I Really Was This Stupid.

I was not a blackout drinker for many years, so I actually remember my first frat party. I remember the long wooden bar, the kegs, the innumerable red cups – full and empty, beer sloshing onto the floor. I remember music so loud it was impossible to talk.

I remember being grateful for the din, because I never knew what to say anyway. I remember watching people push through the crowds, seemingly going somewhere, following people around with no discernible reason.

What I remember best from that first party, though, was Scott. Looking aimlessly around, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, I noticed a guy across the room with the deepest, darkest brown eyes I’d ever seen. He was tall and gorgeous and – I swear – he kept looking at me. I glanced away every time I saw him looking, quickly staring at the floor so he didn’t know I wanted another glimpse at his eyes.

I don’t remember what he said after making his way across the room but, even drunk, I trembled. I didn’t know how to talk to boys, and this one was a senior.

“Do you wanna get outta here?” Scott said.

He likes me, I thought. I thought the invitation to leave meant that he wanted to talk somewhere quieter. My parents met in college, so I thought this was how relationships started. I had visions of marriage and little brown-eyed babies.

I thought that a good-looking guy noticing me meant hope for my future. I would have done cartwheels across the roof if this guy had asked me to do them.

We didn’t really talk at all.

Things were different in college, but I wasn’t different. I was still a girl who believed in love, romance and magic. I believed in fairy tales. I was ridiculously naive. If a guy paid me even the least little bit of attention, I fell in love.

I need to make this one fact very, very clear: I really was this stupid.

And when Scott ignored me later, I learned absolutely nothing. Instead, I determined that a gorgeous guy taking me to his room gave me some sort of prestige. I had to believe some good came from it.

I was screamingly, achingly, desperately lonely and all I wanted in the entire world was for someone to like me. I wanted someone to actually talk to me, get to know me, and decide that I was worthy. God knows that I did not know this about myself. I needed that validation, and I sought it through men.

But it was rare that anyone spent enough time with me to find out my desires and beliefs, or discover what kind of person I was. Only a handful of men got to know me and didn’t take advantage of my desperation.

The ones who didn’t push me are the men are I remember best. I remember their names, their smiles, their kindness. They’re the men I still adore today; they’re the angels in my story.

Scott was the first college guy who “liked” me enough to invite me to his room. He was not the last.

As time went on and I frequented more and more frat parties, and more and more guys invited me to their rooms, I didn’t feel so lonely … at first. A few years after this trend started, I realized I’d never been so lonely in my life.

But it took a long time and a lot of painful nights to get to that point.

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