Not Into You
“Nope,” Kory says, popping the “p” loudly.
“I’m not into you.”
I should have known to drop it right then. But I just couldn’t. Can you convince someone to love you?
I surely tried my best. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out the way I planned.
There’s only one thing I ever envisioned for myself: being Kory’s boyfriend. He’s a dreamboat.
Most people don’t think he’s that special, but I do. I made a list of what I like about him.
- He plays guitar.
- He’s tall.
- He doesn’t talk much, but when he says something it has true meaning.
- He looks great in basketball shorts even if he doesn’t play.
- When he laughs he uses his whole face.
- He gets giddy when he’s excited.
- He has the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen.
Because of all this, it’s so easy to swoon over him. Wouldn’t you?
He pats me on the shoulder. “No hard feelings, Ryan.”
I want to joke that hard feelings is exactly what I’m dreaming of, but I don’t dare. He just brushed me off when I asked him for a date.
“Let’s just forget this ever happened,” he says.
How could I forget that?
In that moment, I decide to convince him. If I put in enough effort, he’ll see how serious I am about him. And then “BAM” he’ll be in love with me too.
I’m a person who likes things organized and so I make a list of all the possible ways to make Kory fall for me. My dad’s military, so whenever we do something at home, he constructs a mission plan. I jot down:
Objective: Get with Kory
Means: Show him I care
But how do I show him I care?
Now it comes in handy that I’ve been passionately reading gay romance novels. The stories show which measures I should take to make the still oblivious Kory see how perfect I am for him.
I write down the different ways I plan to approach him:
- Romantic
- Favors
- Feedback from others
- Treats
- Jealousy
- Threats
Mom’s from Germany. I have to think of the German saying “In love and war everything is allowed.” No wonder she and Dad hit it off once they met. This is Ryan going into love war.
On Monday, I start from the top of my list. This has got to work.
The first topic is “Romantic.” I leave small dried flowers in his locker every day. Good thing that I know his lock combination. Kory doesn’t react on this at all. Then on Friday the lock doesn’t open anymore. He has changed the combination.
I’m sad. But I won’t let this minor setback deter me from my goal.
The next romantic idea I have is writing him personal cards.
For another week, I write a card every day saying what I like about him. I push the cards into his locker through the vent slits. My locker is across the hall from his. On Friday, when he opens his locker, the card falls to the ground. His friend Otis picks it up and says, “What’s this?”
Kory shrugs.
Otis opens the card and reads “I like the way your eye color changes from deep green to clover when the light hits it.”
Kory takes the card from Otis, reads it, and shakes his head.
“You have a secret admirer,” Otis says.
“Not so secret, I guess,” Kory mumbles under his breath and looks at me.
I duck behind the open door of my locker.
“You don’t like it?” Otis asks.
“It gets a bit too much,” Kory says and drops the card in the nearest trashcan while walking to class.
So the cards weren’t the right way to make him see me either. No worries, I tell myself. There are still a lot of ways to try on my list.
Kory plays guitar, so he’s into a different type of music than I am. I stay up all night to find indie rock bands. I make a playlist that I send to him via text. He replies, “Cool, thanks, bro.”
Why is he calling me “bro” now? I could go for a bromance. Or for a brojob. No label needed to define what we are.
On Monday, I’m really tired because of my all-nighter, but I’m happy he replied to my text at all. Kory’s not into texting. “Did you like the playlist?” I ask when I sit down next to him in Mr. Meyer’s American Literature class. “Yeah,” he says, “but, bro, that doesn’t mean-”
Mr. Meyer cuts him off mid-sentence.
I slump. Maybe the romantic approach wasn’t right. We’re two guys after all. I move on to the next topic on my list, “Favors.”
Kory hates doing homework. I don’t mind it at all. I know it sounds nerdy, but I like to be a good student. Korey always asks to see my homework, especially for American Literature. Mr. Meyer makes us do one written assignment a week. Kory and him detest each other. To show Kory that I’m there for him I let him use my notes on The Catcher in the Rye. Kory basically copies my paper and I get the first B ever. I try not to be mad at him. Kory gets a C and is ecstatic. “The best grade I ever got! Thank you so much!” He gives me a big bear hug. I freeze and hope he will never let go of me. After what feels like a split second Kory does let go of me and leaves me standing in the hallway. I look after him. That small favor worked, so I decide to share more things with Korey. If he were my boyfriend, my stuff would be his stuff, right?
I’m an only child, so sharing is really tough for me. There’s nothing I cherish as much as my bike. It’s red with huge wheels in a cream color. It looks like a small motorcycle from the 1950s. I had to stack shelves at Kroger’s Superstore for months to be able to afford it. “Let me take your bike out for a spin. It looks so damn cool,” Kory says after school on Friday. “I’ll return it to you tomorrow.” He knows how possessive I am of my bike. I reluctantly agree to switch bikes with him and ride home with his old boneshaker.
On Saturday, I answer my door to Korey completely covered in mud.
