Blerina- I Will Always Choose Plausible Over Possible

Blerina- I Will Always Choose Plausible Over Possible

            Every year, budget allowing, the University I attended holds a conference on the ‘Holocaust & Genocide,’ in which any number of presenters will hold seminars on various topics.  It’s quite fantastic.  Many professors will offer credit for attending seminars; however, they are enthralling on their own.  I remember getting out of class on Thursday, in the middle of the event, but decided to go anyway, inspect the layout and get an itinerary.  Because the sessions were already underway by the time I got there, I felt it best not to interrupt and come back later, until I saw the seminar titled: Holocaust and Albania: A Story of Courage and Survival.  This session peaked my interest because I had, over the past few years, met and became very good friends with a man who hailed from Albania.  I’m also a gigantic Simpsons fan and if you know the show well, then you know someone on the creative team has a peculiar interest in Albania, but I digress.  I really wanted to attend the session in order to have a discussion with my friend, so I about-faced and decided to quietly enter the session late.  I entered the room with almost no stir to the audience, sat in the back row, and began to assess the situation.  As a history major, I was fascinated with the substance of the current speaker; Albania’s involvement in WWII, which is largely unappreciated.  As a single, heterosexual male, I was fascinated with the mysterious woman just across the aisle.

            Her shoulder length black hair, not held back by any contraption, hid her profile slightly.  But I felt like she didn’t fit the surroundings.  She was younger, seated in between two older adults.  She was dressed professionally, which left me wondering why she was there.  She was too young to present.  Students and observers wouldn’t dress up to attend a session.   Maybe, I thought, she was there to accompany a presenter.  I tried hard not to get lost in thoughts about just her because I was there, after all, to learn a thing or two.  But when the current presenter finished and the next was called up, all academics were lost in a state of optimistic, desperate daydreaming as she approached the podium.   ‘My God is she attractive’ I thought as she began her presentation about her book, in some state of publishing, of which I can only remember it was about the Albanian/Greek education system.  I missed most of what she said because I was focused on finding a reason to talk to her, I had to.  If you know this blog, then you know the most fundamental point of it is that when I’m faced with the choice of now or never, I choose now, regardless of the ramifications.  Somewhere along the way it hit me, just ask her about her book and tell her why you’re interested in Albania (my friend), and the rest will work out, which is what I did.  The final presenter of the session was absent, so after her, it wrapped up.  I approached her in an academic, inquiring manner, hiding how beautiful I thought she was.

            We talked for a few minutes, I impressed her with my interest in Albania, and she impressed me by being not only gorgeous, but also educated and driven.  We were interrupted slightly by the older gentleman whom she sat next to (her father as it turned out) handing me his business card; he owned a hotel in Tirana.   He didn’t speak much English, so he didn’t interrupt for long.  The conversation turned from the purely practical to the personal and we both enjoyed it.  She had given me her business card, which meant I knew where and how to get a hold of her.  This relaxed the conversation on my end.  Their travel plans were hotel, airport, Albania.  I was content because ‘never’ was not the only option.  After a few days, I composed an email that mentioned Facebook.  After a few more days I had a reply on both mediums, she had found my Facebook account and sent me a request.  Needless to say, I was ecstatic about this. 

