She had posed the fateful question in the elevator one day.
"Do you want to go on a date with me?"
"What?"
She repeated her question, though her words had gone through perfectly the first time. What he didn't get was the meaning. He was seventeen years old, and he had never thought about dating. He'd never found anyone particularly attractive, he'd never felt the urge to seek out romance, his attitude had been to just go along with it if it came and take it from there. He hadn't thought past that part. But now here romance was, staring him in the face from across the elevator, and he had no idea what to do.
"What kind of question is that?" he blurted. He knew it wasn't the right response, but it was a response nonetheless. It would buy him time. She wants to go on a date with me. No matter which way he turned it, her question still didn't compute. He didn't not want to go on a date, the prospect had simply never occurred to him. I can't tell her that. What was he supposed to say? Did he even have a choice? From what little he did know about relationships, he knew communication was key, and he couldn't see himself communicating well with this girl. So he opted not to. The elevator stopped and they stepped out, going their separate ways.
Before that, there had been the wet hands incident. He'd just come out of the bathroom and was running to catch up with the group.
"Why're your hands wet?" she had asked.
"Because I just washed them?"
"Why didn't you dry them?" Why is she so concerned about my hands? he had thought. Hand drying machines are loud and paper towels are wasteful, he'd never considered it that strange to leave his hands to air-dry. They'd be dry by the time he got back to the dorm, and he didn't have any need for them until then.
Suddenly he felt her hand slip into his. Her hand was soft and her grip wasn't too tight, but it made him feel trapped. Was holding someone's hand supposed to feel like this? They had the same destination in mind, but he even so he preferred the feeling of being able to go where he pleased. Her hand felt like less of a comforting presence and more like a scab that itched to be flicked away. When he couldn't take it any longer, he pulled away, forcing her to let go.
Then there had been the aquarium, where he'd walked around with her, looking at fish and fighting over whose phone had a better camera. "That girl," his roommate had asked afterward, "are you rizzing her up?"
"What?" He knew what rizz meant, but he'd never heard the word used like that before and it didn't sound like a particularly nice thing to be doing to girls.
"Y'know, like," his roommate gestured and somehow he understood. He wants to know if I like that girl.
"Oh, no, I'm not," he clarified quickly.
"Really…" He hated how whenever he did anything with a girl, people thought they were dating. What's wrong with being friends? He knew quite a few of his friends were or looked like girls, but he'd never thought about any of them like that. He was acutely aware of the possibility that passersby might think they were together or something, that was about it. He just wanted his friends to be people who were easy to talk to and cared about him, whether they were boys or girls or something else didn't really matter. Walking around the aquarium with a friend didn't have to be romantic just because it happened to be with a girl, right?
The worst of it though had been their date, if it could even be called that. It was supposed to be more of a friendly get-together, but everyone else had dropped out at last minute, leaving just the two of them.
"I guess we got our date after all," she had said, and he knew this wasn't going to be fun. At lunch, she'd ordered the smallest burger on the menu and had only eaten about half of it. He'd been encouraging her to eat more all week, he cared about her, but not in the way she supposedly cared about him. Talking to her didn't feel any different than before. He wasn't sure what being in love was supposed to feel like, but this wasn't it.
That feeling only got worse at the theater. Seeing a movie had been her idea. He only half watched the movie, awkwardly sharing popcorn and wondering, Do I put my arm around her? Is that something people do on dates? So far the only nice thing he'd done for her was try to find a 3D model of a rat for the project she was working on. Did that count? He'd thought this whole dating thing would come naturally, instead it made him want to run. He kept checking the clock on his phone, and by the time the credits rolled, he was more than ready to go.
She'd even given him an easy way out. As they left the theater, she had asked if he wanted this relationship, or whatever it was, to be a one-off, or to keep going with it long-distance. Oh, why hadn't he taken it. He'd liked it better when they were friends. Now something just didn't feel right. But he couldn't tell her that. Love was supposed to take time, right? Obviously this relationship wasn't going to get anywhere, but it deserved more than a single date, didn't it?
He'd never really considered her, or anyone for that matter in terms of attractiveness. He already couldn't quite remember what she looked like. He could bring up an image of her in his mind, but all of the important features were indistinct. She has brown hair, and brown eyes, and those appeared in his mental model. No, blue eyes, and her eyes changed color. It doesn't matter. She's not the one. I don't know if anyone is.
There had been that one time though, last winter, when one of his friends had asked for a hug, completely out of the blue. He'd never hugged any of his friends before, but he knew in his heart that he wanted this.
It wasn't like any hug he'd had before. We're hugging, voluntarily wrapping our arms around each other and pulling closer, not because we have to, but because we want to. He wondered why he'd never done this before. He wanted to savor this moment. But he didn't think it was romantic either, it was simply two people showing how much they appreciate one another. The hug left a glow that lingered for the next few days. He hadn't felt anything like it since. I don't know what I want, he thought. I guess I'm just a human seeking something.