What's Stopping You?

For some reason, while trying to build my WLAN, I was reminded of this time back in high school. I was cuddling with a female friend on the couch, it was very late after a very fun night of Improv and Late Night Pseudo-Drag Racing (John Hughes style), finally ending with the two of us, just utterly exhausted on the couch. Her head was in my lap and I was stroking her hair, and she'd always been a bit of a tom boy, but with the moonlight on her cheek and her hand on my chest she suddenly seemed very feminine indeed. Completely out of character for me (at the time), I asked her, "What would happen if I tried to kiss you right now?"

She responded by describing a night of intense passion with all the skill and wit and passion of an intensely brilliant, intensely lonely girl, followed by describing the very busy Rest Of The Weekend we each had planned, so busy that we wouldn't be able to run into each other again, "and then on Monday, we would see each other in class, and even though neither of us would want it to be, it would be awkward."

I was so horrified at the idea that things might ever be awkward between us, that I didn't try to kiss her.

But you know what? The next Monday?

It was still awkward.

There is a lesson in that, somewhere.

( And another pretty... )