            For the next month or two, we met online and chatted about lives lived and lives’ yet to live; authors, musicians, and cultures among other things.  I tried to learn Albanian and she stumbled sometimes on my English.  I would Google translate things into Albanian like, “good night my dear, I go to bed thinking of you and will wake with the same thoughts.”  And she would warn me about the defects of Google translate.  Because I am ever the optimist, and because I absolutely love to travel, I had, in my mind, envisioned myself travelling to Albania to see.  The reality of us being 4,700 miles away from each other ruled her mindset.  She also felt, pertaining to the culture there, that a fleeting, whimsical, possibly impossible relationship in terms of tangibility was futile for her and that she ought to pursue more possible suitors.  I think here we encounter a differing ideology.  The American spirit says that anything is possible no matter who says why, where, when, and how it is not.  Alexis de Tocqueville observed America in the early 1800s and noted how our “equality of conditions” made us unique from the rest of the world.  While we are physically and economically unequal, the conditions allow the chance for equality for all and the equal treatment by the State.  This has led us to believe that anything is possible for anyone at anytime, given enough effort because the government won’t hold us back.  Did I consider moving to Albania? Mildly.  Did I consider asking her to move to America? Mildly.  I’m not going to pretend that this wasn’t the most elaborate long-distance relationship I endeavored to pursue and that it’s improbability didn’t strike me.  But to me, improbable is not impossible.  I always choose plausible over possible.  Being possible eliminates options; it’s restraining.  Being plausible means it can happen, let’s just figure out how it can happen.  One is limiting and one is expanding.  Even though I have not heard from Blerina in a number of years, this is why I still have her & her father’s business cards.  My Albanian friend is back living in Albania and I have plans to visit him as soon as I hit the lottery.  When I do go, I’ll make sure and drop in on that hotel, just to see.

           

           

           

Nicole: The Lottery Never Fails to Fail

Nicole: The Lottery Never Fails to Fail

            Preface: My spirituality goes through phases depending on whom I’m interacting with most at the time.  I like this because it always keeps me thinking and it always keeps me asking.  The one thing I can’t help but do is, when I come across a story-worthy girl, approach the situation like it might be fate.  If a girl peaks my interest, I investigate the circumstances around our meeting and suppose.  Why not? What’s more romantic than fate? 

Nicole and I were coworkers for a short time and her beauty did not strike me on first impression for a number of reasons.  Firstly, I was walking into a professional setting and the last thing I wanted to do was cause a schism of unease around the office; I was there to work.  Secondly, she wasn’t the most warming, inviting of people.  Her greeting to me was a simply put, “hey.”  But over time, as I grew comfortable with the people around me and Nicole’s and my interactions increased, her beauty began to amaze me. 

            Let’s see… how to describe her?  Nicole was a personified dichotomy.  She had flaws that she was aware of, which might have been her most attractive feature had she not had these fantastic eyes that I repeatedly had to catch myself from getting lost in, but many flaws that she was not aware of as well.  She dyed her hair an unnatural, reddish color, which shows a willingness to stand out as well as a discomfort with herself.  She had a tremendous worldview, which I would classify as idealistic at some points and realistic at others.  The flaw with her was that her worldviews varied according her needs.  She was athletically curvy which shows an attention to health but not an over-concern for vanity.  The point here is that in Nicole, there was potential for our flaws and our attributes to complement and contrast very nicely.  Did I mention she was single? She was.  And around my age as well.  The occurrences were stacking up.

            We had a nice rapport going as the only two people in the office not in a committed relationship.  We laughed, we joked, we worked, and we learned, about each other.  I knew she was leaving her position in a few weeks, so I told myself to hold off on any dating suggestions until then, when we would no longer be coworkers.  One day, when discussing things somewhat related to dating, she showed me her profile on a dating APP, and jealousy hit me clear across the face.  I hid it well though; I hid it completely.  As I proved myself a coworker of keen intellect, she asked me if I would help her edit her ‘personal statement’ to be included in her published work.  I accepted.  I did a complete and objective edit or her write-up and then asked her for a private meeting to go over my suggestions.

            I had three things on my agenda for that meeting, which all transpired as planned.  First, we discussed my suggestions.  Then, as my nerves started tightening up, I told her a story (if you read my blogs, it was the Jenny and Her Options story).  The moral to the Jenny story was that Jenny had two options: one was me and the other was another, and had there not been a lapse in time and a waste of opportunity, Jenny might have chose me and not the other.  Nicole liked the story but wondered why I told it to her.  This brought me to the third part of my agenda.  I told her, “I was planning on waiting until you were no longer a coworker to mention this, but as I see that you are actively pursuing dating, I think you should consider dating me.”  I didn’t want another Jenny repeat where if I had mentioned it sooner, I might have been the choice.  This caught Nicole of guard; she obviously didn’t entertain fate the way I did.  She smiled and asked me why.  Because we had a window and could see that we were about to be interrupted, I succinctly answered, “Because I think you’re fantastic,” which I did.

