#NerdsUnite: The What If (Part 1 - Backstory)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Jordan. He was one of the first writers here on TNTML and he's a really rad mofo. I forget how we first started talking - but he lives allllllll the way over in Kansas and wants to talk to you about life from his side of the monitor in the keyword of nerd. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT JORDAN!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @SaintPepsi

About 12 years ago when I first came to Manhattan, KS I was on the path to become a Minister. Enrolled at the local Christian College, MCC. I was ready to spread the word of God’s love across the world. Needless to say finding God’s love in that college was difficult. It was cliquier than high school. The jocks were now all in soccer, the preps were the hot virgins, the nerds were versed in the bible better than anyone, the rejects were kids whose parents forced them to go there, the punks were straight edge, and the hippies were now acoustic learning worship leaders . So here I was once again trying to find a place to fit in. I won’t say everyone there was bad, but once you got in a group you were stolen away for prayer, devotions, dinner, and random things like tag in the dark. Not the college experience most of you are probably used to. So I managed to find a place with the open minded Christian group. Those that were shunned for having sex before marriage, smoke, drank, weren’t anti-gay, watched R-rated movies and went to bars. Yeah! They do exist. Still even there, I just never felt super accepted. Don’t get me wrong I loved them, but my target group wasn’t at that college. If college was a place to find out who you are, I still needed to look. Keep in mind in a horribly wise decision this college is parked right next to Aggieville, a 3 by 3 block of bars. I think it holds some world record for most bars per square foot (unverified). So even if you didn’t go out to the bars, they were a street away and every night at 2 in the morning, the sounds of the migrating drunks were audible through our thin window panes. You learned really quickly, if you lived on the basement level to always keep your windows closed for fear of pee. So I ventured away from the Christian bubble.

At that time I was only 18 and didn’t frequent bars. So there were about five places I could go. Two coffee shops at the time, one pool hall, and two 18 and over bars. Trust me these are not bars you want to go in ever. People get fucking stabbed there. Stuck to the coffee shops and one in particular called Espressos. Later to be nicknamed Depressos by my friends and I. This is where I ran into a crowd of Goth kids. I was intrigued. Here were a group of people all dressed in black with piercings and tattoos. So I sat down and threw myself into conversation with them. As the night drew on they found out I was Christian and thanked me for not trying to convert them as so many others had before. I was hooked. Here was a group of people that instantly accepted me. I will say this now, I never tried to go goth. That just wasn’t me. Still I hung out with them all the time. I even had other new Christian kids from MCC try and talk to me about Jesus. I would riddle them with questions Christians fear and rarely have answers for. The foremost of those, why do you believe in God? Seriously, that’s one of the hardest questions for them to answer without using the stock dialogue.  I created fast friendships with them that are still strong today. My determination to stay in that group without ever going goth became a matter of pride with me. They did their absolute best to corrupt me and I held fast. Personally, looking back I really wish I had let them. Maybe things would have turned out differently. Still you can’t hang your life on, “I should haves” You’ll never move forward. So there I was the Christian goth virgin kid. Immersed in the very heart of Paganism.

I was attracted to a few of them, three in particular, We’ll call them Doll, Red, and Ophelia. Doll was just that, perfection incarnate. Sadly, she had been swept up already. So my affection for her was tempered and I made a very clear effort to befriend her. She was shy in her own way and making new friends was hard for her, she later told me. She has since thanked me repeatedly for making sure I was her friend even if she was cold in the beginning. Out of all three of these girls she is the one that I now treasure and still have a very close relationship with now. Red was a shorter girl, who always seemed to have different colors of hair very big into Anime. At that time I was pretty big into anime too, so I gravitated towards her. You know, play to the commonality. Her best friend Ophelia was the last. She was a tall brunette, with long hair. All legs this one. I fell hard for her. She and I clicked like I had never clicked with anyone prior. We just seemed to instantly know each other. So bad was this crush that I told my best friend at the time. Who I later found out had it pretty bad for her as well. When he found out I was aiming to date her, he made his move early and landed the girl I liked. Dick move! We weren’t nearly as close after that. So there was the girl I wanted with my less than best friend now. I blamed myself for a lot of this mainly, because I was really nervous around girls I liked. I still am. Never girls that I didn’t think I had a chance with. The great weirdness of me. I can talk to 10’s without a care in the world, but give me a 5 -7 that I fancy and I get all flummoxed.  So I just existed after that. Just cruising through this crazy crowd and finding my affections with other girls in the group, as they showed theirs to me. Until one in particular took a very special shine to me. We’ll call her Toy. Toy had it bad for me, but there was another girl in the group with the same name. So when I was told she liked me, I asked the wrong girl out and got shot down hard. It took a while for me to realize it was the other and when I did... well enter my first real girlfriend.

I dated Toy for a while and in that time came to find out she used to date Ophelia's ex-boyfriend. Not only that she harbored a deep seated resentment towards her, for getting the man after her and had cheated with him while they were dating. Small world, they were all from Wichita. She was less excited when I was honest with her once and told her I had had a crush on Ophelia at one time. Still we put that behind us and sped through a pretty decent relationship. Well it lasted a year and had its ups and downs like any relationship does. Still I was sure it was going well even though I had yet to have sex with her. Still a virgin and was actually waiting for marriage. The first Christmas we had together I asked her parents if I could marry her. I’m an old romantic like that. They said yes. They liked me a lot. So I planned out my proposal. I have always been a romantic, so it had to be amazing. She already had a ring from her grandmother, she had always wanted to use as the wedding ring. I found a necklace with the same type of stone as her ring and went to get it. On the way out the door she caught me. She could read me like a book and must have known my intention. She stopped me cold and broke up with me on the spot. I was devastated. Never had I felt like that, I called and she talked me down. Still I couldn’t sleep well and the night to follow just got weirder. See her roommate threatened to kill her, so in her flight for safety she asked to stay/ move in with me. She told me we could get back together and see where things went. After only having recently broken, I felt this might be what we needed to mend our wounds. I was young and dumb. She moved into a two person house and the troubles were palpable. We actually ended up living together for 3 years. She would leave and stay with a friend of hers often, a fellow I had met on occasion, who was dating another girl. Turns out those two were engaged in more than friendship. Later I found out she had been cheating on me for quite a while. Having her live with me also caused me to lose my grant from the church I was at and that started the war my family had with that church thereafter. Still a virgin, mind you. I actually tried having sex with her once; to see if that would fix our relationship. Young and dumb, remember? She stopped me and told me I would regret it. Boy was she right. From here there were other girls that came and went. None too amazing to be notable. That was until I ran into Ophelia again. We stole ourselves away to Warped tour and had a grand time. The feelings I had rose to the surface again. She was single and so was I, but she disappeared into time again. I never got to act on those feelings at that time. Still I held this hope that she was the one, just bad timing. Bad timing indeed. Bad timing is and always has been the biggest Bane in my life.

Part 2- Get ready I’m about to lose my cherry!

#nerdsunite

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