Read Online Socially Awkward by Stephanie Haddad - Free Book Online Page A

Sean O’Dwyer, who hadn’t heard back from me since his tour invitation , but apparently, didn’t seem to mind being blown off. Or maybe he just didn’t take a hint very well.
    His opening line was totally innocuous, and revealed nothing about either his hint-taking skills or feelings about being ditched. “Hey Olivia! How’s it going?”
     
    I grimaced at my computer screen, then at my bowl of cold health-food sludge, and back at my computer screen. Talking to a guy in person was hard for me to do, but online? This would be a new experience for me. Email was simpler, because of the delay, but this live chat situation was sure to be a bit more stressful. It wasn’t like I could mull over my response for an hour or so. I was talking live. To a guy. Who was mildly attractive. And thought I was some hot model he could rescue from the confusing streets of Boston .
     
    He was also a guy I’d been lusting over since I hit puberty.
     
    As my impulsive brain fought to slam my laptop closed and bolt from my apartment, my rational brain knew this was an experience I would need to chart for research purposes. It was for this reason—and this reason alone , obviously —that I engaged him in conversation, and then copied and pasted our entire exchange into a Microsoft Word document. Thus, it remains preserved in its original format :
     
    SEAN: Hey Olivia! How’s it going?
     
    OLIVIA: Great! Keeping busy. How are you?
     
    SEAN: Just got back from vacation.
     
    OLIVIA: Nice! Where ’d you go ?
     
    SEAN: Visiting my sister in California. She has a house near the beach—lucky bitch. LOL
    Anyway, back to the daily grind for me on Monday. Not looking forward to it.
     
    OLIVIA: Hahahaha. Landscaping, right?
     
    SEAN: Yeah. I’m a project manager, so at least I don’t have to shovel anything. LOL
     
    OLIVIA: It’s been so hot this fall , that would be awful. I bet you just sit idly by and drink spiked lemonade while they do all the work, right?
     
    SEAN: I wish! Anyway, what are you up to?
     
    Sitting at home on my computer, trying to pretend I have a life?
     
    OLIVIA: Working on a play, plus a few photo shoots here and there.
     
    SEAN: That’s great. It’s nice you can find so many jobs in an industry like that. I hear it’s tough.
     
    OLIVIA: It can be. But not as tough as sipping spiked lemonade.
     
    SEAN: Hahahaha. I’ll switch with you any time! So what else do you do with your time? That is, if you ever get any free time!
     
    OLIVIA: I like to cook, I guess. And sometimes I visit my uncle’s farm where I keep my horse.
     
    Lies, all lies.
     
    SEAN: Awesome. I don’t really know anyone that rides horses. I always wanted to learn.
     
                  OLIVIA: Maybe I could teach you to ride sometime.
     
    Sometimes I want to slap myself across the face as hard as I can.
     
    SEAN: Is there any chance you’re free next weekend? I’d love a riding lesson.
     
    It was somewhere around here that I had to step away from my laptop and walk a circle around my apartment. Sean was polite, seemed genuinely interested in my fake job and fake interests. We were chatting away like old friends catching up , except for my deception . Something in the pit of my stomach just didn’t feel right about all of this. He really wanted to be friends. How could I do this to someone?
     
    I sat back down and typed as tactful a response as I could think of: “Sorry, Sean.  Have a shoot this weekend, out of town. Maybe some other time.”
     
    His answer was equally nice and polite. “Have a great time! Hope it’s somewhere nice to visit so you can do some vacationy things!”
     
    How cute was that? Fighting with myself not to encourage him any further, I made up a lie about needing to get to bed early and signed off. I dumped my mushy dinner into the sink, ran the disposal, and headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
     
    My little two-bedroom apartment was the perfect size for someone like me, who