Submitted by Drew, Age 21, Toronto
My first week on the campus residence at college was typical: meet a ton of new people, make a ton of new friends, get hammered, and preform various acts of debauchery.
During this first week I met Shari — rather she met me by coming into my room and telling me how sexy my computer was (It was all custom cut and lit up — this was before you could buy them like that). I was taken back by this for two reasons: Firstly, no girl has ever complimented my computer, nor would I ever expect a girl to. Secondly, Shari was stunning, I mean she was absolutely beautiful, I was entirely smitten with her since then.
As the week progressed (classes hadn’t started yet, it was a week long ‘frosh’) we hung out a few times, and I fumbled nervously, giving her compliments and trying to give off the right signals. Being the awkward geek I am, I failed — she ended up dating a guy with dreadlocks (who eventually became my full time weed dealer… but I digress…).
About a month into school a bunch of my friends ended up drunk and hanging out in my room after the bar one night (including her, but not her guy). As the night progressed, people started to dwindle away to their own rooms to pass out. Eventually, it was just Shari and I. She suggested we have a sleep over because she was ‘too tired’ to go back to her room. This was weird because her room was only a floor above mine. All she had to do to get to it was climb one flight of stairs — this didn’t dawn on me at the time however, I thought she was genuinely too tired. I instantly went into gentleman mode, and offered her my bed. The beds in the residence rooms are tiny, they reminded me of army cots, there was no way both of us were going to sleep in the same bed without at least some touching, and/or cuddling. This is where I made my mistake. Rather than curl up into bed with her (as I had thought about many times before), I opted to sleep on the floor. She had a boyfriend, and I was being a gentleman! Surely this was the way to her heart.
When she woke up the next morning, she asked why I slept on the floor, and I told her that there wasn’t enough room on the bed, and that I figured I’d do the gentlemanly thing and let her have the bed. She thanked me and left, but we stayed friends, and to this day she remains in my extended social circle.
The moral of the story? Damn the morals and go for it.