First Encounter
Pan across a food court entrance, individuals funneling in as they find friends and join tables. Clusters noticing other clusters and dropping commentary on each other. Zoom in and follow a student who looks like she has a magnet inside of her, causing her limbs and chest to cave inwards, to fold in. In my early college years, I may have participated in classes, clubs, and jobs, but it took everything in me to rehearse and plan social interactions. Cut to visiting family a few states away, where my behavior remained consistent. I stared at the sink ledge that held our fruit or at the TV knobs that required pliers to change the channel. In my head, moving people out of my periphery meant they too wouldn’t see me. It’s funny: I did these things because getting attention meant I might have been judged. Yet at the same time, I wanted to be more than a shadow, to be seen as a valuable person without actually being seen. As luck would have it, these wallflower behaviors would in fact attract a social butterfly as my best friend—simultaneously my nightmare and exactly what I wanted.
On paper, Lien Le and I are water and oil. She is loud and spontaneous, and I am a quiet planner. She is an obvious optimist, while I’m a cautiously hopeful skeptic. She is seemingly effortless in life, and I’m always sizing up the situation. As complimentary pieces fit well together, so did Lien and I find ourselves a part of the same puzzle.
We met when we were sophomores at college in Washington, D.C. Facebook had just started, unavailable not only to non-university students but also to most universities. It was rolling out one school at a time with a bang, and even in that first year’s incarnation, practically everyone at George Washington University was already on it. When we chose to sleep, eat, explore the city, or do anything instead of going to class, we tried to catch up on schoolwork through Facebook. One of the main draws of using the platform was to find people who were in your classes so that you could share notes or find study buddies. Lien was no exception. She saw I had taken a communications class that she was now in and reached out to me for notes. This was before the days of Facebook private messaging, so once she found me, she AOL instant messaged me.
“Hey Christine? You there?”
I’m a visual person and seeing an unknown screen name without a face to pair it with was startling to me. It took me a long minute to realize who she was.
So as not to appear like an uncool student married to my computer, I waited a deliberate five minutes before providing a substantial response: “Hey.”
“Hiiiii! Did you take Speech and Hearing last semester? Do you still have the textbook? Can I borrow it for a test tomorrow?”
How is she just now looking for the textbook, this late in the semester? I chose to pretend to be helpful and then gracefully bow out of the conversation. “Yeah, I did. I think I might still have it. Maybe?”
I knew exactly where my book was. I was obsessive about where I put everything because I was a creature of habit. If my things didn’t have an exact home, I would lose them forever.
“When I’m done with a class, I usually don’t know what I did with my stuff either,” Lien wrote.
Silence. I guessed she was copy-and-pasting the same message to anyone and everyone she could find who took the class. She was bound to find someone else to help her.
I let perhaps half an hour pass before messaging back: “Hey, did you find someone who has the book?”
As soon as I hit Enter, I felt ashamed that I’d left her hanging. That wasn’t proper instant messaging etiquette, at least not to my standards, but in my defense, I didn’t think she was waiting on me.
“No, not yet,” Lien responded as quickly as someone picking up the phone upon the first ring.
Flipping through the barely creased book, I typed, “Which class are you taking again?” I was stalling.
“Thanks for looking for me, Christine. I’m taking SPHR 1071. Do you still have your book?”
What luck—she was taking a different class than I had taken! I was finally happy to write back, “Um, I don’t think my book is the one you need. I took a different Speech & Hearing class. Sorry, but good luck.”
“I think all the classes use the same book and yours is probably an early edition, so it’ll be good enough. You are a lifesaver,” Lien wrote back.
No, this was an entirely different book, one that probably had nothing to do with her Comms class. I was confused. “I don’t think this is going to be helpful for you. It’s not the same class.”
“That’s sweet, but I can deal. All of these 101s are the same. Meet you outside? Margaret said you live in her building, so I’ll head to Crawford now.” And that was that.. I didn’t have a chance to confirm that I was, in fact, at my Crawford dorm room, or that I was able to meet her right there and then.
Besides, I didn’t want to lend my book. I paid for it. I didn’t necessarily have plans to use it again or sell it in the bookstore buy-back, but I was definitely attached to it on the principle of not wanting Lien getting away with a shortcut. Most importantly, I was accustomed to polite back-and-forth before committing to exchanges like this. Even though I didn’t necessarily want to be friends, I still wanted her to like me, so I went outside to make sure she wouldn’t have to wait.
As someone who got cold on a summer day, standing outside without knowing for how long was not my choice activity. It must’ve been 12:30 a.m. or later, late enough to be chilly for an early fall night. I didn’t bring a jacket down because I thought I’d only be outside for a second. Welp, several minutes passed. Then another 25.
I kept looking around because I couldn’t remember exactly what she looked like. We hung out in overlapping circles, or rather, my main friend network was just one of her many. This meant that I regularly saw her at extracurricular events even though I may not have registered her presence explicitly. Like an early blind date participant, I smiled at every stranger, hesitantly saying hello to every person who looked like they were from Asian descent with a small frame in the event it was her. But as they came closer in view, it turned out that not one of them was Lien, so I played it off as though I believed friendliness was going to change the world.
Thirty-five minutes passed before Lien showed. She walked at parade-float speed along the way, greeting every late-night socialite hanging out in front of the dorm buildings. She was like a hometown hero: everyone wanted to let her know that they saw her—and wanted acknowledgment that she saw them, too.
How is this haphazard person so popular? Why is everyone laughing so much with her, and how can she not tell that her laugh is inappropriately loud for this hour? It was obvious, though. She was the fun, outgoing nucleus of party groups. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she was attractive and made eye contact with your soul. At 5'4", Lien was petite, but she had an athletic build, olive skin, and long, black, shiny hair that swayed when she flashed a natural, dazzling smile.
With all that social flair, I was surprised she didn’t have more awareness. Besides, as her social opposite, I was annoyed on principle. Does she not see my bored expression, my fidgety hands itching to rid myself of the book? And at such a late hour?
“Hi, Christine!” Lien said.
She had the kind of charm that made people feel special just by addressing them. I was flattered when she picked me out from the smokers and dorm loungers on the street, enunciating my full name through the sharp crinkles in her smile.
Taking my book, Lien continued, “Yes, this is it! You’re a hero.” She held it up like the winning trophy at the end of a tournament. I could feel Lien’s genuine appreciation for a mere book loan, but the scene looked like I had stumbled upon the end of a long journey and Lien was allowing me to be a part of its glory.
I brought the energy level down by saying, “Yeah, I still don’t think this is it, but I hope it works out for you.” I waited for acknowledgment… Nothing. Lien, staring at the table of contents, didn’t even look up.
“Sooooo, gonna be a long study night then?” I said, trying to wrap up the interaction.
“No, I don’t think it’ll take that long…” Her fingers sifted through my book like a child thumbing through a cereal box flipbook, reviewing the pages at a rate I couldn’t imagine allowed enough time to take in any information. “…It’s a paperback.” With that, she left.
I didn’t understand her logic, but at least the exchange was over.
The following year, I learned that I was correct: the book was completely useless. I didn’t even get the satisfaction of knowing how she’d done on the test, because Lien barely remembered this class. In fact, for a long time, she didn’t even remember she had borrowed the book from me—and by the time she did, she had lost it.
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