Why do I do these things?

Hi Wen,

This is Jason Lesko. We first met at UC, Boulder in Fall 2002 during a new graduate student introduction seminar. You were a guest. You had a white t-shirt on, and I couldn't help but notice your breasts, your smile, your intelligence. I was smitten. 

I failed to express my feelings then and subsequent times afterward, but they hung there.

They were there during our several conversations in our basement graduate student office at the Communication Department. They were there when I recall you telling me that you were from Yangtzee province, and I was happy to know something about the river that ran through there. They were there when you gave me a Chinese New Year Gift, which was a reversed symbol of addressing good luck on the owner to suggest 'good luck to you.' After you offered the explanation, I remember Ma Jing laughing in a way that to me then suggested that there was more to the gift, and I hung upon that moment.

And I hung that symbol up in my house. I confessed to my roommate, Mike, that I had such a huge crush on you. But what I didn't do is do anything about it substantively, let alone, tell you in a meaningful way.

I am sorry. I address that to you and to me. I was a silly monastic nerd. I had so many reasons not to follow my desires and pick you but instead let those who clubbed me over the head with their desires to pick me. I recall a funny hat night at Sarah Dempsey's house where you were there. I had a chance to talk, but I balked then.

What a dumb mistake.

I am shy. I identify with my sadness so much that I court it. I court sadness by continually detouring from direct contact with those I desire. I did this with you. It is a continual behavior that I do to continue my sadness. And for that I pay a serious price. I live alone. I've never lived with a lover, ever.

That's dumb. And for reasons like this I am so sorry. I address that to you and to me.

I don't intend my confession to be too maudlin or a way to force my desires into your face. I simply wanted to tell you how I felt then and as a result of me never doing a damn thing about them then, they still are with me now.

You are one of few people that I've met who I've fell for in an instant. And countless times since first seeing you, seeing you again caused me to fall into the same kind of overwhelming sensation of desire. But I did something I learned in my family, which was to shut it all up.

And I shut it up to my detriment.

I doubt you still use this address. I cannot believe that, of all things, I committed this e-mail to memory. But here I am, 16 years after first seeing you, still thinking, every so often, about you.

Hi Wen.

Bye Wen

love.

Jason