In those days, I was incredibly afraid to be rejected, especially by someone with whom I was in love. We spent nearly a month falling in love with one another from a distance several days and nights every week in the library. I knew it couldn't go on this way for much longer, or I would lose her
October 8, 1985:
I went to the library around 10:30 AM to wait for her. After a month of ever increasing paralysis, which had been growing in direct proportion to my love for her, I was in terrible shape. I felt I had to speak to her before she began to think I was a complete loser. But how? What could I say to the only girl (woman?) I had ever really been in love with, especially when she seemed to be just as much in love with me? You would think the answer would be obvious, but it wasn't.
Then again, what if I had been wrong all along, and she really felt nothing for me? That would be unpleasant.
But I knew that wasn't true.
I sat on a couch on in the very center of the library's second floor, surrounded by twenty empty tables, and tried to read the assigned novel for my World Literature class. It was impossible to concentrate because I knew she would be showing up at any time. I would read one paragraph at a time, closing my eyes in between each one in an effort to build up some courage for her inevitable arrival. Suddenly, much too soon, I looked up, and there she was! Sitting at a table right beside my couch! closer than she had ever been before! With a library full of empty tables, she chose to sit down right next to me. It appeared she had thrown down the gauntlet and was waiting for my response.
I cannot remember what I did upon seeing her. I might have smiled a hello and looked quickly down at my book in panic, or I might simply have looked down at my book in panic without smiling hello to her, or I might have pretended I just didn't see her (actually, I don't remember if she was even looking at me when I first saw her), or maybe I partially fainted, since all but the minutest amounts of life-sustaining blood remained above knee level. She was so close! Far too close! Now I really had to talk to her. I hadn't expected her to get this close. If she had sat farther away, I might have escaped with some feeble excuse for not talking. But not now. It was zero hour. The conditions may never be so good again, especially if she gets frustrated enough with me after this "invitation" never to give me another chance. For at least an eternity (or ten minutes of it anyway) I sat there studying my novel harder than I had ever studied any novel before, contemplating each thought, giving almost all of my attention to that difficult assignment. No one ever worked harder without seeing a word of what he was reading.
Occasionally, I leaned my head back on the couch, faking apparent frustration over the difficulty of my assignment. In reality I was completely miserable over my inability to speak to her. My words to her (whatever they were about) were tumbling around in my stomach, trying to decide in what order they should come out. My throat tried in vain to pull them up, regardless of any order, regardless of what message they would convey. My brain hid in a corner of my head and tried, also in vain, to think of something relevant to say. I was an uncoordinated mass of idiocy.
She sat there the whole time just reading her book. Occasionally she would laugh silently at something she read.
"Maybe that's it! Maybe I should think of some tactful way to ask her what's so funny without appearing to be too nosy, or, worse, without her thinking that I had been watching her long enough to notice her laughing."
I looked at her once again, probably for the fourth or fifth time, but this time our stares collided. Before panic had time to paralyze me again, she asked, "Do you think it is cold in here?" in the most unbelievably beautiful accent I have ever heard. My goose bumps almost bring tears to my eyes as I recall her voice.
Composure! Composure! I made a valiant effort to maintain my composure. The words came out quickly.
"No, it seems pretty hot to me," I said.
I wasn't exaggerating, and I wasn't trying to be funny. My heart was racing so fast that I thought I looked uncontrollably spastic. Then before the moment was gone forever, and I died a geriatric bachelor, I asked, "What are you reading that's so funny?"
"My computer textbook."
"A computer book that's funny?" I asked in all honesty.
She read to me the part she thought was funny. I couldn't understand her, so I jumped up and practically ran to her table to read it for myself. I knew I was being ridiculously obvious, since I had used such a feeble excuse (she later confirmed this for me), but I didn't care. I had made it!!!
She explained that the author knew how boring it was to read about computers, so he tried to be humorous on occasion. I read the passage she had laughed at. It wasn't funny to me, but I smiled as best I could. I did wonder about the significance of that passage though. It was describing the computer language PASCAL, and the example text ended with the words, "I love you." Coincidence, of course, but I still liked the odds of such a coincidence.
In all, we talked for about 45 minutes. It was as if we had always been the best friends in the world, and the past month had never happened. We talked as if we had just met (by mutual silent agreement, I suppose), yet we were completely comfortable with one another. We laughed and joked and were never at a loss for words. I never even said anything stupid because of nerves, a fact which was very surprising considering how I felt about her.
Early on, I had asked her where she came from.
"Eee-rohn," she had replied. Iran.
So much for my intuition. I was probably in love with a fanatic.
She told me that she and her family had left her country, because they had lived according to a more western, liberal outlook on life. Such a lifestyle isn't popular in Iran.
Thank you! Thank you! She wasn't a fanatic! [I was stupidly naive about Iranians at that time. Most of them are wonderful people.]
Her voice and accent were incredibly beautiful. I remained completely amazed by them throughout our conversation. She was about 65 percent fluent in English, by my estimates, which added just the perfect amount of mystery to her words, without making them too confusing.
Finally, it was time for her to go to lunch.
The evening of that same day, we both came back to the library and found one another again. We spent the whole evening visiting with one another. It was as if we were two halves of the same whole (so very trite, but so very true), so alike were we in so many ways, best friends from birth -- even from before birth. It was impossible to believe that we had just met and were products of nearly incompatible cultures. Just being near her was cure enough for the pain and the emptiness that had afflicted me for so many years.
