Peer Edit, David Romero '14

by david romero '14

"You know how you're awkward and strange with people and everyone thinks you're weird? That's what I think she's kind of Like too."

I couldn't have disagreed more... with the second part; I was conscious of my awkwardness. This girl in front of me, my shamelessly honest neighbor and occasional confidant-summed me up spot on, evaluated me, in the ruthless way that only she could. I had learned to take such criticism with gritted teeth; it bugged me, but I wanted her help in this matter of the heart. My neighbor would tell me how to get my crush to notice me,even if it meant swallowing the bitter pill of her cruel yet well-meaning honesty. "You should just go for it! This is college! Try new things; you can do it!"

Ugh. I groaned. The girl in question, the one my blunt neighbor and I were talking about, was tailormade to make me fancy her: sweet voiced, un-pretentious, self-aware (but not awkward as my neighbor suggested, perhaps to make me think that I have a chance with said girl), studious, goofy, intelligent, and not Mexican-American. I wasn't sure how that last

one influenced my feelings for her. She was White and studying Russian, not the ideal language and ethnicity combo that I had in mind. But even though my Ideal Girl spoke Spanish and had the same skin tone as me, I never really talked about my heritage or about any sort of struggle of ethnic identity with anyone; I just knew that her not being Latina.or Chicana or whatever didn't make me feel any less for her.

Admittedly I had had fantasies of marrying a Mexican-American chica,of my wife and I getting married in Yucatan or Durango or Jalisco, or Oaxaca or Chihuahua, celebrating the way Mexicans do, whatever that means. Of her speaking to Mom (MAH-um,as I called herina sort of made up Spanglish pronunciation) in that beautiful language without hesitation and redeeming my own hestitant speech and grammatical ignorance of el sustantivo, of having Spanish Saturdays where little David Jr. (or Juan or Ocatvio, if we were bold) would learn El Himno Nacional right before watching ElPartido.Asl awkwardly sat in my neighbor's dorm complaining thai I just couldn't make the first move and that I would surely make a fool of myself, I only knew one thing for

sure.

I just knew I hadn't felt this way in a long time: only academic essays had kept me up at night so fa,

not thoughts about girls.

I thought of the color brown, not like the color: my school but of my skin, a color that was differen: much darker than hers.

"Tell me you'll go for it; you have to now tha. you've told me all of this! Take a risk! Man up and grow some balls."

I promise to at least try... Lo prometo.