shared laughs, their backgrounds, opinions, curiosities, experiences, anecdotes and realized they had much in common than it would have seemed at first. Michael gladly paid.

Michael was actually so surprised the day had already gone that well that he asked her if she'd come with him to get some errands done. Intriguingly, she happily complied and Michael reciprocated with an errand of hers.

The two then spent the rest of the day exploring some of the areas Michael didn't know too well, continuing to share thoughts, anecdotes and opinions along the way.

Given the girl knew more of Frankfurt than Michael, he asked her where they could get a meal with grüne Soße, a famous Frankfurt specialty sauce with various herbs. The pair found a typical German restaurant called Leib & Seele, where Michael got a hamburger with the sauce. The sauce was better than expected, but the meat's quality could have been higher. Michael neglected to say this so as to not ruin the German beauty's meal. Throughout the meal itself though, more laughs were shared.

The two then went to an art book store, where many of the books were about America. They shared about their ambitions to go on a cross-continental road trip. The blonde also noted that she would like to attend a real American Thanksgiving and Michael was quick to invite her.

In the book store, Michael both got the beauty to speak in English (despite her previously insisting she would by no means speak in English) and to let out some of her loudest, most uncontrollable laughs. This made Michael very, very happy just seeing a nice, pretty girl happy and valuing spending time with him. In fact, it was enough to make Michael cry. Not then and there, but perhaps as he wrote this.

Then two days later, Michael was under the impression he was to cook his beloved Minestrone soup for her at her apartment. But as luck (or un-luck in this case) would have it, she not only rescheduled, but also waited until the last minute to tell him she had a fever. Up until that point, Michael was nervously waiting her response via Facebook with ingredients in hand.

Michael has always been a bit of a skeptic when it has come to love, however. He has always felt no matter how good-looking, in-shape, friendly, charismatic, funny nor generous he can be, his personality will always be too weird for any prospective mate. His lifestyle, way of thinking or whatever it may be are simply too far out for the average self-conscious, used-to-and-expecting-normalcy girl.

Michael has doubts about anything coming about now. He's actually quite sick of falling in love and being disappointed all over again and again. It seems every girl to cross his path leaves him for one unsaid reason or another, disappointed.

Michael can't stand it, he needs something, someone. Happy Valentine's Day. I guess. 


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Be aware that loneliness is possibly the least attractive emotion someone can have. When most people start interacting with an obviously lonely person, their immediate reaction is pity and discomfort, not desire for a lasting relationship. Therefore, I'd say that a good first step to beating loneliness is to try and hide it as best as you can until you build up some meaningful friendships.

To accomplish this end, I would recommend on focusing your efforts on suppressing the 3 most common bastard children of loneliness: desperation, bitterness, and self-absorption. Specifically, relaxing as opposed to seeing every social interaction as a high-stakes battle in the War for Intimacy should make people more comfortable with the idea of getting close to you.

Of course, this is much easier said than done, especially if you've been lonely for such a long time that it's difficult to see which thinking patterns and behaviors are reasonable and which are distorted into strange and irrational extremes by the hall of mirrors that is loneliness.

Also, I'm not sure how much of a novel reader you are, but reading certain books has made me feel like I understand people and their motivations in ways that I did not before. "War and Peace", "Lost Illusions", and "In Search of Lost Time" specifically come to mind. I especially think you'd like Lost Illusions for some reason.

Feel free to contact me should you ever wish to draw further from my Fount of Shitty Relationship Advice.