A Big One

Day 27: It would be a mostly true thing to say that, before coming here, I considered myself relatively safe from running afoul of any romantic interests or entanglements. And it’s not just because I think it would be creepy to date someone more than a decade younger than me.

No. No wait. That’s a lie. That’s exactly the reason: Dating someone a decade younger than me would be creepy. Creepy and annoying. And weird. It would be creepy and annoying and weird for me.

And that’s a personal preference. Such an arrangement works for plenty of other people who are in happy, healthy, fulfilling relationships with people 10, 20, or even 30 years their junior and I say, “More power to them!” I think it’s great, insomuch as I wouldn’t have (nor have I ever had) any problem dating someone 10+ years older than me. Even a lot more than 10+.

I wouldn't feel like I was robbing the cradle or anything like that. I’m comfortable with my own choices. It’s just... them. The twenty-something.

They're... twenty-something.

Twenty-somethings tend to be boring. As in completely uninteresting. As in predictable, unoriginal, meme-regurgitating, proto-humans nigh incapable of independent thought, scrambling about trying disassociate themselves from expectations, eager to discover and define themselves. And I think that is all necessarily so. And maybe that opinion makes me a bit of a ageist. 

Ok, that definitely makes me an ageist. A big one. 

So... caveat lector... or something.

I know firsthand that those things aren’t true of all twenty-somethings, but I’ve had enough personal experience to have formed a “reasonable” preference. But who knows? I could meet a twenty-two old tomorrow who completely changes my mind. I’m comfortable admitting that part of me is more or less open to that possibility. I say "more or less" because I regard the prospect of such a thing as likely as me winning the lottery. Which, I hear tell, you can't win without playing. 

And I have no intention of playing. So I didn't prepare. 

And now he's sitting directly across from me.

Most mornings, I find myself in the library before 9 am. Being a creature of habit, I choose the same seat in front of the same computer each morning. Each morning, so far, there's been a bearded someone sitting just across from me. But it wasn't until today that I noticed him.

As in, "I noticed him".

As in, "I took more time than usual deciding what to wear this morning, and couldn't figure out why". As in, "I skipped breakfast at the Student Union, skipped up the stairs to the library, and nearly tripped over myself getting to my usual seat". As in, "I felt all kinds of funny and uncomfortable in that good sort of way, that feeling that begs to either be acted upon or violently murdered and buried".

I have a crush. I have a library crush. And I have named my Library Crush "LC". Or "Libeary" - (Barry, for short [and for pun]). And, much to my delight (and quite against the grain of my lengthy caveat), he does not appear to be twenty-something. At all. 

Nonetheless, I'll be keeping my distance. Just to be safe. And I will continue to pretend I am going to the library for reasons other than Barry. Because I have work to do.

Library work.

*ahem*