I’m about to loose it when I see my bike. I spend most of Saturday afternoon cleaning it. Seeing the big grin on Korey’s face was worth it, though.
As the next favor, I let him use my gym membership card. We don’t look anything alike and Korey gets kicked out. The manager of the gym threatens to end my membership if we ever do it again.
I see this as a minor setback. Before I started my operation Korey and I were always in the proximity of each other, but never as close as friends. Now we talk a lot more. I call this progress and move on to the next measure on my list, “Feedback from others.”
I make my friends gloat how fabulous I am. They aren’t subtle about it at all. I’m listening in on my friend Maia talking to Korey while hiding behind the bushes in the school parking lot. Maia tells Korey what a great cook I am (which I’m not at all). He says, “What did Ryan promise you for this? I know he can’t even cook an egg.”
Troy isn’t doing a better job either. He says, “From what I hear, Ryan is da bomb in the sack.” The whole hallway erupts in laughter. Korey raises one eyebrow, grins and says, “Is that so? Good to know. If anyone ever asks me about Ryan’s abilities in bed, I’ll be happy to pass that information along.” The busy hallway of Harper High is in stitches. I feel myself turn beet red, mouth “Sorry” to Korey and pull Troy after me. So embarrassing. Maybe I should have given my friends a better briefing of what to say. Oh well.
Onto the next measure: “Treats.”
Kory loves cotton candy. I convince my mom to buy a cotton candy machine. I set up a cotton candy table in his front yard. Just like at the carnival. His neighbor’s kids love this. Quickly, a line forms in front of my stand. I try not to make it too obvious that I’m just there for him, so I end up giving out cotton candy to the whole neighborhood. I make twenty dollars. Korey doesn’t even show. Then after a few hours his mom shoos me off.
Maybe a little jealousy will get Korey’s juices flowing? I act like I’m hooking up with his nemesis Rufus. They used to be friends, but back in middle school they had a big fight that led them to detest each other. I’m sure none of them remembers what it was about. Kory and Rufus are polar opposites. Kory is artistic and slim, Rufus is a big sportive guy. He plays safety on our football team. His body is massive and so is his smile. Rufus has always shown a lot of interest in me, so it’s easy to get his attention.
I set up to meet Rufus at Fresh Beans, a coffee shop across from school. Korey gets his daily caramel latte here. Rufus is easy to talk to and I’m having fun. So at first I don’t notice that Korey has walked in. When Kory spots us sitting at a table and chatting, he stops and tilts his head to the side. He gets in line to order his drink and nods to us before leaving. His face unreadable. Is he jealous?
The next day in class, I say to Kory, “Rufus asked me to go to his cabin in the woods for the weekend.” All Kory says is, “I thought you had better taste than this.” Otherwise he doesn’t seem bothered as much as I had hoped he would be. Rufus is a good guy, but I’m too far gone for Kory to see myself being with anybody else. I decide not to meet Rufus again. I don’t want to lead him on.
Do you have any ideas I didn’t try yet?
I really didn’t want to have to use the last thing on my list. But I’m really desperate here. Because we have known each other forever, I know a lot of things about Kory. Things he doesn’t want others to find out about.
I approach him and say, “Give me one date, or I’ll tell your mom what you did in sixth grade.” Nobody knows it was him who took the X-Box in sixth grade, used it, accidentally broke it by pouring orange juice over it, and returned it like it had never gone.
He just laughs at me and ruffles my hair. “Go ahead, maybe it is time for me to own up to my faults.” I could also tell his grandma it was Korey who ate her cake when she had set it out to cool and blamed it on his little brother. I decide not to.
In the end, it was all no use. My efforts didn’t amount to anything.
He stops me when I pass him in the hall at school. We haven’t talked much lately, because I was so busy with trying to win him over while not putting too much pressure on him all the time. Does this make sense? I guess not. A lot of what I do lately doesn’t make sense. I read once that the insane and people in love have the same hormone levels in their systems.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I see that you’re trying really hard. But I just don’t feel it. A ‘No’ is still a ‘No’ and it will always stay this way.”
That’s the moment I give up.
I wake up and Kory is lying in front of me. In my bed.
I’d know the back of his head anywhere. Staring at the back of his head is what gets me through my school day.
He turns around then, gives me a small peck on the lips and smiles. His smile is everything.
My brain is still mushy from the vivid dream and it takes some time for reality to settle back in. Kory and I have been dating for some time now.
My Mom is heavy into dream interpretation. It’s her obsession to ask me about my dreams. I have to tell her all the details I remember. “Honey, the way you put yourself down in your dreams shows that you have deep rooted self esteem issues. We really need to work on that,” she told me last week.
I’m fully awake now and I realize that I didn’t have to do any of the things I just dreamed about to get with Kory.
Kory rubs his nose on mine and closes his eyes again, letting out a satisfied breath. He is so adorable, I don’t even mind his morning breath.
It was actually him who pursued me. Not the other way around.
But I would do all of the things I have just dreamed about to achieve this very moment with him.
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