We Are Totally Normal - Rahul Kanakia Page 0,3
What just happened? And I even called it a date. I was like, ‘Let’s go out on a date.’ But then I made zero moves.”
“No, no.” I nodded my head. “I get it.”
“But do you actually? Or are you just trying to relate? Because shyness doesn’t seem like a problem you have.”
“Mmm.”
“I’ve seen you.”
“Things happen.”
“I kinda never want to see her again.”
“Dude, I get it. Do you know why Avani and I stopped hooking up?”
His eyebrows went up.
“Too much stress!” I said. “Every time we were together, I’d be like, Will we hook up? Where’s this going? What’s happening? Will she talk to me? Will she ignore me? I hated it. Half the time I was so anxious I couldn’t even get it up.” Although that was my deepest and most shameful secret, it slipped out easily with Dave. “Then one day I was like, Wait a second, if I end things first, I’ll win. So I did.”
“But . . . she really liked you.”
“No. That’s not true. I don’t know.”
A jet plane left a long white mark on the sky. “It wasn’t fun. None of this is any fun.”
He doubled over, dropping his head into his hand. “It’s like a math problem. How do we make it fun?”
“I have no idea. You only get these tiny, brief, infinitesimal moments of fun. And then, no fun. The fun disappears.”
“We don’t have to do this. We could just ignore it all.”
“Yeah. . . .”
Dave looked up at me. “You’re not convinced.”
“I don’t know, dude. Those moments, though . . .”
His eyebrows crinkled. “What? What’re you thinking about?”
“Dave, you’re supposed to just let people trail off into silence.”
He rolled his eyes. “Come on. Talking to you is like the only excitement I ever get in my life.”
“Well, I don’t know, I had this weird moment. . . .” I told him about the girl running the brush through my hair on the beach. As the words came out, I saw details I hadn’t noticed at the time, like the way her eyes, seen from below, were so watery and insubstantial.
“And you didn’t even ask her name?”
“No. I didn’t want it.”
“Maybe you’re turning into one of those awkward-cool guys.”
“What?”
“You know what I’m talking about?” he said. “Those guys everybody loves. Like, umm, umm, Greg Sarbanes.”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“Or Hyram Willendowski.”
“Who?”
“Niko Diamandis?”
“The kid who wears a fanny pack?”
“He never makes any moves, but all the girls love him. It’s kind of amazing to watch. This is our idol, Nandan.”
“Whose idol? Not my idol.”
“He’s an idol for nerdy guys. Like, you guys—nonawkward guys—have Pothan. We have Niko. He’s completely oblivious to everything and everyone. And he talks alllllll the time about how terrible he is with girls, and you can see them just looking at him and being like, But you’re so hot, you’re so amazing, except maybe you don’t know you’re hot. Maybe you need my help, my sexual help, to get over your awkwardness.”
“But he wears a fanny pack.”
“I’m telling you, dude.”
Now I laughed. “Okay, so go to Niko for advice.”
“You think I haven’t tried?” he said. “The thing is . . . ninety-nine percent of cool people—basically all of them, aside from you—are incapable of being honest.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know!”
“You’re not making sense, dude.”
He rubbed his fingers together. “I mean I’m not Holden Caulfield. I think being a fake is great. I wish I was a fake. But you have to let people behind the mask sometimes. Niko never does. If I was like, ‘How do I get with Mari?’ he’d be like, ‘Why are you asking me? I’m so terrible with girls. I’m suuuuuch a geek.’”
The way he said that, all nasal and drawn-out, made me laugh, and I ruffled the swoop of his hair.
“Hey!”
“No, but I believe you,” I said. “About Niko. The thing is, there are people like him, who’ve got the magic, and people like us, who need to fake it.”
“You don’t fake it.”
“I’m in so over my head. Pothan’s trying to turn me into”—I thought of trying to hook up with some random girl, maybe tonight, maybe over by the rocks, and my stomach lurched—“into a completely different person. But the crazy thing is: I want to be that person.”
Dave brushed sugar crumbs off his fingers. “Well, to be honest, I’d prefer not to change completely just to get a girlfriend.”
“I don’t know, though,” I said. “There’s so much shit that nobody teaches you. I’m talking about all that garbage that Pothan and Ken believe