Day 3: If you had to go back in time to change an event in your life, what would you choose?
I’m a hopeless romantic to a fault.
I was…
I am?
Back in college when Omegle was a thing and chat rooms were still significantly relative, I met a guy through our university chat room.
He was older than I was. I was a senior at the time and he was two years into the adult world.
Whenever I remember this moment, I can still feel the butterflies in my stomach and the blood pumping madly through me during that moment in time when I was supposed to be burying my nose on some shitload of tax-related cases but I ended up wasting my time online instead.
His name was Brian.
He was funny. A delight to chat with it, which is a rare find online if you ask me.
We spoke about our metro train system and how his daily commute consisted of him traveling from one station to the other, gasping for air in a sardine-can-like compartment.
We talked about How I Met Your Mother, which was about to end in a few months. We both loved the show and exchanged our thoughts on how it was going to end.
In the middle of the conversation, he briefly interrupted the flow by telling me that a rooster outside his house was already crowing and it was barely even sunrise.
He jested, “You had one job!”
Most of all – and the most endearing thing I adored about this person – was that he described himself as an “awkward turtle.”
AWKWARD TURTLE! Just like me!
It was magical. I still believe it was.
And of course, the hopeless romantic in me lit up like a firecracker.
I don’t remember how we ended our conversation, but we spoke the whole night through.
I had a graded recitation that morning. I barely read anything for it, but I didn’t give a fuck. I was too overwhelmed with what I was feeling.
It was a feeling I never thought I’d feel again.
Suddenly, excitement felt real. Dark clouds finally lifted up and a rainbow enveloped me in all its glory. Sunflowers were smiling in my head. Everything felt light, hopeful, and magical.
It felt like destiny blessed me.
Something woke up in me that night and for the first time in my life, I felt like I was ready to fall in love and be in love again.
Of course, the hopeless romantic in me wanted to test fate. I wanted to believe I could catch lightning in a bottle again, and boy, I did try.
I tried hard.
I spent a ton of nights hoping I could “bump into him” again online and I never did.
Not once.
(At least not online.)
Two years passed and my supposed mild infatuation for this guy became somewhat an obsession. He was such a mystery to me because our interaction sparked so much feelings in me that it was probably the peak of my childish, blindsided romanticism.
(And it really was.)
I searched for any details about him online (like a freak in hindsight.)
I did find his Facebook and actually left him a long-ass letter, expressing how thankful I am for the conversation.
I searched for him in the school yearbooks in our library. I tried to figure out where he worked, but my stalking was only really online.
It never (and I’m glad it never) went offline.
Completely, at least.
For two years, Brian – this random guy I came across a chat room – was my idea of ~The One~
He was destiny.
He was it.
If I was to be with a guy, Brian was it.
I firmly believed it with my all heart because I was completely overpowered with my romantic projections of him.
(Poor guy…)
So, IMAGINE MY UTTER SHOCK, when I actually physically saw him in a coffee shop.
Trust me, I WAS COMPLETELY SHOOKT.
There he was! Sitting across me! Physically! For two years I have been wondering where he is and THERE HE WAS! ACROSS FROM ME!!!
I panicked. I completely went haywire in my head.
I actually fucking felt like it was now or never!!
I was with a college friend when I saw him. My friend saw right through me. She knew I was freaking out.
The moment was there. Here it was.
Do I say hello? How do I even do that? What can I say? How do I introduce myself? Can I even introduce myself? Can I even just say hi?
With every fiber of my being, I mustered up the courage and washed away my dignity to actually approach him and say, “Hey, do you go to the same college as me? Are from the same building as me?”
(Ha! I was such a freak! God!)
Of course, he politely said, “Yes, but I studied in another building.”
“Oh. Okay. Yeah. Ah, sorry to bother you.”
Then I swiftly made an exit.
BUT, oh thy romantic self wasn’t satisfied. I felt like I needed to completely tell me my piece that I was thankful for the conversation.
(I really don’t know why I felt so strongly about thanking him. Even until now, I don’t know why.)
So, like the full-on stalker I’ve become that night, I tried to approach him one last time and actually chased up on him when he was on his way home.
“Hey!”
“Hey?”
“Uhhh…. I know this is gonna sound fucking awkward, but did you use to go to Omegle?”
“Uhhh… Yeah?”
“Yeah. Um, well, don’t ask me how I know, but we talked there before and I just wanted to say that I was grateful for the conversation.”
“Okay???”
“Okay? Yes? Okay. Nice to meet you. I’ll go now.”
“Nice to meet you too?”
It was fucking awkward.
How ever you imagine it, yes, it was that painfully awkward.
I really don’t remember what I said, but couldn’t believe I said it out loud.
I COULDN’T BELIEVE I DID THAT!!!
It was super, full-on stalker of me, I know, I KNOW!
But after that, the ~magical~ spell that was cast upon from two years ago was finally broken.
Once I have said what I wanted to tell Brian, I was done. I was over my lovestruck condition.
I didn’t yearn for him to be ~The One~ anymore.
I have moved on from him. From his spell. From the thought of him. The idea of him.
I know, reading through (and thank you if you have), it probably doesn’t sound like I did, but God knows I’ve screwed up every possible chance of actually being friends with the guy.
For God’s sake, I know I super freaked him out!
And man, I’m super sorry about that. I still feel super sorry about it three years after when the realization and the effect of my actions finally hit me in the head.
This became one long-ass intro for the answer to the prompt, but if I were to go back to that event, I should not have approached him the second time.
One embarrassment was enough.
One embarrassing stalker move was enough.
That said though, I still remember that week. It was quite an eventful week when destiny played its hand.
Prior to that incident, it was the week I resigned from my first job and I got accepted to my current one.
That week really felt like a climactic finish to a chapter in my life.
For one thing, my perception about love and romance made a 180-degree turn. I’m not too much about destiny anymore. It’s more of the philosophy of letting things flow the way it should be.
Don’t go expecting. Just let things be.
It’ll happen when it happens.
Um, to Brian, wherever you are, I’m super sorry for what I did.
I do hope you’re happy.
