For as long as I can remember I have always been a fairly awkward person, and sometimes it impedes me from being social. I usually struggle to make conversation with people, especially people who I think I could form a solid friendship with as I sometimes get nervous. For example, if I meet someone new, I may struggle to find the right things to say, or I freeze up. My lack of confidence deters me from being able to talk to people that I sometimes really want to speak to. My confidence sometimes gets as bad as overthinking and blaming myself for things that may happen but haven’t even happened yet. But at the same time, the more that I overthink, the more that I prevent myself from doing the things that I think I will do, that I don’t want to do which is a strange paradox. I feel like I could fall under the oxymoron of failing the best at making friends, because I struggle ridiculously hard to. All of a sudden one morning, I met someone that I found to be so stunning that I had to take my chances. This is where my lack of confidence had to end because I didn’t want to blow this opportunity at all. She had me starstruck, with the way she looked along with her elegant, soothing voice. I waited until I knew I had a chance to talk one on one with her, and then I approached her. I introduced myself, and we began walking and talking getting to know one another. Her name was Alisa and as I talked to her, I found out that we shared quite a bit in common. However, she was “religiously pure”, and I was not. She viewed the idea of me, not agreeing with some ideas in the Bible to be of sacrilege. I panicked because I felt like this was it for me, as I felt like I would be disrespecting her beliefs. However, as we talked and talked, I proved myself to not be of depravity, causing her and I to surprisingly slowly become friends. Eventually, Alisa and I agreed to go on a small lunch date. It seemed as if my confidence was causing me no issues, as I was persistent to make sure that everything went like I wanted it to. Even if it meant that I had to make small flashcards or notes of things to say and do for validation, I wanted to make sure that I made the best of what I had as of current. However, I slipped up trying too hard. We were eating, and I made a playful insult to her about the way she was eating, and it made her feel insecure. Alisa left her food at the table, and slammed her chair causing an awkward ruckus throughout our section of the restaurant. As I ran up to her trying to apologize, she ignored me, focusing only on the call she made to receive an Uber to take her home. As her Uber picked her up and drove off, I watched her painful valediction, dropping to my knees, as the waiter stood beside me with the bill. For the next couple of days, I was in unimaginable pain. I blamed myself for the playful remark I made, along with generally overthinking. I sat thinking and wishing how I could have that one moment back. I tried using my best friend Carlos as a source of asylum on how to deal with this situation as he knew that even though her and I were friends, I liked her and I found her very attractive. He informed me on the fact that I couldn’t just let this end here if I really cared about her. Deep inside of me, I knew that I couldn’t let this one mess-up jeopardize the ability of me wanting to continue to talk to her, or even be her friend. I decided that I’d have to “man up” and do something about this situation. The next time I saw her, she was having lunch with a group of friends, which intimidated me because I knew this would probably be my only chance to talk to her, but doing it infront of a group of people made me very nervous. However, I really wanted to fix this, so I took a deep breath and approached her in her group of friends. When I approached, her eyes met the opaque surface that she was sitting on , but I introduced myself to her friends. They all looked around at each other, not trying to look at me. I knew that they had found out about the date. However I knew that I came to make things right. I reached into my backpack and pulled out a bouquet of white roses and sunflowers and handed them to Alisa. She looked up in joy. Along with the flowers were a note attached to a stem reading “My mistake caused a blur, but I hope you can view it to be translucent.” I apologized and began walking away, but as soon as I stepped away, she called my name. I turned around and was already met by her standing, and throwing herself into my arms. I caught her enjoying what felt to be a few seconds of heaven. She smiled at me and took seat again as she let go. I turned around and proceeded on with the brightest smile on my face. That hug seemed to right every wrong that I felt. It took the remaining pain I had away and balled it up. It took all of the awkwardness and overthinking, and threw it to the curb. I felt amazing. The next day, I texted her to hang out. We agreed to spend time at the park. I picked her up from her house, and we proceeded to drive to one of