She Was So Pretty

It’s Tuesday evening. I already did a diary entry today, but I can’t resist beginning another one.

Today was an unusually great day. My roommate invited me to a picnic with his university friends. Obviously, I agreed. It sounded like a great chance to meet new people and to practice my English at the same time. What’s the worst that could happen?

We came to Letná Park in the afternoon. There were already a bunch of people at the beginning, but even more were coming. All of them were from different countries, and every one of them was such a pleasure to talk to. But at some point, the unexpected happened.

New people came, and Georgia was among them. I was absolutely stunned by how pretty she was. When I first saw her eyes, I couldn’t help but stare at them.

Naturally, I wanted to get to know her better, so I was going to talk to her, when almost immediately, I was stopped. The fear inside of me began to rapidly eat me alive. I felt shackled, unable to do anything about it.

I urgently wanted to distract myself or do something, anything but what I actually wanted. I kept talking with people, trying to get rid of the crushing sense of dread that followed me. It felt so wrong, yet I felt so helpless.

After a short time, I was talking to her friend. We were discussing how peculiar human languages are, how drastically they differ, and what a great impact they have on us as a society. The topic was extremely appealing to me, so the conversation was really engaging.

Not long afterwards, Georgia joined the discussion. She didn’t talk much, but when she did, she seemed so intelligent, and it was so attractive. I still can’t tell if I was just blinded by how gorgeous she was. During the conversation, I learned that she was here for a few days and would be leaving back to Italy soon.

Towards evening, I had to leave. Everything was coming to an end, and we were packing everything up. By then, I had still hardly spoken to her at all, which made me feel extremely silly. At some point, I got so overwhelmed by the fact that fear runs my life and I do nothing about it. It became clear that I had no choice but to act.

“You know, it can be kinda unusual, but I think you are really cute.” Something like that is what I barely managed to tell her. I was expecting nothing. It just felt right to tell her how I felt. Being sincere is really important to me, and I simply couldn’t let fear get in my way.

She got embarrassed and said something like, “Thanks, you’re cute too.” There are no words that can describe how happy and baffled I was. After such a great introduction, what could possibly go wrong?

I froze instantly. No matter how hard I tried, the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. There was just silence and an awkward tension building up. Explaining how embarrassed I was is all I managed to do, after which the conversation ended quickly.

Now that I’m reflecting on it, it’s hard to describe the way I feel. I’m glad that in spite of all the odds, I overcame my anxiety, and yet I can’t stop thinking about how awkward my behavior was. I feel so guilty, as she probably expected more than what I did. I didn’t even ask her for any contact or give her mine. How can success be so close and yet so far away?

I would love to meet her again, but unfortunately, it seems like moving on is the only real option I have.