As hard as I think I'm trying, I probably am not very subtle. C'mon, someone has to see it, this crush. Someone's bound to notice my vanity, anyway. Boy, when I feel attractive I can't help but swagger, drag myself around loose-limbed, chest out, swinging my legs from the hips, landing more heavily on the right foot than the left (what in high school we referred to as a "pimp"). Geez, I don't want to come off arrogant. What has Julie noticed? If I've expressed nothing else to her, I've made my confusion pretty clear. What have my actions told her? The mixed signals continue apace as I alternate between full-throttle and full-stop, between solicitousness and ignore-ance. I want her to know me. How can she, when I make each move only after a complex rationalization based on its speculative efficacy? I'm afraid to be wholly genuine. How could she like the real me? But how could I be anything else but honest and still have a meaningful, lasting relationship? I keep telling myself this will all look very funny from the wrong end of the telescope of time, but that's only if it works.
I have to keep my humor; that's all there is to it. All my convoluted psychological machinations--aren't they all just one huge ironic joke? I have a crush on a girl, I can't tell her; I want her to know, but I don't; I want her to have a crush on me, but not just yet. If I'm not playing to my own sense of humor, I'm just torturing myself--and I already know I'm doing that, so why not loosen up and laugh at myself, instead of agonizing over the prospect of doing or saying the "wrong thing"? I'm madly infatuated with a beautiful, fascinating woman with whom I have much in common. What could be more natural? Or maddening?
^Self-doubt is what happened to "more comfortable with Julie every day." Just couldn't leave well-enough be, could I? Forget the telescope; I'm still pressed to the microscope. "I'm madly infatuated with a beautiful, fascinating woman with whom I have much in common. What could be more natural? Or maddening?" just about says everything. 60,000 words, and I could have left it at 22. The knot on my neck is twisting.
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