Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
In those early 2000s teen movies, there’s always this storyline where the main character, who is a total loser, gets his self-confidence by the end of the movie and steals the school’s hottest girl from the jock character.
I used to watch these movies as a form of frivolous entertainment, knowing that deep down, I would never be that guy.
I was in love with the most beautiful girl in my class
She was good in her studies, good at sports, and she even volunteered on the weekends.
In short, she was every guy’s dream girl.
I watched her from the sidelines, an overweight guy, and I felt that I came up short.
It didn’t help that I was only interested in tabletop games, Warhammer, and World War 2 history.
Meaning, when it came to talking to girls, I didn’t have a clue as to what they were interested in. Was it Jay Chou? High school musical? Who knows.
As I got older, I met a girl at uni. Let’s call her Denise. Denise was one of the hottest girls in class, and she knew it. She’d dress in the most flattering dresses that just about met the college’s dress code, but every guy would stare as she walked across the compound.
I’d look at her from a distance, but safe to say that by then, I was already way past the point of caring if girls liked me or not.
Let the hot guys chase the hot girls. I was comfortable with who I was. I liked tabletop games more than anything else, apart from getting a good job so that I could continue with my obsession with tabletop games.
I never thought I’d actually be the only guy to date the hottest girl in the entire college — and it was all down to this one accident.
I was walking when I saw a pendrive on the ground.
One day, I passed by the college library when I saw a pendrive on the ground, right next to the entrance.
“Why didn’t anyone spot this?” I thought to myself.
Pocketing it, I went into the library. I’d planned to surrender it to the library staff, but my mind was so focused on that day’s assignment that I thought I’d drop it off later once I was done with the assignment.
Mr. Chan had been in a particularly sadistic mood today and gave us not just our own homework to do, but we also had to grade each other’s homework and submit it as a report on ethics in journalism. What a headache.
Anyway, I’d been pumping out work for about an hour and was feeling exhausted. On a whim, I decided to plug in the pendrive to see who it belonged to.
To my surprise…
It was that girl’s pendrive!
I found my crush’s pendrive, but I also found her secret…
The pendrive seemed normal. Nothing out of the ordinary. It had school files, forms, and mp3s. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the “pics” folder.
What I saw left me completely in shock. It had a lot of pictures of my crush… posing naked. It wasn’t a bunch of selfies either, these had professional lighting and airbrushed skin and all.
A part of me felt guilty, like I was seeing something I wasn’t supposed to, and I immediately closed the folder.
I thought quickly. If I sent it in to the library staff, they might see it too. I thought about passing it to her friends, but what if they weren’t supposed to know either? Perhaps it was only meant for her boyfriend or something.
So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and give it to her myself.
I asked around for Denise’s number from my college mates. After explaining that it was for a group project we were doing, a mutual friend passed it to me.
I texted her to let her know that I had found her pendrive, and within minutes, we met in the courtyard outside the library.
When I showed it to her, her eyes widened in surprise and she said, “Thank you.”
I don’t know if I was imagining it, but I also sensed a glint of fear behind those eyes. Like she was thinking, “Did he look through and see my nudes?”
I decided to be honest with her.
I don’t know what prompted me to say what I said next, but I said, “Er, by the way, I had to open the pendrive to find out who it belonged to.”
“Did you… oh my god… this is so embarrassing…” Denise started to blush.
“Yeah… I saw… a little bit… but I closed it before seeing too much. Don’t worry, I didn’t show it to anyone else,” I quickly reassured her.
“Oh, thank god, and I’m sorry you had to see that.”
I don’t know why she was apologising. Was it a crime to accidentally get your nudes seen by a guy? If anything I should be the one to apologise, in case I came across as a creep.
“Oh no, don’t apologise, it was my fault for seeing it. Anyway, I don’t really remember anything in that folder.” (This was a complete lie).
“Ah ok, thank you! Actually nobody knows about those photos. It’s for a shoot I’m doing for an adult magazine in the States.”
“Ah, so you found work there? That’s pretty great, having some side income is always helpful.”
She smiled and nodded, and I suddenly felt warmth flooded in my cheeks. Wtf, how can a girl be this cute?
It was so easy talking to her
Maybe because she seemed so normal, like your average girl-next-door. But talking to my crush for the first time didn’t feel intimidating at all.
“I’m really grateful you didn’t leak those photos to your friends. I know a few guys at college whose first impulse would be to leak them,” she thanked me again.
Then came the question that gave me the shock of my life, “May I get you a coffee?”
Now I was taken aback. A girl asking me out for a coffee? And not just that, the hottest girl on campus?
Did I just find myself in some kind of b-grade dating simulator plot?
We ended up dating for 9 months
We dated until the end of that college year.
At that time, many of my guy friends kept pestering me for tips on how to woo women. Because I was dating a hot girl, they thought of me as this casanova.
But the truth is, being with her made me reevaluate my attractiveness. I was this overweight geek, whereas she was the hottest girl on campus that everybody wanted a piece of.
This happened 10 years ago.
So,what was my secret to landing the hottest girl in college?
What compelled her to ask me out? The first thing I did was not judge her for using her nudes to pay for college. Coming from a lower-income family, I understood it and accepted it.
Malaysian men are generally judgemental about things like that, so when I told her I respected her hustle, she felt like, finally there was someone she could share her secret with.
Meanwhile, I was in the mindset of pure disbelief the whole time. I wasn’t possessive or clingy, like all the other guys before me who she dated. She told me that it was a breath of fresh air.
I used to think that girls wanted macho men. But what a girl really wants is a guy who accepts her as she is. After all, I know that as a guy, what I want is a girl who accepts me as I am.
For more stories like this, read: I Confessed To My First Crush And Became A Laughing Stock In School, But I Don’t Regret It
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