I had never been this far away from home before in my life, but there I was, sitting on the edge of my twin size bed in my freshman dorm room. I forced a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth; my usual routine when anxiety gets the best of me. High school was finally over and I had moved on to what I'd hoped would be a more mature and serious world.
I had a couple of friends in high school. We shared a common interest in sci-fi and D&D, but we all went out separate ways to universities spread out across the country. I wanted nothing more than to leave the rumination and embarrassingly awkward life of high school behind me.
Of course, there I was on the edge of the bed, staring off in the playback memory of classmates laughing at me when the click of the door jolted me out of my trance. The door slowly opened with the sound of knocking and grunting, revealing a large muscular body, wrestling three large suitcases in through the doorway. He dropped the bags to the floor, and let out a deep hardy sigh. This tower of a man stood upright, shaking his head as he was catching his breath, "My God! 3 flights of stairs!" His voice boomed. The sight of him made my stomach drop and anxiety fly. "Not again!" Was the only thought my brain could come up with.
I started to sink into the plastic mattress. I wanted to scream. I wanted nothing more than to leave guys like this out of my life as they had made my life miserable in high school. "Dumbass Jocks!" The thought was so loud I was afraid I spoke it. I was just sitting there like helpless prey. My mind spun with the possible next moments: a deep laugh at the sight of me, an intimidating command ordering me out of "his" room.
My hypervigilance kicked in and I could tell he was looking at me; here it comes. "Hey there, sorry for barging in like that. I'm Ted," he said respectfully with an outstretched hand and sly grin. I stammered as my brain tried to shift gears. Stuttering was one of the few social deficits I was spared from, but here I was doing it. I looked up at Ted, towering over me. His broad chest and shoulders stretching out his t-shirt. He could crush my body in an instant. "H-hi! Hi, I'm Mike." Shaking his massively, strong hand I felt like toddler or a mouse.
"It's really good to meet you, Mike. Looks like we'll be roommates!" He said, adjusting his backward baseball cap. He sounded polite, respectful almost excited even. This was confusing. My brain conjured up a cruel punchline of some sort was seconds away. But it never came.
In the first two days as we were settling in, preparing to start the first semester, Ted was by far the most respectful, charismatic peer I'd ever met. We had actually gone to lunch together and I learned that he was an English Lit major; who would have imagined. His whole demeanor and personality was pleasantly backwards from how he appeared. My anxiety and fears just melted away by the second night of living in the dorm.
That second night was quite peculiar. While Ted was in the shower around 9:30pm, I was setting up my desk, trying to get organized for my first three classes that would start the next morning. Ted walked in the room from his shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. The size of his muscular body made the towel look like a wash cloth. He was saying something about how far the bathroom was from our room, but the distraction of his lines and definition made me barely able to listen.