            I told Nicole that this would not change our office relationship and it didn’t on my end.  I still think Nicole is fantastic.  However, our interactions dwindled, and she became very standoffish.  We occasionally shared a laugh and a joke.  At times, we gave each other advice.  But something changed and I can’t tell who changed it.  Was it her for becoming standoffish when I carried on with normal office business?  Or was it me for changing the nature of our relationship by proposing a different one?  An argument could be made either way.

            So, it comes time for the office Christmas party and the exchange of gifts.  The premises here were that the gifts were to be applicable to anyone/everyone and had a very modest price limit.  Everyone was given a number at random and selected a wrapped gift sequentially.  Upon distribution, everyone was given a chance to exchange their wrapped gift with another, again done sequentially.  The personal premise here was that the day before, I had incurred a significant financial burden, which I was not ready to bear.  I remember going home that night and telling myself to go buy some lottery tickets to see if I couldn’t put the scratch together.  After all, what better way to make some fast, legal money than the lottery right?

            We all had our gifts and I told myself that when my number came up, I would refuse to exchange.  For me, this was a humanitarian decision based on the thinking that most people would be exchanging.  But one of our coworkers, to me, seemed way too possessive of the gift she chose.  She went right for it when her number was drawn and she seemed almost to be cradling it when seated.  I exchanged our gifts and told her that it was not because I wanted her gift, but because she did.  A number of exchanges transpired and my number came up again.  I then gave the gift that I had taken from her back to her, hoping to instill a comedic moral message.  However, the gift that I had given to her was exchanged for another.  I now possessed a gift different from the one I had chosen and different from the one I had traded for.  Some more gifts were exchanged blindly throughout the dozen or so employees at the table, but no one seemed interested in mine.  We opened our gifts and exchanged thank you’s.  My gift was a bag comprised of a few lottery tickets and some chocolates.  The stranger gift choices got their due explanations and the more interesting gifts got their reverence.  During a small break in the conversation, I asked the table, “Who gave the lottery tickets?”  Nicole replied that it was she.  I thanked her and she reciprocated, not knowing that her gift, which required maybe 30 seconds of thought and 2 minutes of time, was in fact the perfect gift for me given my prior days’ anxiety.  As I pondered the situation, those tickets became not just a chance to win some fast money, but a symbol of fate.  I told myself that a winning ticket meant our fate was to be together and if they all were losers, that fate meant for us to be apart.  Because we still had time together at the office, I couldn’t bear to face her knowing that all optimism on my part was futile, so I held off on scratching the tickets. 

            During the time that Nicole had left at the office, we shared what had become run-of-the-mill interaction.  When I asked her if she could answer a question, she approached the question with skepticism.  My questions were always business-oriented, but tentativeness on her part supposed that they were of a romantic nature, which is why she tried to field as few of them as possible.  It’s safe to say that our inquiries into each other personally grew stale; hers because she supposed, and mine because I recognized the withdrawal. 

            Supposing fate might be a fault of mine, but I it does an injustice to people not to do so.  One of our coworker came in and announced that over the weekend, he got engaged.  Naturally, people inquired about the announcement.  Nicole championed the timeframe of their relationship and said, “if it was meant to be, why rush it?”  To which I countered, “But if it was meant to be, and they both knew it, then why wait?”  The relationship between Nicole and I has run its course to this point; my last words to her were, “I wish you well in your future plans and I hope to encounter you again.” 

While not the fate that I had envisioned, I recognize that this may be the end of our fate.  My idealism says that another encounter in the future might bring different results.  My realism says the opposite, which is why I still have the lottery tickets, unscratched, because to me, no matter what the monetary gain, they’re all losers.

Kristen- A Devious Beauty

            Part of what I like about summer classes is the fact that the campus isn’t over crowded.  There is always a parking space and the classes are smaller and filled with more attentive people.  They also give me a chance to get noticed.  I don’t know if Kristen noticed me when we both got out of our cars at the same time, but I sure noticed her.  I remember thinking “man, I hope she’s going to the class I’m going to.”  And in fact, she was.

