Why Boarding School Sucks

[michaelhctam]

Hello everybody, I am totally new to this forum and I would appreciate it alot if any body can help me out.

Basically, I go to boarding school in England (but I am an American Citizen) and I have been attending this boarding school for 3 years (here is the sad part: It is a catholic ALL-BOY school). I am 17 years old.

Its a we!ner-fest here :cuss:, and alot of the people here all knew each other since they were in primary school (since the age of like 7), so that makes it reletivly difficult to make a circle of friends (many are reluctant to have a new member) so that bruises my social proof to girls.

Any ways, to the point.

I met this really good looking girl at Ball Room dancing (about HB7 IMO), and I had the courage to go up and talked to an entire group of girls; I controlled my behaviour very well (Esp eye contact, and smiling) and so when it came to the point to choose a partner I chose that girl (Going to sound AFC soon), I said to her:

"I would be honored if you danced with me!" <--- She seemed surprised by that comment.

It was a good beggining, she gave me alot of eye contact and smiled alot (I know she was just trying to be polite so I didnt jump to any conclusions)

Eventually I got really AFC, I woke up one morning and thought it would be swell to give her a love letter.....I will give you a small sample (omg this is horrible):

Dear *****,

I would firstly like to apologize for not handing you a handwritten letter, I am afraid that the unruliness of my handwriting would prevent you from being able to read what I have to say. I find it difficult to express myself to my fullest capacity in the uncomfortable (and sweat inducing) atmosphere of the ballroom dancing hall. As I do not want to embarrass you in front of your friends, I chose a more suitable and comfortable form of communication. You have seen me dance like a buffoon, chewing gum to shield my most obvious anxiety and dodging your eyes as I am too scared to peer into them.

Please consider adding me to your MSN, or even contact me via email. If you do, time can only tell. I only hope we can extend our relationship beyond acquaintance. If you don't, I will stand back and not bother you again, but I will truly be disappointed. Telephone conversations will hopefully come later, and by then you will find out who I am at a deeper level.
----

Just a small section of the letter, I only left out my email adress, her name, and the goodbye.

So I patiently waited for her answer, and then she gave me this email about 2 days later:

Dear Mike,
I was given your letter on Friday by ***** - it was really nice of you to write to me, and I know it must have taken a lot of courage!
Look, you're a really lovely guy, but I have to be honest and tell you that I'm seeing someone at the moment and it is not exactly what i'm looking for anyway... but I won't think any less of you and I really hope we can still be friends.
I really have respect for you for your courage and honesty, and I really hope you're not too disappointed - you'll make some girl really happy someday,

*******, x


Now, any person...let alone an AFC can tell she was trying to put me into the friendzone and utilize me as an emotional tampon. I was not going to let her turn me into a neutered dog with a short leash to grovel out of her hand so I ignored her untill I saw her again during Ball Room dancing.........

Now here is when it gets weird.

When I saw her again, she was with her friend and when I walked in her friend spotted me and shouted my name with quite alot of enthusiasm, "HIII MIIKKEE!!!:cheer: "...So a approched (mind you I was wearing really fresh and nicely designed clothes.....I am Chinese-American so I was wearing one of those cool chinese martial arts jackets) the girl I was interested in seemed really shy and her friend did all the talking (this striked me odd, because if she only wanted to be 'friends' why would she be acting shy).....

So the girl and her friend were complimenting my nice clothes when the girl all of a suddenly places her hand on my chest and was feeling my tie and clothes without saying anything and no smiling whatsoever(A sign of Kino?)

I was being AFC so I didnt comment on it, but I walked around and had a good laugh with another group of girls.

Being that I was slightly dissapointed at the girl and did not want to become her 'emotional tampon' at the end of dancing and when we all had to leave I went up with her with very closed body language and a reletivly agressive tone of voice and I said to her.

"Its ok! I am not dissapointed! :woo: "

She replied and reacted really nervously only saying "umm, Ok! Ok!! :nervous: " and twiddling with her fingers. And I waved goodbye and stormed out.

So Its over between us right? ------ WRONG.

About four days before the next time I see her in ball room dancing (Mind you that I can only see her at ball room dancing because I am stuck at school most of the time and not allowed out except for holidays so that obliterates the chances of seeing her outside a school enviorment) she added me on MSN and started chatting with her giving me alot of mixed signals like telling me shes looking forward to seeing me again and blah blah blah didnt remember it.

