an unexpected relationship

Spring Semester 2002

Finally back after a winter break and straight to the first big party of the year, there he was... Hippie. I hadn't seen him since the end of last year.

I'll backtrack for a second. Sophmore year I became good friends with my neighbor HKJ. She was a label-whore/pothead from Hong Kong, and I loved everything about her. We quickly became friends and she started taking me to parties at the Swimmer/Sailor house. Going to that house felt weird for me. I didn't really know many of those people and they all kind of kept to themselves. That was about to change...

One night I'm there with HKJ and I start chatting it up with Hippie. He was adorable, great smile, nice guy, very comfortable to be around. Slowly but surely people started to leave the room, but we stuck around to keep talking. Suddenly we realized everyone was gone, so we went looking for them. Nobody was really around, but music was blaring in the empty ping-pong room. He asked if I wanted to dance, so we did... and then we started kissing.

I guess it was while kissing that people suddenly reappeared because practically everyone from upstairs made it a point to stop in the room and check us out. After kissing for a while, we finally broke apart. I went home and he went back upstairs to hang out with his friends.

The next morning, HKJ barges into my room. "You hooked up with Hippie!!! I can't believe it. Roxy, you don't understand. Hippie doesn't hook up with anyone. After you left, everyone was asking me about you. Who is Roxy? Where did she come from? How did she manage to get Hippie?"

I wasn't quite awake, but my reply was pretty typical. "What? Just another keg tapped and kicked." HKJ went on, "uh well I am ok with that, but you don't understand. Hippie is a great guy, and his friends are very protective of him. Just be aware of that."

Well, I was aware. That day I headed to the library to get my study on. It turned out a lot of the people from the Swimmer/Sailor house were there. As I walked by a couple of the girls, I heard whispers "That's HER!!" I didn't think anything of it. But then I ran across BlondDreads. This guy barely acknowledged my existence in the times I've met him through HKJ, and all of sudden "ROXY! So good to see you! Did you have fun last night? I'm glad you could come by."

Oddly, he wasn't the only one glad to see me. Throughout that day, everyone from the Swimmer/Sailor house made it a point to say hello to me with big smiles. It was weird, but I loved it.

Hippie and I started hooking up on a regular basis after that, but it wasn't all that great. I didn't think we were in a relationship, but his friends made it a big point to refer to me as Hippie's woman. They all made an extra effort to get to know me. They all would smile and say hi if we saw each other around campus. They ALL kept an eye on me and didn't like it if they thought I was flirting with other guys.

They all seemed to care so much about me and Hippie being together, and I got so caught up in the whole situation that *I* cared about being with Hippie... the only person who didn't care so much was Hippie...