Gregory

My second year in college, I was on a leadership team in the dorms. There were about 30 of us, and many of us got to be really close friends.

As is often the case in situations like this, we all figured out who our crushes were going to be during the first week of training.

Unfortunately for me, my crush happened to be the same crush as everyone else.

Let me tell you.

Gregory was hot stuff (probably still is).

First, he was sexy as hell. I don't exactly know what it was that made him this way. He wasn't exactly well dressed. He often wore basketball shorts or loose fitting jeans and a t-shirt. He wore crocs. I mean, seriously. Crocs. He did have good hair and a strong-chinned baby face (is this possible?). I think, though, that it had a lot to do with the confidence. The swagger, if you will. He knew what he was about, and he wasn't about to change for anyone.

So none of us asked him to. Instead, we swore that we would change everything about ourselves for him.

I mean, I seriously considered becoming a vegetarian. And I love bacon.

But the thing about Gregory is that he really was awesome. He was into Jesus, he was a feminist, he was a pacifist, he was gay friendly. These were all values that I held really strongly, and ones that were kind of difficult to find all together in the same person. So I fell completely in love with him.

The thing is, I actually did a smart thing.

I told him about it.

Of course, he was a complete sweetheart about it. He said that I was awesome (true), but that he wasn't dating. For Jesus. At the time, I swooned. Now, I think it was very possibly bullshit. But that's ok. He tried to let me down easy. Good for him.

But I was still in love with him. Forever.

The thing is, we were kind of really good friends. We had all of the same mutual friends, we had the same type of humor, and we really were passionate about a lot of the same things. We hung out a lot, and we made each other laugh, and we called each other on shit. To this day, I believe we could've been good together if not for some minor things.

One of those minor things being his ditching our friend group suddenly and completely.

One semester we were hanging out every weekend and doing crazy and hilarious stuff. The next semester we saw him one time, and never again. I'm not sure I've seen him since.

Eventually, I wrote him an email telling him that we were all sad to not have him in our friend group anymore and that we missed him.

He never responded.

It took me a really long time to get over him, both as a romantic interest and as a friend. I think I'm there now (or at least mostly), but it was really difficult for me.

I swear, I had dreams about confronting him for months and months.

One time, I dreamed that he told me he was sorry and that he was in love with me, and then he fucking shot me in the face. That's pretty much how I felt about his foray into my life. (OK, to be fair, he didn't actually shoot me, even in my dream. But he did do something mean to me that would take a lot longer to explain than just saying he shot me, and it gives you the general idea)

Ah, Gregory. He was so damn charming. I hope I never meet someone that charming, ever again.