The Infamous One-Liners in the Dating Life of Jana Crandall Part 2

1.    “Story of my life, Jana.  Story of my life.”

2.    “Do you like Chocolate?”

Scene 3

I had recently moved into a new apartment complex at the beginning of another semester at uni (I’m going all euro-sophisticated with my word choice.  Boo yah).  New apartment means new boys.  I was slightly hoping for a smattering of impressive fresh-faced young gents in this part of the neighborhood while in the mean-time not really looking.  Although, aren’t we always looking, even when we say we aren’t?  It’s just a natural part of us.  Someone once told me that we are born wired to find a partner in life.  Maybe that’s why even four year-old girls in pigtails are dying to play kissy face with four year old boys with fingers up their noses.  Moving on….no one really caught my attention my first week in the new area.  But apparently I had caught someone else’s at church on my first Sunday.  

He just showed up at my apartment one night.  Weird, since I never told him where I lived upon meeting him.  He made sure to find out from someone else, though, and the first thing he said to me was, “Can I take you out this weekend?”  I was quite taken aback by his persistence and didn’t know really what to say other than, “Yes.”  So, he took me out and we actually had a good time.  I soon thereafter found out that not only did we attend church together but we had a class together as well, and he was quick to observe this and found himself comfortable in the seat next to me on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I didn’t mind so much until he asked me out again…and then…again.

After about three weeks, I started getting a little fidgety in my seat next to him.  I liked him well enough and I enjoyed his company except when he made really blunt comments about his uh…attraction to me.  It made me uncomfortable how he seemed so confident that he was successfully pursuing me.  The only thing I could think of to ward him off was to give him one word answers when talking to me and book it out of class before he could catch up to me.  He picked up on this and decided to fix things. 

He asked me to go for a drive with him.  I wasn’t sure why, but I had a hunch that he was going to once again express his feelings for me.  I said yes only so that I could have to opportunity to turn him down once and for all.  He drove me out to the middle of Nowhere, Idaho and parked his truck.  I got a little nervous right then.  I don’t like guys driving me out to unknown places. I don’t care if he’s nice!  I just don’t like it.  

Right then he looked me straight in the eye and said, “Jana, I want you to be my girlfriend.”

AWKWARD SILENCE

“Look, I can’t be your girlfriend.  You’re a nice guy, but I’m not really interested in being more than friends.  Plus I’m leaving school to go on a mission.” 

AWARD SILENCE

“ARRRRRRRRRRGH.”

I was telling the truth!  It’s so hard to tell the truth sometimes.  I really wasn’t interested and I really was leaving in the next four months to go to Italy and I wasn’t going to start a relationship with anyone.  He looked at me and then wagged his head reeeeaaaal slowly and said dramatically, “Story (pause) of my life, Jana.  Story of MY life.”  

Oh dear.

He drove me home in silence and I let myself out of his truck.  He continued to ignore me for two more weeks or so, but then came and sat next to me again in class one day. Just before class started he began talking with his friend sitting on the other side of him about girls.  Then his friend said, “So, whatever happened to that girl you liked?” completely unaware that I was THAT girl.  I stared at the floor waiting to hear his answer.  I saw out of the corner of my eye his smug little smirk.  He said, “She says she can’t date me because she’s going on a mission.”  And the friend let out a, “AWWWW MAN! That’s the worst, dude.  That’s what my girlfriend said to me, too!”  And then they continued to sympathize with each other.  Oh gosh…..

I put that young man behind me and expected to never see him again, until I heard he was pursuing my sister…but that’s another story.

Scene 4

My story, here, about this young man could go on for days and days and days.  So much drama and so many ups and downs.  But I have chosen to write only one story about this young man (for now):

I met him while on a mission for my church.  He was a fellow missionary and good one at that.  I admired him and thought he was a hard worker.  He helped me with my Italian at meal times and encouraged me often to push myself harder.  I was grateful for his help and when we went our separate ways once in Italy, we stayed in touch with an occasional letter.  

At the end of our missionary service, this young fellow got back in touch with me through that good ol’ Facebook.  I had stopped writing him in Italy because his letters started getting really personal and it made me uncomfortable.  He was happy to be in contact again and picked up right where he left off.  I didn’t mind as long as I knew I would never see him again.  I liked him as a person, but he was making me uncomfortable with how personal he got with me.  He then started writing things to me about how he feels about me and I realized that our friendship was over and he was pushing for something a little more…personal, like I said!  I ignored his messages until he told me that he was transferring to the same university as me!  And he was determined to see me again.  I wrote back with a little message that said something like, “Oh yay!  You’re going to love BYU Idaho!”  Meanwhile, I started plotting out escape routes so I could avoid him on campus.

One evening I left my Facebook chat on too long and up popped this young man.  I had a choice:  I could stay and chat, or I could quickly log off.  In the past I had always logged off, but I decided that this time, I should stay on and say hi.  After all, he was my friend…  

The conversation started out friendly until out of nowhere he wrote, “I think we should date.” Uh oh.  This isn’t going to be fun.

Ok.  There are two things that I don’t like about this:

1.    He hasn’t seen me in two years and he wants to date me.

2.    He used FACEBOOK to tell me how he feels.

I wrote NOTHING.

He continued, “I’ve been praying about it and I feel like we really should go on a date as soon as you get back to Idaho.  I’ve been inspired that we should try this.”

Seriously?!  I continued to write NOTHING.

“I feel like we’ve known each other our whole lives.  I feel like we knew each other in heaven before we were born!  You feel it, too?!”

I wrote, “haha.”  What else could I say?  I was at a loss for words.  A complete loss.

His final sentence was, “DO YOU LIKE CHOCOLATE?! Hahahahahah!”

WHAT?!  Oh goodness, what am I supposed to say to that?!  You see, he’s originally from South America but people always think he’s African American.  I had no response to that dumb question.  I could write another, “haha.”  

“Or do you like white chocolate?  You need a little flava in your life! HAHAHAHAH!”

I wasn’t about to get myself into this.  I signed off right then and expected to never hear from him again.  This guy was CRAZY!  

I unsuccessfully hid from him when I returned to uni.  I saw him the first day and he yelled out my name loud and clear for the whole world to hear!  I gave him a half hug, an uncomfortable laugh and told him we should catch up later.

I never expected to talk to him again…until…he met my sister and started to pursue her…but that’s another CRAZY story.