Stephen was even more socially awkward than I was (this is hard to imagine, even for me) and he made my skin crawl instinctively. I made every effort to avoid any interaction with him, which was made all the more difficult by the facts that he both lived on the same floor of the same building as I did and he was friendly with the girls who I was becoming friendly with. Their friendship seemed offensively incongruous, because the girls were pretty, popular, fun and socially-aware... while he was the opposite of all of those things plus the worst personality traits you can imagine. I decided that these girls were just being fashionably "nice" to him. I would compare this to the way that hipsters "enjoy" anything. It's trendy and they think it makes them look ironically cool. But instead of a heavy vintage typewriter with missing keys, these girls were carting around the male equivalent to the girl from "The Ring" and telling it that it was adorable.
He was the farthest thing from adorable.
One night, some people from my floor decided to go downstairs to watch a movie. Stephen sat next to me on the couch with his lanky, uncoordinated body, long, creepy, black hair (a la "The Ring") and weirdly bothersome John Lennon glasses. This was the first time that I was forced to have him inside of my personal bubble and it felt icky. I promise you that I wasn't just judging this creature by his appearance; I just felt so upset and uncomfortable around him and I don't know exactly why. Every time I was forced by the dorm gods to be near him for any reason I was overcome by the overwhelming urge to spew curses upon his house and throw hot coals at his face.
Part of my aversion to him was my inability to sense his presence without actually seeing him. I'll try to illustrate this for you:
Part of my aversion to him was my inability to sense his presence without actually seeing him. I'll try to illustrate this for you:
Imagine, you are in your house, but you are in a separate room from the other people in your house. You "sense" that a TV is on somewhere in the house. You can feel the TV even though you can't actually hear any perceptible sound being emitted by it. You would be aware if the TV was suddenly turned off because you would feel this change in the energy more than you would hear it. Do you know this feeling? For me, if I'm standing in a room and someone walks quietly in behind me I can feel them the way that I can feel that TV. It is the exact same sensation. Stephen was a broken TV and I tried to rationalize this by telling myself that he must not have a soul.
Things escalated quickly one night when I quietly left my dorm room, crossed the well-lit circular lounging area and approached my long-time boyfriend's door for a spontaneous midnight tryst. I knocked and waited, and then I knocked some more. I started to think he was asleep, which would be pretty normal at that hour, and my focus drifted as it is wont to do. I was probably thinking about the number of calories in the bananas foster that I had unwisely consumed in a moment of weakness earlier that day as I turned around to head back to my room. Once I completed my turn, my face was MAYBE an inch from Disturbing Stephen's face. He had sneaked up on me so expertly it was shocking. I was so caught off guard by his sudden and intrusively close presence that I blurted out the first thought that entered my mind which was, "You are so fucking creepy!" Little did I know, that single assessment of his creepiness level would set off a chain of reactions (not a chain reaction mind you, but a fucking chain of reactions) that to this day I sometimes still find myself feeling anxious about.
Reaction #1: Epic Pranking
On a subsequent night I prepared to leave my room and, as always, I first looked out the peephole of my door before exiting. I was less concerned about psycho murderers and more concerned about my peers' judgy eyes. I was baffled by the nonsensical blur that met my eye instead. I tried, unsuccessfully, for a moment to translate what I saw into the shapes of the couches that I knew must still be out there. Finally, out of frustrated confusion I flung open the door and... A STARTLING CURTAIN OF NEWSPAPER. I was angrily surprised by this lame prank and I simultaneously ripped down the paper and forcefully walked forward and TRIPPED OVER THE FUCKING SOFA THAT WAS HIDDEN BY THE CURTAIN OF NEWSPAPER. My rage-fueled adrenaline rush quadrupled my strength (read: Hulk) and I veritably tossed the offending furniture aside. I lurched toward my boyfriend's door and started angrily pounding on it, thinking he would burst forth and valiantly defend my honor, but no. Instead I proceeded to bang on Stephen's door and I let loose a string of expletives so acidly vitriolic that my potty-mouthed mother would have been shocked and awed. I don't know that this string of expletives was necessarily coherent in any way, but the fact that I was able to speak at all was impressive, considering that I had bubbling lava in my veins.... and then nothing. Nothing happened. No one appeared. The hatred that I felt was swiftly morphing into a humiliation panic. That's when I saw the sign on the wall next to my dorm room door:
SMILE FOR THE CAMERA, KATIE :)
And there it was, on the floor, a webcam. To this day I have no idea whether or not that webcam was actually recording me. The silence suggested not. The lack of any triumphant glee on Stephen's part gives me a sliver of hope that my embarrassment miraculously went unnoticed. Utterly defeated, I sulked back to my room. As I approached I saw that toothpaste had been smeared over the peephole.
Reaction #2: Toilet Paper Tussle
One day I walked into my dorm room and I was alarmed to find Stephen inside, toilet papering the half of the room that my friends lived in. My instant blind rage out-weighed all logic and reason and I went ape-shit. At first I was only verbally abusive, but when this turd of a human refused to leave my living space I resorted to attempting to physically throw him out. My rage-monster strength was apparently an equal match to his soulless-creep strength and the ensuing violence resulted in frenzied shoving with very little actual movement. This resulted in his shirt being ripped at the collar and that's about it. We were at a standstill. I ended up fleeing the scene to find "help" in the form of my friendly neighborhood RA. What I meant to do was get assistance eradicating the psycho from my room. What I actually did was accost, confuse and frighten the RA as well as the nice family he was giving a campus tour to. I said something along the lines of, "Stephen just put HIS HANDS ON ME!" which just sounded weird. All that came of this was that I ended up looking like the bigger psycho in the scenario than Stephen did. Nothing was done about it. No one helped me. I started being more vigilant about checking the lock on my door at all hours.
Reaction #3: Toilet Paper Bomb
*Muffled thud*
Me: Whaa?
*opens door*
There is a roll of toilet paper on the ground.
There are messages written in Sharpie that go many layers deep.
"YOU ARE SO FUCKING PATHETIC, WHAT A BITCH. YOU ARE SUCH A STUPID BITCH" ad nauseum.
So, what did I do? Something logical or effective? Haha, of course not! No, I picked up the rude tissue and hefted it mightily back at Stephen's door... and it only flew halfway before falling impotently to the ground. It's surprisingly difficult to lob a roll of toilet paper intimidatingly, even with rage-y Hulk-strength. Instead of leaving the stupid roll on the floor and protecting my last scrap dignity I charged toward it, picked it up and threw it again. I then stormed through the first open door I saw to tell everyone and anyone how much I hated that creepy little prick. I'm telling you, I didn't even know the girls who I walked in on. I just stomped into their room and began berating them with my all-encompassing hatred of someone else. I had lost all ability to reason with myself and I simply needed to tell someone just how badly I was losing my shit. I remember seeing alarmed faces and almost nothing else about that moment.
And you know what? Stephen won all of the battles and he most certainly won the war. All I managed to do with my Hulk-smashing was to humiliate myself more than he could humiliate me on his own.
Touché, ass-wipe.
Touché, ass-wipe.
