paul from the wonder years, grown up

being half painfully shy and half social butterfly, i can either be very good at talking to boys i crush on or very very bad. i'd seen one particular boy a good number of times [as opposed to a bad number of times] at various shows and i'd always lacked the courage to talk to him and find out what sort of a boy he was. i'd just stare from afar and at most, brush my arm against his; to see if there were sparks.

at the get up kids show in college park, it seemed like he looked over at me a few times. i did the whole 'check around you for other people of interest' things and decided he definitely had looked my way. earlier that night i'd met a friend of an online friend, layla, and immediately we became friends. she encouraged me to talk to him, but all i could do was grab a flier, scribble something down with a pen, and hand it to him. he introduced himself as david, but i knew him as paul from the wonder years, grown up.

a week later he wrote me an email saying he really didn't know what to say. and i guess i really didn't know what to say either. we wrote back a few little things back and forth, but nothing came of it. we say hi to each other at shows and i still gawk at him from afar.