            My first glance at Kristen made me skip a breath or two.  Her eyebrows were pronounced, both pointing to her sleek nose which was fixed above her mouth that, even in a frown has a way of smiling.  She had a devious beauty that I found irresistible.  I watched her walk toward the building in a white tee shirt and a pair of red athletic shorts and noticed that the girl had curves.  It’s safe to say that she drove me nuts from the get go.      

            This class was an even more condensed class than the usual summer class.  It took a little over two weeks to complete and we spent the majority of the time observing criminal court cases downtown at the courthouse… it was a wonderful class, one of my favorites.  I arranged a carpool for a few of my classmates and myself to get downtown in tandem and after a few days Kristen made her way to the back seat of my car to and from court.  We spent a lot of time in each others vicinity during the class but no time doing what I wanted to be doing, talking to her.  It was almost all group talk, as it should be after all, we were being graded.  One of the conversations, per Kristen’s input, stuck out in my mind.

            The court was taking a break so by default the class was taking a break as well.  We chatted about random things, I tried to keep it as court related as I could, but one young man mentioned a friend, I think, who had Crohn’s disease and how he had lost a ton of weight because of it.  I’m not sure why it was brought up or what the relevance was but I took note to Kristen’s response.  Actually I took offense to it.

            “I wish I had Crohn’s disease,” she said “that way I could be skinny.”

 Now I could tell it was a throw away remark but as the cliché goes “there’s a little bit of truth behind every ‘just kidding.’”  I remember thinking “if this girl doesn’t know how drop dead sexy she is, than someone in her life isn’t doing their job.”  I felt compelled to tell her this, but not right away… when the time was right.

Over the next few days class and court went on as scheduled.  The carpool put me very near, but not alone with Kristen and I found no opportunity to address something of a personal nature.  By the end of the first week I had pulled her quickly aside and said “at some point, I have something to say, kind of in response to something you said the other day.”  She was clueless as the remark for her was a throw away, but it stuck with me.  ‘Okay’ she told me and we went back to the class.  And for the remainder of the time I waited until the opportunity was right.  But the chance never presented itself.  I had to make one.

One conversation that I overheard during the carpool was how Kristen and another carpool member lived literally a couple houses away from each other in the same apartment complex.  Had she known I was paying as close attention to her personal details as I was, she probably wouldn’t have blurted out her address so quickly.  It’s also quite possible that because after the class was over she was done with school and leaving the apartment for good and didn’t care.  I prefer the version where I was sly.

So on the last day my car unloaded the pool for the last time and we went our separate ways.  After fifteen minutes or so I found myself parked next to Kristen’s car outside her house.  I walked up and knocked on her door.  She answered, surprised.  I had to reassure her that she told everyone where she lives, I did not stalk her.  At this point she remembered that I had something to say.

I quoted her earlier remark about Crohn’s disease and the part about being skinny.  She smiled upon remembering the remark and said quickly about how it was just a joke.  I gestured with my hands for her to hear me out, because if she didn’t believe that, even slightly, then she wouldn’t have said it.  So I told her,

“A remark like that undermines how truly gorgeous you really are... and I mean that.” 

She thanked me but apparently didn’t fall head over heels in love with me which left us just standing there.  My task was done. I had said what I wanted to say, which pleased her but it was time to move on.  She didn’t say goodbye so we chatted.  And in case you didn’t know, I’m a talker.  We talked and I let no awkward pauses fill our conversation, but with her leaving for home, where was it going to go?  We exchanged numbers and agreed to make an attempt to hang out again.  My attempt was whole hearted, hers was not I’m sure, and that’s not derogatory.  It was a weird situation in which I refused to let it be weird.  Had it gotten awkward I’d probably be ending this story with the proverbial ‘never heard from her again.’  It wasn’t and that’s why I still have the hope that I will get to see her devious beauty again sometime.

