I thought about somebody I haven’t thought about in over 6 years.

My college career was average. Normal. But one odd thing kept happening.

Now, there were a few GE programs I was required to fulfill. This meant a short list of classes to choose from to fulfill these requirements.

Almost every single class I chose to take…there was another student (I’ll call him Jack though that is obviously not his name) who took them, too. And I mean, every single class except for 2 (yes, I know that means not ACTUALLY every single class, but cut me some slack here. I’m being dramatic for storytelling sake).

Anybut, Jack noticed this pattern, too….I think….I mean he always went out of his way to sit next to me because he recognized me from the other numerous classes we took together.

Now I was a Theater Major. Jack was a Business Major. We should never have crossed paths. But we kept picking the same GE classes, as in we kept picking classes that we wanted to take, had interests in taking.

I hope you see where this is going.

Needless to say….I got a crush on this guy, Jack.

He was sweet. He was funny. He liked hearing about my theater classes. And he ACTIVELY sat next to me in these classes. If you read any of my other posts I hope you’ve been able to grasp the fact that I am the most awkward, shy, weirdo ever to be allowed to grow to an adult age. I don’t actively do anything. My preference is to sit in the back so nobody will talk to me….but he always found me and sat next to me.

“You’re reading too much into it. Of course he sat next to you if he remembered you from other classes. Humans are attracted (not in the romantic way) to familiarity. You were familiar therefore he felt more comfortable sitting next to you.”

Okay. Maybe.

BUT! Does that explain this thing that happened:

Context: I was a theater major. Duh. But there was also the student group within the theater department and my senior year the group wanted to do more across the campus activities to promote the theater department or promote other things.

One of these things was a campaign against smoking…cliche I know. Anybut, we created large cigarettes that we would carry around to our classes and if people asked us about the eye sores we had scritps to recite back to them in an attempt to educate on cancer, life expectancy, and other smoking facts. Then we would ask them to sign the cigarette with a kind of declaration of dedication to not start smoking or cut down on their smoking.

I carried that stupid cigarette all day. The only person who ever asked about it was Jack. I did the stupid little spiel. I asked if he wanted to sign his intention to never smoke. He to my surprise, agreed. When I got my cigarette back…he’d also written his phone number.

Yes. His phone number.

Here comes the heartbreaker. This happened my senior year. It was also this year in the very class this incident happened in…..that I found out he was married. He’d been married for almost 2 years…his wife was still back where he was from, planning to move out here to California at the end of the year.

This may be needless to say, but I’m going to say this twice. After finding out this information: I immediately turned off. ONCE I FOUND OUT HE WAS MARRIED I IMMEDIATELY TURNED OFF. What does that mean? It means any feelings I felt for him were shoved down beneath so many layers of reality there was no more flirting and there was very little casual talk outside of those required for class.

Is this an overreaction? Maybe. But quite frankly, there was no way I was going to continue anything with a married man who actively gave me his phone number and not in a “we’re in a group project” way. Maybe we could’ve been friends. Maybe we could’ve been friendly without any inference of romantic feelings…but there was also the possibility we couldn’t do any of those things.

Though I did keep that cigarette in the back of my closet for several years. I mean he was really cute….but I’m not going to be that girl.

I threw that cigarette away two years after that event. I never put the number in my phone. I never wrote it down anywhere else. I never considered calling it.

I kept it as a reminder of that guy in college I had a class with every semester. And that I let him go.

And though I’ve been calling him Jack to protect his anonymity….it’s honestly because I don’t remember his name anymore. I don’t even know what triggered the sudden memory of him. I haven’t thought about him since I threw away that cigarette 6 years ago.