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Shortly after the disaster with the Sound Designer, I found myself single. I had ended it with College Pothead—or rather, we had ended it together in mutual annoyance—and nothing was happening with College History Class Guy. So it followed that I would develop a crush on somebody else. That somebody else came in the disastrous form of one of my most socially inept audio classmates, Gay-Sounding Squirrel Boy (GSSB). GSSB never shut up; he was constantly rabbiting on about something or other, totally oblivious of how irritating he really was. He wasn't stupid or crude or cruel, just a motor mouth. My classmates and I constantly complained behind his back. "God, that guy ___ is really annoying," one classmate complained one day before GSSB arrived. "Who's ___?" somebody else asked. "That little gay-sounding squirrel boy," somebody else explained, to instant understanding. "Ha ha! Gay-sounding squirrel boy!" We all roared with derisive laughter, only barely managing to contain ourselves before GSSB walked in. The unfortunate nickname stuck with him the entire semester, albeit of course only behind his back. A matter of days afterward, I sat in ProTools 5 (one of the audio production suites) with my classmates. While called a "suite," ProTools 5 was, like the rest of the ProTools suites, a tiny soundproof room. ProTools 5 was, unlike the other four ProTools suites, large enough for our class of fifteen or so people to jam into it, but there were only a handful of chairs. I usually arrived early so I could snag a chair, all the more important since I always wore a skirt. I sat down, and GSSB arrived shortly afterward and sat down next to me. I didn't think much of it till he made some passing remark to me. I was equal parts horrified and enthralled. An awkward friendship arose. Neither of us deliberately sought the other out, but when we saw each other in class, we would exchange pleasantries. Thusly, out of guilt, I stood up for him a few times, albeit a tad reluctantly (mostly out of fear of transparency). "We shouldn't make fun of him," I protested feebly. "He's nice enough. And he's smart. He knows what he's doing. But . . . damn." Mine seemed to be the common opinion. I let it go, wondering vaguely if GSSB were single, not that it would matter since he was far too annoying to date. It was just as well that I never pursued GSSB, for at the end of semester party, I overheard him say, "I do technically have a girlfriend." I have no idea what provoked that remark—probably somebody was teasing him about his gay-sounding squirrelishness—nor do I know what he meant by "technicially"; odds are, if you have to include "technically," it's not true—but at least I learned that he was not single. That was a relief, really; I was spared the social grief of even appearing to be interested in him. |