Last week in my large lecture class, I saw an HB8 who particularly grabbed my attention. Me from several months ago would have just spent the rest of the semester staring at her from afar and never considering the possibility that she could ever want to speak to me. Today I decided not to let myself down like that:

I come early to class today to scope out the situation, I want to sit next to this girl. I subtly walk around and chill in the back, waiting for a sign of her. A few minutes before class, she enters, sits down, and I am quick to follow. She sits down with her female friend directly to her left. A guy is entering the row and I am worried sick that he might take the seat to her right. Thankfully, he continues further into the row, leaving me with the golden opportunity.

I sit next to her and am about to begin a conversation, but she is talking with her friend and I swear she mentions something about having "slept at Luke's" the other night. My nerves kick in and tell me ABORT!, she must have a boyfriend, why would she want to talk to me anyway?, I must be a moron... the usual stream of approach anxiety. I feel like no matter how fast my heart is pumping me with oxygen, it's not enough. Before I can come to my senses, class begins, she is diligently taking notes, I might be on the verge of cardiac arrest, and worst of all I have still said nothing to this girl.

Halfway through the lecture, I adopt a new attitude. All I need to do is interact with this girl. If I can do that, no matter the outcome, I have succeeded. I KNOW I will be infinitely happier with a rejection than having not tried. No matter how many times you can say this to yourself and understand it rationally, you need to practice at it so it becomes internalized emotionally. The first times are very difficult but you have to dive into it like a cold pool before you get over approach anxiety. I'm still in the early stages of this but the improvement is already noticable.

I recall this field report that I read and decide to use the same strategy. I scrawl a tic-tac-toe board and make my first move. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I nudge her elbow with my elbow (kino anyone??), show her the notebook, and offer my pencil. She giggles. I can finally breathe. We make a few moves back and forth, until it's clear that we're going to tie (of course). She whispers "it always ends in a tie." I overtly cheat, I erase her last "O", substitute an "X," and suddenly I'm the winner. "Not today," I said, and showed the paper to her. Another giggle. There are about 10 minutes left in the lecture. Now I wait, I know what my real finishing move will be...

Class ends and once we are packed up, I stand upright, confident, look her in the eyes, and say "I know this is out of the blue, but do you want to get coffee soon?" (I am curious whether prefacing it with an acknowledgement that my request is random is OK or if I should just jump to the question. Maybe it doesn't matter.) Inside I am already ecstatic, relaxed, and feel as though I don't even care what her reply is-- I did the impossible-- I asked out this random hot girl I was fawning over. She seems happy and says "Of course!" Mind you, this is basically our FIRST verbal interaction. We exchange digits and I go on my way.

TL;DR- Played tic-tac-toe with a random HB8 during class after learning the strategy from another field report, playfully cheat to make her laugh, and successfully ask her for coffee.