The Virgin Diaries
by YBLalat

Part Three: So, How Does it Feel to Be a Girl?

The chemistry test was about two hours away. I still had ample time to prepare myself for the worst of questions. It was not that I was totally unprepared for the ordeal; in fact, I was actually at the near point of downright loathing of anything even remotely related to chemistry. But being a cautious person that I am, I try my best not to forget any relevant parts of the syllabus that might be on the test. Thank God I brought along my text book and laboratory files with me – I only needed to find a cozy, private place to sit and read them then.

Lind Hall was empty at that hour, and its famous public computer lab was even more vacant than usual. Oftentimes, they would always be a troupe of Malaysian students, especially of female freshmen, hanging around the computer kiosk near the computer lab – eating their lunch, reading the newspaper, talking and laughing loudly.

But at the time then, there was no one there, and not just the familiar, boisterous Malaysian crowd. The hallway was echoing silence so loud that the screeching of my winter jacket against itself was more audible than normal. I looked around just to make sure and found myself the best corner to do my last minute cramming.

Just as I was about to flip through the last few pages of the last chapter, suddenly, the door swung open and with that, came the strongest gust of icy cold wind, rushing towards the other end of the hallway. It made me shivered a bit but I was more than prepared to meet the wintry weather of Minnesota. Immediately, I grabbed both shoulders of mine and squeezed them towards my sunken chest – tucking myself like a shrimp.

“Hi. Do you want to be alone?”

I looked up and saw only a dark silhouette of a person – the bright lights on the ceiling right behind his head blinded me for a while. I tried focusing my sight onto his face but it was too dark to see anything and I had no clue whatsoever who he was, even from his somewhat familiar, throaty voice. I stared stronger, almost closing my eyes. He moved his head from one side to the other slowly and asked further, “Are you okay?”

“Yes”, I told him and instantly moved my eyes away from his face and towards my book, ending my effort to recognize who he was. My curiosity was still not satisfied then, but I just had to stop staring at his face like that. I didn’t want him to get any ideas.

“So, do you want to be alone?” he asked again, this time with a slightly heavy tone.
“I am sorry?” What was he thinking, interviewing me for Women Today magazine?
“I mean, can I sit next to you?” he replied, pointing his finger towards a space next to me.
“Oh, sure.” I thought he was asking me, and wanting to…well, forget about it.

He moved towards my side, and with his black bag and his thick layers of winter clothing all still attached onto his body, he turned around and sat down with a single, great thump. He rubbed his face with one hand and unbuttoned his jacket with the other and still had the degree of freedom to wiggle his backpack loose and onto the cold, cement floor.

At the falling sound of his bag, disguising like I was surprised by it, I turned sideways and looked at him, finally quenching my raging curiosity of who the son of the bitch was.

Oh, it was him! But why had he suddenly become so sociable, and so friendly?

“Where are you from?” I asked nicely, wanting to initiate a pleasant chat.
“My Heat and Mass Transfer lecture, in the next building”, he answered without even looking at me and with his eyes so fixed at the newspaper laid down on the floor in front of him. He was reading the editorials and was smiling at the political cartoon of George Bush dancing at the sight of oil money from the Enron scandal.

He seemed not interested in making small talk; so, I figured that it would be best just to enjoy the silence by reading my material for the upcoming test and letting him finish his reading of the newspaper. Probably he was merely being friendly to me as a sign of good gesture, from a senior to a junior, and from a Malaysian expatriate to another. I know I was wrong to expect a lengthy, pleasant conversation from him – he does, in fact, have a well-known reputation in the Malaysian community here at the U for being somewhat of an inhospitable and recluse person.

“Preparing for a midterm, are we?” he spoke, suddenly and with a low voice.
“Yes, a chemistry midterm”, I told him, without shifting my glance too far away from my chemistry text book, partly in revenge for his apathetic reply just a few moments ago.

“When is it, the test?” he inquired further, his eyes still browsing the last few pages of the newspaper in a rabid fashion.
“About two more hours or so”, I replied, with the same coldness and apathy that he threw at me. I let out a heavy sigh after saying that, in an effort to send him the message of how much I loathe his pathetic attempts at making small talk and being cordial.

“Not in the mood to talk, are we?” He said that as he folded the newspaper into two and then four and then pushing it under the weight of his thick, dark green winter jacket.
“Oh, not exactly that, but you seemed a bit uninterested about it.” Finally, I said it!
“Was I?” he asked, as if he had not the slightest idea how ungentlemanly he had behaved.
“A little bit, I guess, yes.” Obviously, I lied there, but since he was nice enough to say hi at me and asked for my permission first before sitting next to me, I might as well try to console his already threatened ego a little. By saying that he was only a bit apathetic towards me, he might be able to be coaxed into being a more active participant in a conversation.

“Oh…I am sorry about that. It’s just that it’s been a busy week this week, with all the midterms and the long queue of due dates and all the lab reports, you know?”

I nodded.

“People change when they are under great stress, don’t they? I mean, isn’t that just human? That’s why you can’t go and blame people senselessly for how they reacted.”

I nodded again, but this time, my nods were longer and slower.

“But, isn’t it just too hard to remember that fact when you are really angry, or sad?”

