Chapter 229.
<strong>Chapter 229. Confrontation Before the Valentine’s Day School Dance. (1/4)</strong>
<span style="font-weight:400">The day of the school dance was here. When I woke up Irene was gone. It seemed she’d snuck off at some point to get ready for work. I’d also got up pretty early in the morning with the slim hope of running off to university to avoid the dance, but the small little hope I had was crushed the instant I opened the door to my room.
<span style="font-weight:400">Rosa awaited me with her arm outstretched with a coupon in her hand, the words ‘Meet Up’ were written on it.
<span style="font-weight:400">“The school dance, you better be there. I won’t expect you to go all out and dance or anything, but I expect you can at least handle a few slow dances with me now that our rtionship is known to everyone.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Resigned, I sighed, received the coupon, and epted my fate.
<span style="font-weight:400">The school dance was in the afternoon after lunch. It would go on until the end of sses. You had to pay to get in. If you didn’t attend you’d be stuck in ss to do self-study. You weren’t even allowed to go home. The teachers would still be in sses, but they were just there to answer any questions you had.
<span style="font-weight:400">Teachers who didn’t have a ss to teach during that time slot would be in the gymnasium overseeing the dance. The teachers who freed up the following period would switch out with ones in the gym who had a scheduled ss the next period. You were essentially in prison if you didn’t want to pay the small get-out-of-jail fee to escape.
<span style="font-weight:400">The student council was responsible for organizing these stupid school dances, naturally, they had to try to turn a profit or break even for the expenditure on these school dances otherwise other events they wanted to hold throughout the year wouldn’t be possible. These school dances weren’t cheap, there was the DJ they had to pay for, decorations, posters, food, drinks, items like glow sticks, etc.
<span style="font-weight:400">All this for a pointless little social event. However, it was good experience for the energetic role model students in the student council. Something they could use as experience on their resume in the future. Organizingrge events with hundreds of attendees, managing a budget,working, and coordinating in teams with people outside the school. These were the types of resume keywords HR managers had orgasms over. Throw in some shy buzzwords and the HR managers would practically be begging to get in bed with you.
<span style="font-weight:400">Okay, that was obviously arge over-exaggeration, but it wasn’t too far from the truth either.
<span style="font-weight:400">Anyway, the point was that there were a lot of things they could gain from this event that normal high schoolers who simply wanted to destress and have a fun time took for granted. It was definitely not something I had any interest in though. I always stayed clear of such troublesome overenthusiastic role model students.
<span style="font-weight:400">If it was up to me, I’d abolish such an idiotic event. It was a good thing it wasn’t up to me or I’d incur the ire of all the popr kids who for some reason enjoyed these school dances. For them, it was a great ce where they could unt their superiority in front of all the socially disabled people like me.
<span style="font-weight:400">Please duly note that I take great offense to vulgar terms such as socially retarded, as such, please do categorize me correctly. I prefer terms like socially challenged, socially inept, socially special, social misfit, socially in need, sociallycking, and socially disabled.
<span style="font-weight:400">Okay, I honestly didn’t give a damn, I actually hated all these stupid terms people skirted about to be overly sensitive of your feelings.
<span style="font-weight:400">When I arrived at school in the morning, Jass was already inside the ssroom beside my desk. He was unusually early. When I sat down, he immediately dered to me, “Ran, I’ve finally resolved myself. At lunchtime, I’m going to head over to Alicia’s ss before the dance and I’m going to ask her out.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“What? You mean you’re waiting until the veryst minute?” I was honestly surprised he hadn’t made a move yet and intended to wait until sote to approach her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“No, I’m going to go all out. Even if she rejects me, whenever a slow song starts ying, I will try again.” He announced his idiotic n with so much confidence that it looked like he seriously expected to garner results.
<span style="font-weight:400">“So... you’ve resolved yourself to be rejected not once, but multiple times today by her?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yes.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Are you actually a masochist?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Of course not.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You know, you’re eventually just going to annoy her with your persistence. Once or twice, maybe even thrice being the limit, may allow you to leave a solid impression, but if you go beyond that, you may end up looking like a bothersome pest.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Even then, I’ll do it. Even if I fail with her, it will make me more resilient for the next girl I go after.” This guy...
<span style="font-weight:400">“Why are you so hell-bent on getting a girlfriend?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Isn’t it natural for a guy to want to get a pretty girlfriend while in high school? Anyway, I’m sure if I show her how serious I am I can break down her defenses.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“No, it really might have theplete opposite effect. Her defenses may just rise even higher than ever before. I think knowing when to take a step back is a good skill to have. Only going in hot is a really bad idea. You need to make use of abination of both hot and cold tactics to truly win a girl over and keep her invested in you. If you only use hot tactics, your actions will eventuallye across as you being desperate and it may even negatively impact your future romantic endeavors with other girls. You should seriously reconsider your angle of attack a bit more.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh! You actually sound pretty well versed on such matters despite the cold way you always act toward the girls in ss.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I’m not well versed on matters of romance or love at all. It’s just simple human psychology.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Psychology?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“People want the things that they can’t have. But when that thing feels too far away, they forget about it. If that thing is too easily attainable, they don’t value it that much. Hence, why you need a mixture of both hot and cold. To push and pull. To keep them guessing and the spice alive. If you’re too passionate, you’ll burn up all in one go and you’ll never make it to the finish line.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“By the finish line, you mean…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well, for normal people I guess that would mean sex, marriage, having children, and starting a family together.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“So you’re saying I wouldn’t even make it to sex if I’m too overly passionate at the start?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Correct, the me will run out of fuel to burn before the target you’re interested in draws close enough for you to fully ensnare them within your mes and block off all their paths of retreat. Hence, this is why you need to reel in the me to conserve fuel. That bit of initial warmth you provided to your target, when it suddenly weakens, the taste they had will make them want to draw closer to warm up a bit more again.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“When that happens, you rekindle your me once again. They might take a step back, but the second they do, you once again rein the me back in even further this time. They are then forced to draw closer than before without even realizing it. Two steps forward, one step back. It’s a game of tug of war where one side will either run out of fuel to burn, or the other side will be engulfed within your me and be unable to escape even when you’re conserving your fuel. They will be stuck inside the warmth provided by your me, grow addicted, and be too afraid to return to the cold world outside the gentle me they’ve found themself trapped within. In such a state they will be unable to escape.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Bro, are you some sort of secret pick-up artist? Is this how you got Rosa to fall head over heels for you? Aren’t you too sneaky? Were you actually gunning for her from the very start?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Of course not.”