Jenny and Her Options

I am the only child of four that still lives in the same area as our mother.  The other three have moved off to other cities and I am left with the burden and pleasure of being a short drive away from ‘home.’  My mother stops by with little to no purpose; sometimes she brings food, sometimes a newspaper clipping.  One time she went above and beyond the standard call of motherly duty when she stopped by and told me that “I’ve found a girl for you.”

The girl was Jen and she did my mother’s hair, and as we know, little old ladies and their hairdressers get quite chatty.  I gathered information about what was said between the two of them about me.  Apparently I was brought up, strategically, around talks of Jen’s current dating situation; thankfully no baby pictures were involved.  It was agreed upon between my mother and Jen, that if I were to get in touch with her we would get acquainted.  Jen offered, after my mother quite perplexed I’m sure as to how, that Facebook was the place to meet.  Facebook, as a phone number, was new to me.

“She’s cute,” my mother said to me. “She has short brown hair and is really very pretty and cute.”  I didn’t put up much of a fight.

I looked Jen up as soon as my mother left, but had to plan a better time to ‘call’ then literally half of an hour after my mother got her hair cut.  I did however; look her up for some investigative purposes as soon as the door had closed behind my mother.  It turned out that Jen and I knew a lot of the same people.  A few of whom I was going to be seeing in a few days.

A friend of mine, Jeremy, had moved out of town and was coming to town for a visit.  He, his brother Corey, Eric (you’ve all met Eric before in earlier stories) and I were going to spend some time together.  All three of them knew Jen, so I sent a ‘Friend Request’ and went to see my friends… I made it a point to bring up Jen’s name.

Jeremy told stories of knowing Jen’s older brother and a running joke between them about when the ‘little sister’ grew up.  Corey added his input.

“I think if you can hook that up, you definitely should.” He said.

Eric said nothing.  He looked at me with a serious, stern face and nodded his head in a quiet approval.  I was not searching for approval for my mind was already made up in pursuance, it was interesting however, that three of my close friends knew her, yet I had no knowledge of her existence.  I went to work and had to wait anxiously to see if Jen would respond.

I got off work early that night and came home to find that Jen had accepted the request.  After a few minutes of staring at my computer the chat window popped up.  It was Jen and we exchanged hellos.

“Here’s the deal.”  My window exclaimed.  Upon reading this I knew the fate of Jennifer and I lay in the negative.  It’s rare that something good comes from a sentence that begins with ‘here’s the deal.’  Jen was at the very beginning stages of courtship with another man and felt it unfair to him if we pursued anything romantic.  I felt it unfair to me, to write me off without ever actually meeting me so I offered that we meet and hang out… as friends, and she could pick the pretenses.

“Ok,” she replied, “but just as friends.”

My affirming of this notion of ‘just as friends’ was in actuality a partial lie for even though I am capable of being ‘just friends’ with a women I had already attached an expectation to our meeting, and that was unfair to her.  I just didn’t want her to give up on me, before she actually met me.  But the ‘hang out’ stalled, and has yet to happen.

Jen and I did meet one day a few months later, but not under any of the pretenses we had discussed.  I was in the liquor store buying a bottle of wine when Jen and her now boyfriend walked by.  At first I attempted to remain anonymous because of the presence of her boyfriend.  I don’t think she saw me, and if she did then I don’t think she recognized me.  And if she did, then she wanted to remain anonymous as well.  As I stood in line I thought to myself.  ‘First, you’re being ridiculous and immature.  Second, this is a chance to meet her… who cares what the situation is?  Who knows when this opportunity will present itself again?’ So I walked over to Jen and her boyfriend and introduced myself.  It was a bit awkward for them I’m sure so I made it brief.  I complimented the man on his choice of whiskey, exchanged some banter and returned to my purchase. 

I have yet to get used to the idea that, with the popularity and vastness of online social networks, you can meet and get to know someone personally without ever actually meeting them.  So when the opportunity presents itself to talk to a girl as beautiful as Jen, regardless of the circumstances… you take it.  For it may be the only opportunity.  Jen and I are still connected virtually, and this story will be her birthday present.  But I am still left with the hope that the day in the liquor store was not our only meeting, whatever the pretenses.