Strangest of all is that I have this thought, this intellectual though not "gut" urge, to join them. That I should. That why shall I not enjoy myself, and submit to these alleged effects, melting away tension, and stiff lips? 

I have been told. I am a "downer." A "prude." I am "uptight." Therefore, shouldn't I in fact have the greatest need to partake? And yet while there may be a need, I have no real want. I don't want alcohol. I want conversation, laughter, all that used to come just fine without any 80 proof aid. But, now, there's something wrong with that.

He was -- is -- a gamer; I played a couple of major RPGs, due mostly to my brother (but never Dungeons and Dragons!). We took the same art class, and sort of vaguely knew each other at the onset from the previous year's English class, when I knew him as a girl's whipped boyfriend (she held onto his hand, for Pete's sake, like a damn safety leash). He probably knew me as the slightly odd and sarcastic one who hung out with the more sarcastic one and a slightly bumbling one. So we had seats across from each other. We talked, a bit. I have this capacity for noticing when I shouldn't be talking -- i.e. when the teacher has noticed -- but he hadn't, so frequently he would be reprimanded while I stared at my desk and made sympathetic faces afterwards. I'm not entirely quite sure why he never became angry with me.

He invited me out to a movie. It was Star Trek: Nemesis. Yes. I was a Trekkie then. It wasn't a high price; I enjoyed being one then, even as I was fully aware of the social repercussions. It became one of our touching points. He did, though, invite me out with a group of his friends, all whom I knew by name and face, but not much more.

Now, I never figured out what he meant there. Was it just as it seemed, and he was considering me a friend, slightly "one of the guys", a fellow, dangit, Trekkie? Or was he using them as a stepping stone towards something more private later on? If I agreed to a group outing, would that mean he would feel more confident asking me out on our own?
 
Then he went onto complicating it further by confessing to me one evening in an online conversation that he had a dream where we kissed. 

Be quiet. I was quite taken back at the time. (And admittedly, I would still be.)

The key was not that he dreamed it -- while his theories are fascinating to read for someone with offhand interest in psychology, I more or less think Freud was a quack -- but that he told me.  

My first, terrible reaction is to laugh it off. I badly bungled even that, crassly overreacting (or, overacting). He laughed along, of course ... but now, so late, I wonder whether he was testing the waters, holding back his own judgment to see mine, in order to save embarrassment for himself, and for me, in the case I was repulsed. He had certainly framed it so it sounded like he couldn't quite believe it himself ("WEIRD" was his exact wording, I think), but now I realize that he never actually expressed a positive or negative opinion about it.

Alas, possibly the worst is that he is happily attached now. I feel a twinge of that "what could've/might've been" regret, but also a bit of relief -- seeing the pretty, stylish, outspoken girl he is with now, I don't really believe I would've made a very good girlfriend for him. Still, ghosts follow me where I wander ...

If you feel benevolent enough to indulge me, your verdicts are most welcome.