Jesse, I wish I could reach through the computer and just give you a motherly hug. The people who seem to have all the attention are actually few, and most of them are running scared someone will find out what they're really like and dump them. So we're all in this together.
Let me tell you a story about a guy who went through school and had practically no friends. He hung out with the adults because they didn't reject him, and he ran errands to make himself feel needed. In college he knew some girls but whenever he talked to them all they did was complain about how they didn't have a boyfriend and no guys were interested in them (boy, did he ever feel like chopped liver!). So he'd gripe about his girl-less-ness
and they got along. He hurt and started noticing that others hurt, too. Oh, and did I mention he was way overweight? He worked hard in school because he thought he could become a doctor and could help people but no school would take him. So he worked hard and studied hard and hung around girls who never saw him as a guy, and he learned to do caligraphy and built VWs because his kept breaking down.
At age thirty-two (!) he met a girl who didn't date because she was fed up with self-centered, shallow guys, and she was intrigued by him...she did caligraphy and had built a VW engine just to see if she could. She found him to be tender from the hard times he'd been through, helpful from the training he'd given himself running errands, and grateful to have someone see him as a real person and not some goodlooking guy with a fast car (he wasn't and didn't). Two unremarkable people looking for real, committed love found each other. We've been married for 18 years next March 26, and happy.
Hang tough, Jesse...life is right now, whether it's a girl or just dealing with whatever is in front of you this minute. You are building the foundation of the rest of your life, so take each moment and do it well and be learning all the time.
It encourages me that the U2 guys overcame hurts: Edge got grief from being different because he had a Welsh accent...Bono had an adversarial father and his mother died...Larry lost his mom and sister...Adam's life seemed intolerable to him. We all hurt somehow, and your hurt is real, too; I'm not making light of that. I don't know what you should say to that girl you are interested in, but it's good to be friends before being lovers so I'd work on the friendship angle of it. If nothing else comes of it, you still have a friend and more experience in relationships that will help you the rest of your life. If it's going to mature into a love relationship, it will without you pushing it prematurely.
Meanwhile, go practice your friendship skills. The internet is good (no one is going to slap you!); clubs are good (play chess? Want to learn?). Go to a church (ours is over-run with pretty and sane eligible young women) as people are accepted there.
God bless you, Jesse!
Rini
(old enough to probably be your grandmother!)
