Homecoming!

Yeah... I pretty much missed or ignored every homecoming activity this year except for the dance, but that's okay.  Most of them were either uninteresting (sports games) or wouldn't really work for me (paint war where you were supposed to bring a white shirt + long pants... I don't own either.)  I did sort of want to go to the concert, but... that ended up not working out, due to crowd/nowhere-to-sit issues as usual.  At least I didn't have to pay to get in, so I could just show up and see if it was possible instead of having to waste money on something I wouldn't have been able to stay for.  Hopefully the Christmas concert works out better for me; maybe I'll find someone who'd be okay with going to it with me (maybe a date idea...?) and not have to worry about crowd freakout issues that time.

Anyway... this week has been pretty good for the most part.  I actually did manage to ask someone to the homecoming dance, though it took a couple of tries--the girl I asked was in my Spanish class, and I had written up this little note (in Spanish!) asking her to go to the dance with me... but my original plan kinda fell apart because since she's not technically taking the class, she doesn't have to be there for tests (which is all we did on Friday.)  So I ended up bumping into her after the concert instead and giving her the note thingie at that time, since she was in the concert (she plays the flute, I think.  Maybe some other wind instrument... I can't remember for sure.)  She opened it up and read over it and then looked really shocked and excited-ish for a moment when she realized what it said... but then she told me that she didn't feel comfortable going to the dance with me because of the age difference between us (I'm not sure exactly how old she is, but I'm guessing I'm at least 6 years older.)  This was the first time I'd run into that problem; I know I went on dates with mostly 18/19-year-olds last year and none of them ever had any issues with it.  I guess that's just one of those things that's different for different people, how much of an age gap there can be before it gets creepy.  At least I managed to actually ask, though; I felt a little bad about it immediately afterward, but overall it went fairly well considering that she said no.  I hope she's still okay with talking to me and stuff though, we seem to get along fairly well and I'd like to at least be friends with her even if going on dates and such isn't an option.

Speaking of feeling bad about it immediately afterward... during that brief period, I happened to bump into Ruth and that led to one of the most amazing long conversations we've had in a long time.  Sometimes, last year anyway, I just didn't quite feel comfortable talking to her about certain things (like dating issues and that sort of thing) and wasn't sure how she'd react to seeing me in a really bad mood, but apparently this year something's changed there, because I feel like I can talk to her about anything now and not feel weird or uncomfortable bringing things up, even things that I worried about last year.  She seems to be really good at talking through situations, figuring stuff out (especially with people's mental issues, problems they have with certain things, and stuff like that), and making me feel better when I do end up in a kind of rough situation (rejection, etc.)... and before too long I didn't feel too bad about it at all.  And then we pretty much kept talking late into the night until she started getting a little too cold and had to go home. XD

But yeah... sometimes I really need those long conversations at random times with good friends.  I'm kind of worried that I'll just lose track of people after I graduate, but hopefully I'll be able to keep in contact at least somewhat after that and not just... never see any of my friends from here again.  Of course, people who will still be here after I graduate I guess I could always come up here and visit sometimes, since it's not far away and I'll have access to a car when I'm back home... maybe that could work?

Oh yeah, and the homecoming dance? It actually turned out amazingly well even though I didn't have a date to go with.  It started out kind of depressing, since there were so few people there, but after a little while (maybe 15-20 minutes or so?) some people I knew started to show up and I ended up doing a lot of talking with both Ruth and another new friend I've made recently.  Who both happen to be redheads with glasses, oddly enough. XD
But anyway, this homecoming dance was easily the best dance we've had here this semester so far.  Having people to talk to (and occasionally dance with... I even was able to remember enough of what I learned in my dance club/class things to waltz with Ruth once!) really makes the difference between a crappy dance and one of the best ones so far, it seems... the last two I occasionally had people to talk to but they never hung around for long, and I rarely (if ever) was able to find anyone to dance with, aside from a few girls who actually came up and asked me for once (I'm so glad that some girls actually do that, by the way.  More girls should ask guys to dance instead of just blindly sticking with that "wait helplessly for guy to ask me" crap they've been brainwashed into their whole lives.)  This time, I actually manage to ask people to dance! Okay, only two people, and we only really danced once each (plus the last 30 seconds or so at the end of a song the first time I asked one of them... yeah, I take a while sometimes XD), but that's still a massive improvement in the "actually being able to ask someone to dance" area compared to the other dances we've had this semester.  Definitely had a lot of fun, and I'm glad I decided to go after all despite my lack of a date.  Hopefully this semester's "dances get better every time" pattern continues; it'd be a nice change after last semester's horrible "worse and worse dances every time (aside from the honor ball which was the best dance we've had since I've been here)" downward spiral pattern.