I tried to be a good listener, but his fragile, nervous eyelids distracted me. They kept flipping and waving and blinking and swaying until it became just too hard for me to not notice it and an even harder task to pretend that it was not that obvious. Furthermore, he kept on cutting off his eye contact with me when he talked, sometimes even not looking at all for a long period of time and was simply staring at and talking to the bare red-and-yellow wall in front of us. When he noticed that I had noticed that about his uncanny behavior, he spontaneously ended his ramblings and quietly swallowed down excess saliva collected at his throat and gently brought down his gaze to the floor and smiled a quick, guilty smile.

“Again, I am sorry.”
“Oh, that’s okay. I am cool with it now. You are perfectly right about that though. So, relax, okay? Really, I am cool with it.” Oops, maybe that was too much agreeing and consoling. But seeing how he reacted to his own innocent display of neurotic confession made me change my opinion and view about him, both as a person and as a celebrity – since he is always the popular butt joke of the girls when we get together and gossip about boys. He became different once you broke that layer of unfriendliness off of him.

“Thanks”, he said, with a healthy glow on his face.
“Sure”, I answered, whilst nodding my head gently.
“(Sigh) So…” he said, and with hope gleaming in his eyes, turned to me.
“(Sigh) Yeah, so…” I replied, with an equal amount of hope that he had.
“So, how are you?”
“I am good, very good, and you?”
“I’m okay.”

I coughed a quiet, clearing cough and he coughed a similar one too.

The time period between the above coughs and the dialogue that will follow this short paragraph is arguably the most awkward and the longest, most torturing awkward silence I have ever put myself into in my life. I did nothing but looking around at passing-by people and the falling droplets of melting icicle through the window, and all he did was massaging and rubbing together his fingers and coughing some more. Nobody said anything or looked at one another for quite some time, until I said the stupidest thing in a conversation in my life. Oh God, I’d like to kill myself!

“Nice weather, yes?”
“Lovely”, he replied with a silly smirk. He wanted to laugh but he concealed it well.

I never felt so stupid in my life. Instead of making this idiot the butt joke of the day, I unintentionally turned myself into the goddamn butt joke myself for this idiot to share with his roommates and friends. Just great, isn’t it? Okay pal, now it is your turn to say something first, to initiate the chat. It’s your turn to make a fool out of yourself.

“So, how does it feel to be a girl?” he blurted almost comically, but with a serious face.
“Excuse me?” I wanted to laugh, but his odd question was just too weird to laugh at.
“How does it feel to be a girl?” he asked again, with the same seriousness as before.
“I don’t understand.” I just had to confess – the question was just too confusing.
“A girl – how do you feel being one?” I didn’t believe my ears – what?
“I still don’t get it – how ‘how’?”
“Well, I mean, any kind of how is nice, any level of how is good.”
“I am sorry, but…”
“Okay, let me change the question a bit. What was the first word that surfaced from your mind when I asked you that question?”
“Word?” Okay, by this part, I started having doubts about his level of sanity.
“Yes – what word?”
“How about the word ‘What’?”
“No, no, not the word that describes how you feel about the question. I want the word that describes how you feel about being a girl.”
“Okay.”
“Yes?”
“How do I feel about being a girl?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you want to know about how I feel about being a girl?”
“Well, you are a girl, correct?”
“Yes, but that still does not answer my question.”
“Okay, okay, let me rephrase my question some more.”

No wonder the guy had such a reputation – he was asking me weird questions! Such weird questions they were! ‘How does it feel to be a girl’? Who asks such things? Is he some kind of a sex-crazed, voyeuristic psychopath, who preys on younger girls? Oh God, no! Or is he simply coming on to me? Trying to wiggle his way into getting my attention, maybe? Is this his teaser, his icebreaker, his pickup line? Oh God, no!

“So, do you like being a girl?”
“Sorry?”
“Do you like being a girl?”
“(Laughs) Do you?”
“Why are you asking me for? I am not a girl!”
“Then, why are you asking me?”
“Because you are a girl, it’s that simple!”
“Yes, I know that, but why the question?”
“Because I am simply curious.”
“You are curious to as how a girl feels about being herself?”
“Yes, I am curious about that.”
“Do you mean me, or just simply any other girl?”
“Any other girl is okay, but you would be better.”
“And why is me better?”
“Well, because you are here, and I am asking you the question.”
“Oh, I see.”

He nodded cheerfully, with his eyes partially closed at times.

“Did you mean me feeling about being me, or about being a girl?”
“I have more interest in the second one.”
“Oh.”

He nodded even more, with his smile getting longer and longer with each nod. It was clear to me then, that this guy was not normal. He may or may not be insane or a sick pervert, but I just had to check out whether he was merely pretending to be either of that or of this weird asking behavior just so he could flirt around with me.

“You are not interested with the first one?”
“No – well, yes, a bit. Okay, maybe more. Tell me both, if you like.”
“Okay, sure.”

He nodded even more than before, with each vehement nod nearly throwing himself against the wall right behind him. And his smile! His smile was so big and long and his nods were so spirited and energetic that he looked really moronic, sitting there on the floor with his head nodding, his lips smiling and his hands wrapped around the stomach.

But one thing was perfectly clear to me then – he was not chasing me. He was a pure bred asshole. His Freudian slip of a quick ‘No’ when asked about the first one obviously showed me that he was not interested in me. He was interested in fucking around with my head and I had to use that same head for my chemistry test soon. I would never let him do that, would I?