Over the next few days, I tried not to think much of it. There was no way, I adamantly reinforced the thought. Absolutely no way I stood any chance with a girl of such caliber. She was the type that could strut into a room and pick out any guy or god she wanted. Why should I even try? But with the passing of every moon, I was haunted by “what-ifs” and “maybes.”

It became hard to sleep. And in the rare occasions that I did doze off, I’d eventually wake up in the dead of the night, thinking of her for hours until I’d just get sick of it and see what’s on TV. Before I knew it, I was a man possessed. This wasn’t the first time I had felt this way about a girl. But this was the first time I would do something about it.

During the short break in class, she made her way to the vending machine and I scouted her at a distance. This is it, I thought to myself, and before I had enough time to change my mind, I closed in on her. “Hi, how are you doing?” I asked in a nervous tone.

“Fine, you?” she responded with admirable smoothness. Oh. My. God. She had just acknowledged my presence.

“Fine,” I tried to sound as composed as possible, but in reality, I was miles from feeling fine.

“What should I get,” she casually asked, pointing to the row of distinctly flavored Starbucks coffees. Excuse me?! I was clueless to respond. In the past, I had fiendishly read advice magazines like Men’s Health and Cosmopolitan, but a search in my cranial database for “How to Respond When The Girl of Your Dreams Asks You What She Should Get at a Vending Machine,” ran a list of 0 matches. “Uh, I don’t really drink coffee, but um, er, get whatever you feel like… it.” She must’ve thought I was a dummy, and perhaps I was.

Once she decided on her coffee preference, my heart sank as she proceeded to a snack vending machine and offered me the same eager query. Was this supposed to be a test? Was there a right or wrong answer? I helplessly wished there was a “C” I could simply color in, as I browsed the endless menu of various cookies and candy. After suggesting chocolate chips and Skittles, she settled on donuts.

At that point, I knew I had blown my one-time-only shot. But before I could commence flagellating my clumsy intellect, she looked up at me with hamster eyes that reflected the moonlight and eternal truth. “Would you share it with me?” I ran another futile search for a right answer that unsurprisingly came up empty.

“Well if you would, if you don’t,” I fumbled to make an ounce of sense, “uh if you can’t finish it by yourself, I hope… I guess?”

“Have you ever taken Sociology 1 with the professor we have?” she inquired me.

“Um, well, not her. I did take Sociology 1, but not with her,” I rubbed my beardless chin, trying to look knowledgeable. “It’s pretty good but I wasn’t really into the business aspect.”

“Oh. Well I’m taking sociology for the business aspect,” she quipped. Ouch! I had actually meant I wasn’t interested in Karl Marx and the rival philosophers, but it was frivolously phrased. “I’m a business major,” she retorted and started walking away. Was this it?

I followed her like a lost dog imploring directions for a bone. “There are a lot of young students on this campus,” she commented.

“Really?” I asked, wondering where this would lead.

“Yeah. Like him,” she pointed to a classmate handling a cell phone. “He’s only sixteen.”

“Oh really?” I observed.

“Yes. How old are you?”