In October of 2007, one week before my birthday I was at a Springdale football game. It was a normal October night, partly cloudy and definitely very cold. The wind hissed through the trees like a whisper in your ear, with the slight smell of mist in the air. I was running late so I ran in to see my friends Daniel and Julie, who at the time I liked, though I had no idea the life changing experience that was going to happen that night.
“Hey Dan and jewels what’s up?” I said with a grin on my face.
“Nothing much” they both said almost in sync.
“We are losing pretty badly why are you late dude?” said Dan
“Sorry my grandpa was running late as normal. You all know how that goes”
We all laughed and I heard a fourth laugh that I had not heard before. I wondered to myself, who is that and where did it come from. I looked over to the other side of Julie and saw a tall girl with beautiful, curly, brown hair standing there.
“Hi I’m Tyler, I’m sorry I didn’t see you there” I said with a little smirk.
She replied with an angelic smile “Hi, I’m Alyssa, Julie’s friend”
I thought to myself “wow she is beautiful, I am going to go stand next to her.”
I kind of hustled over to her side trying not to let anyone know what I was doing
“Hi how’s it going? It’s kind of cold out tonight huh?” I said in a very shy manner
“It’s going well and yes very cold.” I hear a phone ringing coming from her pocket
“Oh I’m sorry that’s my Boyfriend Kurtis I am going to talk to him.”
“ok.” I said in rather sad manner thinking “dang she has a Boyfriend that sucks”
With Alyssa talking on the phone in the background
“Hey Julie, I have never met her before.” I said in a partly giddy and partly sad expression on my face.
Julie replied kind of chuckling under her breath “Ya she is one of my friends have been for a few years.”
Daniel butted in saying “she is really cool”
I smiled thinking “wow she is amazing, what is this feeling. I have liked many girls why does this feel so
different?” my mind was wandering, thinking, daydreaming of what it would be like to be with her. What it would be like to be called her boyfriend, but then I kept getting drawn back to her already having a boyfriend.
“She is sitting over there talking to him” I kept thinking to myself
Then she came over, back to our group I smiled thinking she was getting off the phone but she didn’t. She stood there talking on the phone while we were all watching the game. My heart sunk, standing here listening to her so into the phone call. “I wanted to talk to Julie and Daniel about liking her but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just met her, why is this happening. I like Julie, I think. “Every time she looked my direction my heart would beat a thousand beats per minute. She would look at me with this “he is cute” kind of look on her face that made everything just that much worse. Finally after another half hour she got off the phone.
“hey sorry about that we don’t get to talk much” she said directing it towards me.
“it’s ok no biggie we were just watching the game anyway” I replied
Alyssa said with a cute grin on her face “so do you have a MySpace?”
“no I don’t why?”
“oh really? You should make one” she said
“ok” I replied. “sounds good to me. Until then do you have an e-mail?”
“yes its yaddayaddaetcetc@hotmail.com, send me a message tonight?”
“ummm ok I guess I could do that” I said jumping for joy inside
We messaged for several days until I went to youth group four days later and we saw each other there. I was so excited to see here I couldn’t contain myself, but I had to.
“Hi Alyssa how are you?” I said
“I’m doing ok I guess.” She replied with a hint of sadness in her voice.
“ok, are you doing ok you seem kind of sad.” I asked trying to figure out what was going on.
She said “Ya I’m fine I will talk to you about it later, does that sound ok?”
“Ya sure anything I can do to help, I’m here”
Later that night on e-mail
Me:
I realize that this may be a weird question seeing as I don’t know you that well, but in my mind you have already become a good friend. If I like a girl, but don't know whether she likes me. What should I do? She is a friend and I don't want to ruin that if she doesn't like me. Anyway I would appreciate any advice that you can give me. Thanks
Alyssa:
well that’s ok you are a good friend to me too. well depends I have had the experience the first we are not really friends any more we still talk but not as much. the second if you know you are still going to be friends go for it with the second person I still talk to the same I did before. so it just depends.
oh if you don’t mind telling me who is it is ok if you don’t but I just want to know
Me:
Umm.... this person I don’t know super well so I don’t know if I would still be friends with her. I would sure hope that I could still be friends with her, but it would mostly be up to her. My experience with asking my friends out is that I have lost several friends that way so I am a little scared. I don't even know really why I like her. Just anytime I am around her I feel really happy and when I’m not all I can think about is when I am going to see her again.. I would prefer not to tell you who it is. At least not over an e-mail.
Alyssa:
ya for me it depends on who it is ya so you can tell me tonight ok!!!! I’ll talk to you tonight
the next Friday night at another football game.