my favorite parks. I took her where we stared at the sunset from underneath a bridge where the river and lake converge, making the water glisten as the setting sun bounces off of the water. When the sun finally set, and we both were under the moon, I decided to begin the consummation of my love for her. As she set her body closer to mine, I leaned in and kissed her, receiving a smile of approval back. I then proceeded to take her back home. As I was taking her home, she wanted to grab a quick dinner. I wanted to take her somewhere opulent, but I had to get her home soon, so I settled for stopping by a pizza place. I had told her to stay in the car as I was going to go in and pick up the pizza myself. When I walked in, to my surprise, the place was in horrible shape. I assumed that since it was night time, that they were short on employees. The pictures on the wall were in terrible condition with dust and cobwebs sitting on them, and food all over the floor. You could assume the place was abandoned as it was in grotesque condition. In the back of my mind, I was telling myself that I should maybe just find another place to eat at, but I was so hungry that the thought never completely ran across my head. I just wanted food, and wanted to feed my potential girlfriend in the car. I ordered the pizza, and paid and was soon on my way back to the car. Alisa was in the car, on her phone waiting for me to come back so that we could eat. When I get into the car, I drive off, and she opens the box. When she opens the box, she immediately closes it and screams. I stopped the car to console her and find out what’s wrong. It turns out that the place’s condition matched it’s food quality as she told me there were bugs all over the pizza. I immediately took the box and threw it out on the road. I tried apologizing, but she was too hungry and upset to cooperate. When we arrived at her house, she got out, and left, without turning back and saying a word at all. Once again, I felt like I had hit rock bottom with her. Once again, I knew that I had messed up. I knew I had second thoughts about going to the place, and I truly regret not leaving there. I knew I had to weld this situation back together. The next day, I stopped by a floral shop to buy a bouquet again. I also stopped by CVS to pick up a huge teddy bear for her. I left them on her doorstep, and texted her that I did. I got no response. I tried calling her, but she immediately hung up, so I knew she had her phone. I felt terrible. As I tried pulling things back together, she kept cleaving things to the point where it seemed like I was getting nowhere in fixing things. I wanted to give up. I spent the next week staring at my ceiling. Everytime my phone buzzed, I checked anxiously to see if it was her, but it was always a friend or an app notification. I felt terrible. I felt like crap. I was too wretched to even get out of bed and do anything nor, go anywhere. I felt sick in the thought that she may never speak to me again, though I was so hooked on her. I knew it was all my fault, and the thought of me blowing it again kept me on the brinks of full-blown depression. All I could think about was the pizza, and her disappointment as she exited my car. I sat in disappointment, thinking of wanton actions that I deserved because of this, or wanton actions I could do to get back at the pizza place who caused this mess as I didn’t want to take the full blame for this. After another week, I stopped thinking so negatively and decided that I really had to fix myself first if I wanted to ever talk to her again. I focused on fixing myself and accepted my anagnorisis that I should make better decisions if I really want to have a future with her. I decided that I have to think and plan what I do and say through instead of always just going along with everything. Within the two weeks that passed, I texted her to meet me back at the park that I took her to for lunch in the afternoon. I arrived and waited on her with the sandwiches, fruit, and snacks that I prepared in a basket. An hour passed and she didn’t arrive. A couple of hours passed and she still didn’t arrive. I felt like leaving but something told me to stay. Evening hit, and I found myself staring at the sunset glistening on the water in front of me, the same way, it did when I was with Alisa. I put my hands in my face and cried a bit as the sun completely set. When I removed my hands from my face it was nighttime. I picked up the basket from my right side and tried getting up. Before I could get up, arms wrapped around me and pressed against my chest.  The epiphany came to me that it was who I thought as I remembered the way she hugged me way back when. It was Alisa. I never noticed when she arrived, but I was far in shock to even say anything. She then said she was hungry, and I pushed the basket on the floor to the middle of us. We had our small dinner like she wanted that night, but this time everything was perfect, and we sat together enjoying our meal in the moonlight.