But in the middle of the conversation she said she had something very important to do! So whatever, i'll just let her leave....but oddly she stayed making mixed signalled remarks and the convo went like this:

"Ok! I got something really important to do now "
"Ok, bye then"
"No really, I have something REALLY important to do!"
"....Its....no problem ok?"
"This is REALLY important and I have to go NOW"
"ALRIGHT ALRIGHT!"
" "
So I thought she was hinted that I wanted her to stay, "Aww, please stay"
"Nop! Duty calls!....See you on friday! xxxx!"
"x?"
"Yes, my darling "

The convo was like that, I didnt know what to make of it. Its either,

1. She felt sorry for blowing me off and did not want to make future interactions awkward.
2. She is actually interested in me and does not actually have a boyfriend but only said she did beacuse she didnt know what to say and wanted to have social proof.

So that friday I was nervous of meeting her again, so I went in there....and eventually I saw her come in, she caught me eyes and I caught her eyes and she gave me a really big smile not a friendly smile like a MASSIVE smile...and when I locked eyes on her she looked away.

I approched her, and said hi shook her hand and did the cheek to cheek gesture (dont know what its called)....the tone of her voice was extremely nervous and you can hear her voice trembling...."H-how was your Christmas?"

I was being a bloody AFC and said, "Well, what answer do you expect? I bet you ask the same question to everybody you know!....yeahhh its good"....

She started to get :nervous: :nervous: and started asking me more questions that go no where like, "How was your weekend?" "how was your holidays?"....."How are you?!"....bah she just wants me as a friggin' pet.

and in the middle of how are you I just cut in and said, "I'll talk to you later" and walked off and she walked off looking quite flustered and :woo:

So for the rest of the night I avoided her, and she avoided me but I can tell she was always trying to catch a glimpse of me when she was dancing with other men. And her friends seem to want to dance with me quite badley.....

So please DJ's, please help me...I am an AFC but I think I have alot of potential to become a DJ....

What should I do now? Should I keep giving her neg-hits and avoidance or shall I do something to break the ice and awkwardness? (Nothing happended between us in terms of kissing or whatever)

Any advice will be very appreciated.

Thank you.

Michael Tam

 

[aftershock]

I think that your real problem is that you rarely meet girls and therefore when you do you get obsessed.

As you had no problem approaching, I'd suggest going into town during the day and approach women. Hell, TELL THEM that you go to an all boys school and it's ****e if you have to, it's only practice. You need to become comfortable around women before University starts.

Are you in your final or penultimate year? Are you going to Uni here or in the States?

 

[michaelhctam]

I understand why you say that aftershock, and I do agree with you 100%.

I like your advice, but the problem is my boarding school only allows me out on sundays, and also my local town (Reading), there is hardly ANY thing to do in the town (in terms of clubs or whatever), but its not really what I am looking for anyways.

I am planning to go to uni hopefully in UK, but most likely in switzerland where there are hotel managment courses. I think during this time I will socialize with girls.

Hahaha, I am comfortable around girls; its just this one particular girl

I am in my second-final year (Its called Lower-Sixth)

Any more advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[Maverick Knight]

I want to know where her supposed man is during all of this.

Be aloof, but let little things drop sometimes- just enough to keep her dangling. After enough of that, you'll find out whether this boyfriend really exists or not. She'll be the one obsessed, not you.

 

[Ripper]

Hey buddy, I took same educational route as you so I probs have more experience than 99% of people on here in this specific area. From my time at school I'd say that (unfortunately from what you said) social proof is very important. In fact, it's quite difficult to illustrate how crucial it is to getting any quality good-looking girls without it. So much of the social scene is who knows who, how much time you've spent on the KR etc. My best advice is work at being as social as you possibly can and definitely play some sort of sport. It really does help. As for the girl you mention, just play it cool, let her be the one to contact you and make sure she doesn't see you as a friend.

 

[Hitman10000]

"Why people under the age of 20 should stick in High School Forum"

 

[michaelhctam]

Hey buddy, I took same educational route as you so I probs have more experience than 99% of people on here in this specific area. From my time at school I'd say that (unfortunately from what you said) social proof is very important. In fact, it's quite difficult to illustrate how crucial it is to getting any quality good-looking girls without it. So much of the social scene is who knows who, how much time you've spent on the KR etc. My best advice is work at being as social as you possibly can and definitely play some sort of sport. It really does help. As for the girl you mention, just play it cool, let her be the one to contact you and make sure she doesn't see you as a friend.

Thanks for the insight ripper;

I understand why you say that (social-proof), and I do realise it is extremely important.....

Especially girls my age (17-18) they are quite sub-concious of how they look like and who they are with and all that type of jargon.

