i love you, spongebob: a very boring confession
"I hate goodbyes. And I hate see-you-laters, too. I don't want to see you later. I want to see you right now, all the time."
That's what I told you before we dropped you off at your new apartment in a different city. I could drive there in a day, but unfortunately I have my own life back home.
In this blog post, I'm calling you, Spongebob. Partially as an inside joke, but mostly for their benefit (I gesture to the person reading their computer or phone). Also, because like the real Spongebob, I'm so glad you exist. My other best friend was there. I'll call them Scooby. Don't read into that one. It was just the first thing to come to mind, ok?
I was pretty proud of that line, to be honest. It's hard to be vulnerable, so you get points for that. And if you make your vulnerable moment kinda sweet and movie-like, you get bonus points.
"Wait that's a good one," Scooby said when I told them about my goodbye to Spongebob. "Can I use it on my girlfriend?"
"No!" I yelled. "Well, maybe... I don't know. Just give me credit, okay?"
I cried for a little bit on the way back home.
Everyone who knows me knows that I love you, Spongebob. You're one of my best friends.
But everyone who really, really knows me knows the terrible truth.
I am probably, unabashedly, in love with Spongebob Squarepants.
At least I hope so. I've seen enough rom-coms to know that sometimes when you love someone, you actually just love the idea of them.
I think we became friends when I asked you on a date. It was fun, but it didn't go anywhere. After that, we started college and for some reason we started hanging out. I remember we would bus home together every Wednesday night one semester. My night class would finish before yours, and I would wait in the nice building until your class was done. I didn't mind because it gave me time to watch TV and do homework and stuff.
At one point, I thought you had a crush on me. I was gonna tell you I had a crush on you. We were eating noodles at that place I'm obsessed with. Then I changed my mind and I told you I had a crush on someone else, which wasn't untrue.
When I stopped dating that person, I vented to you about it a ton. Last week, you told me you vividly remembered the time we were walking through the mall to get to class, and they finally texted me back and I freaked out so bad.
I remember thinking how I could never ask you out after that. Not because it was embarrassing or anything, but because
Later that year, I asked you out, and you said no, and I wasn't too shocked. I remember I thought I was gonna poop myself when I asked you - not just because I was nervous as all hell, but also because I had like a triple-ultra nitro coffee and my stomach couldn't handle it.
--
We started hanging out more after that. I think that's funny. I also thought it was funny when I started dating someone new, and I told you, and you almost never asked me about them. It kinda hurt my feelings.
Then we found that Mexican restaurant.
I wrote this confession on a blog I'll never tell anyone about, under a pseudonym I don't use anywhere else. I don't have any identifying information on here. This could all be a made up story, for all anyone knows.
And yet, I'm 100% that if you read this, you'd know immediately it was me who wrote this because I'm talking about that Mexican restaurant.
I like how you don't remember how you found out about it. I think I'll remember that first time forever. When the food came out, I almost cried because I was so hungry. We couldn't stop talking about the horchata. You called me out for drinking it with both hands like a grandma. After that, we went for a drive, and I got us lost and we ended up in some industrial yard. A literal dumping ground. We could see the sky so clearly there.
It's so ridiculous that the best place for star gazing in the whole city is in the middle of some industrial complex.
We tried to go there last week, but we had gone to that part of town so many times that I actually couldn't get lost if I wanted to. And I literally wanted to.
--
I'm not taking your move very well. But it's not going terribly either. I went rock climbing yesterday, and I had a lot of fun. You've only been gone for like four days.
There's a lot of little things I do to remind me of you. Like using that Czech swear word that you always use. (Although, I just searched it up right now, and I don't like using that word, so maybe not). I also wanna listen to that weird album you put on. I liked it better than the other weird album you put on.
I'm gonna text you later tonight and it won't be sappy at all because we're in the middle of a conversation about bags, but it'll be funny to me because you won't know I wrote this. I'm gonna write that short story I was telling you about, and I'll send it to you but I won't post it here because then this post could get linked back to me. It's the worst confession ever because I don't say your name and you'll probably never see it, and I'll probably end up marrying someone completely different and I'll feel guilty I ever wrote this.
--
Like I said, there's a good chance that when you love somebody, you really just love the idea of them.
I told you I loved you when we said our see-you-laters, and you said it back. I was being weird the whole weekend because I knew I wanted to say that, but I didn't want you to think I was flirting or anything. When I'm nervous and sad, I totally lose my appetite.
That's why I couldn't finish my beans that morning at the diner. Because I was scared to say I love you, Spongebob.
. . .
. . .
[I'm talking to you now, the person reading this. Feel free to send me an email if you read this, but don't make it weird, ok? Just tell me if it was a fun read or not. I'm not gonna reply though. My email is waterwedoingforever@gmail.com.]