Mistakes

Did you ever do something stupid and you still feel guilty about it? If you are like me, than this has happened more than once. Here's one instance: Back when I was in college, there was one year that I had two roommates and we lived at the top of the building at the end of the hall. One of them was the dumb jock, and the other was a French foreign exchange student. I rarely had the room to myself (and to have "me time", if you know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Either the jock was sitting around watching TV, or Frenchie had his French pals over to drink at all hours of the day or night.

One benefit of living in that room was that we had a great view of campus, and, in the late spring, of the girls that used to lay out to tan in the courtyard or on top of the parking garage across the street. One week, the jock borrowed a telescope from a friend of his and spent a lot of time looking at the girls. This particular day, the jock was gone for the day, and Frenchie was quietly studying, so I was able study in the room as well. Around noon, Frenchie got up and left. I didn't see him leave the room, and I figured he either went to lunch or to class. "Now's my chance to be a perv and look at the girls," I thought. So I locked the door, stripped down, and started looking and stroking. After about 20 minutes, I heard the door handle squeak, and then a knock at the door since it was locked. "Crap! Someone's spotted me!" I thought. I rushed to get dressed and put everything back in place.

Then I heard Frenchie's voice. "Hello! Hello!" he called from outside the door. I figured that if he didn't have his key and didn't hear me, he might think I had left the room while he was out. I stayed quiet a few minutes. He finally stopped knocking and left. I got back to business. About 5 minutes later, he was back knocking on the door, now with one of his pals. Crap, this bugger won’t go away. They went away after a minute. I put everything back into place and went back over to my desk to study. About 5 minutes later I heard keys jingling outside the door and in Frenchie walked wearing nothing but a towel and flip-flops! I then realized that he had gone to take a shower, not taking his keys because I was there. He had to go down to the dorms lobby to get a spare key! He was talking to his friend in French while I just ignored them studying. He then asked where I went and if I heard them knocking. I gave them the reaction like I didn’t know what they were talking about – that I had left and come back and didn’t hear any knockings. He said that his friend waited outside the door while he went for the key. I just feigned ignorance, packed up my books, and left for class.

I was so freaking embarrassed! That was about the lamest, most shallow thing I’d ever done, all just so I could get some cheap thrills and an orgasm (which I never got). I wasn’t sure what to do when I returned from class later that day. I figured we were roommates, not best friends. Maybe he would think I was playing a stupid American practical joke. Anyway, we never did speak about it after that, and we didn’t do much together either. We weren’t cold or unfriendly, just not buds. The last thing I remember about him was the day that he left. Finals were the day before, and I had been out drinking pretty late. I remember him getting up and finishing packing while I was hardly conscious in bed. He said “Good bye!” and then left.

To this day, I still feel like a knucklehead (or chucklehead) about the whole thing. I probably made a very poor impression on him not only about myself, but Americans in general. If that episode hadn’t happened, we might have been better friends. Who knows? We could still be friends to this day and I might have someone to see if I ever go to France, or vice versa (selfish reason). In any case, I was not the person that I should have been. I let myself down. That is the worst part about it.

OK, so now is your turn to tell me that.