I am trying my best for her not to see me as a friend, but it is quite difficult because she is quite an extroverted and sociable person and I find it difficult at times to distinguish if shes just being friendly or genuenlly interested; she is really touch-feely with other guys and very extroverted with other guys but she is really nervous around me and hardley says anything to me (is this a bad sign?)

But after I gave the letter (and she refused) I didnt want to go all AFC so I started to ignore her and started to target other people in the dance hall (especially her friends), so now she always catches a glimpse of me at the corner of her eye (I dont know what is happening!)

Some of her 'male friends' that go to my school (which is only her 'friend' in vain hope to get in her pants) always ask me, "So I hear you and **** are really good friends now....." in a kind of a dissapointed sort of a tone, is this jealousy or has she made them investigate wtf is going on?

So now I ignore her and treat her like ****, I hope this will achieve a:

"Why dosent he like me any more?! He showed me so much attention before! I want to figure this guy out, omg this guy is driving me insane I need to get to know him! Ouch....My ego!"

Any suggestions or comments to that anybody?

Which school did you go to Ripper, and waht was your educational route? Sounds like we are going to get along famously :rock:

 

[aftershock]

How do they keep you holed up? Whats stopping you leaving during the evening?

Why don't you drop out and go to a normal college?

 

[michaelhctam]

How do they keep you holed up? Whats stopping you leaving during the evening?

Why don't you drop out and go to a normal college?

Basically, this is England so I am pretty much in the middle of nowhere....and I cant drive yet meaning that it takes 1/2 hour to get to the nearest TOWN so I will have to call a taxi which the teacher will get a record of.

Also there is a giant locked up gate. (Prison).

Well I only have one more year left untill I go to university, so I am still hoping for that day.

more advice please, I dont think we broke the ice yet

 

[aftershock]

I live in England.

Reading is the largest town in the country and a similar size to Nottingham, Newcastle and Cardiff. You're not talking about some backwater country town here.

The problem is when you go to University, you will still be awkward around people unless you experience the real world. You'll find it really hard to fit in and most likely not get laid.

Why would you have to call a taxi? In the real world, people regulary use buses and trains.

Basically you're trapped mate.

PM me.

 

[michaelhctam]

I live in England.

Reading is the largest town in the country and a similar size to Nottingham, Newcastle and Cardiff. You're not talking about some backwater country town here.

The problem is when you go to University, you will still be awkward around people unless you experience the real world. You'll find it really hard to fit in and most likely not get laid.

Why would you have to call a taxi? In the real world, people regulary use buses and trains.

Basically you're trapped mate.

PM me.

Well I technically live in a hamlet called Woodcote (its a shythole) and my boarding school is basically in the middle of nowhere and the nearest town is reading which is about 20min drive. And no buses or trains even VENTURE to my school.

I can socialise with people no problem! Its just whenever I go out with 'friends' from school they already have their little social circle that they have all known since the age of 7....so it really damages social proof for me. And alot of the people seem to be reluctant in adding me into their group.

Also they only talk about the same things, Sex, Football (I am american, I fvckin' hate it), fags, pubs, drinks, big brother, chavs, blah blah blah.

I just think that when I enter university people will be more cosmopolitan and generally more mature and accepting of other people. (I can socialize fine! Its just those around me are anti-social) is it AFCish to blame other people?

 

[Desdinova]

You're reading her actions incorrectly because you're inexperienced. She's not trying to use you as an emotional tampon nor a pet. In fact, she's showing high interest. Writing her a letter was an AFC thing to do, but it didn't come across as needy and neither do your actions.

Ignore her bf comment and pursue with exception of asking her out. You put the ball in her court, now she has to turn it around. Flirt with her and kino her. Quit being an ******* to her unless she gives you a *genuine* reason to do so (and this does NOT include your fvcked up interpretation of her actions)

 

[Michele l'Arcangelo]

You're reading her actions incorrectly because you're inexperienced. She's not trying to use you as an emotional tampon nor a pet. In fact, she's showing high interest. Writing her a letter was an AFC thing to do, but it didn't come across as needy and neither do your actions.

Ignore her bf comment and pursue with exception of asking her out. You put the ball in her court, now she has to turn it around. Flirt with her and kino her. Quit being an ******* to her unless she gives you a *genuine* reason to do so (and this does NOT include your fvcked up interpretation of her actions)

Agreed.

Learned this from experience. Don't try being an a-hole to a girl who's undeserving and is showing interest. I ruined many chances with cute chicks trying to be edgy and a-holish and jerkish. You'll definitely kill your chance before you're given a chance. Lighten up and joke about your letter, play along with it... unless the letter thing is old news, find a new common thing to poke fun of.