I would like to address sophomore Ashley Kile's '05 letter to the editor in last week's paper. Ashley, you sure do have a way with words. It seems that your letter was attacking me, rather than my column, and that was quite uncalled for. What exactly was your point? Listen up, kiddo: I am only 21 years old, and you are only 19. This is my time to play and experiment and experience everything I can. I am "testing the waters," if you will. I rather enjoy being ridiculous and absurd and a dreamer! I don't believe anyone—especially you—needs to shoot "some arrows of reality" into my head. I know all about reality, too. I am the real deal, baby. So piss off, eh?

I would like to clarify for the reader that I am not advising anyone on how to go about his or her love life. I am not trying to show anyone the "light to better love," as Ashley Kile put it. My column is merely a retelling of my humble and absurd experiences with love and lust and infatuation thus far. Actually, I just like to write about my "lousy dating and sex" in The Mac Weekly to humor you on Friday afternoons. Eat it up, or write your own.

This week was a little less than fulfilling in the love department. My plans of going out were foiled by my professors' evil tactics: making me work during this lovely time of midterms and wet snow. I had nothing to write about, so I lamented my anxiety to fellow senior Abby Borkin. "Abby!" I exclaimed in the library, "Tell me what to write about for my next column!" And Abby, a dear friend and soccer teammate from 4th grade, told me, "Lucy, write about unrequited crushes. Write about long distance and long-term relationships. Write about the hot jobs you've had where you've met boys. Didn't some guy pick you up at work last week?" (It's true. While I was waiting tables Friday night, a Mac grad took a fancy to me. I told my boss to give him my digits and we'd go from there.) It's always comforting to know that someone fancies me.

I believe the food industry is my destiny. The exotic life of the coffee shop barista and restaurant waitress has been exciting thus far, though I have never gotten a date out of it. I have flirted extensively and let fly many slips of the tongue. Working at a small coffee shop all throughout high school made my easily flustered self all the more public. There was the time when a group of fine young gentlemen ordered coffee, and I said, "Do you wanna milk it?" instead of, "Do you want milk in that?" I just fell on the floor in an embarrassed laughing heap while the puzzled customers tried to be polite.

My history of unrequited crushes is just so embarrassing; I really should have been in an '80s movie. Take, for example, The Adventures of Babysitting. I would have played the neighbor boy who is infatuated with Elizabeth Shue, the babysitter. I was that gawky teen lusting after the older boy in high school. My brother, who's two years older, had a plethora of hot friends that I idolized. But rather than getting to be one of their girlfriends, I got to play 'lil sis all four years, and it wasn't much fun. I was like Anthony Michael Hall, the geek in Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club, with boobs (small though they may have been). Even he was one step ahead, though—he got to kiss the popular girl in the end of the movie. I was lucky enough to kiss a couple of geeks throughout the duration of my high school career.

After all these years, I'm still the little sister with my brother's friends. And though I try to act mature and cool and wear make-up when I'm with them, it doesn't change a thing. One of his friends in particular, this boy named Will, has never really noticed me. Let me paint the picture. He is a rock star. Well, he could be one. He writes his own music and went to acting school. He can do a perfect Scottish accent. He's tall and thin and has incredible bone structure. His jaw is graceful, his hands are beautiful, and he's got eyes that stare. He always had a girlfriend in high school, and I thought maybe I'd get to be one of them someday.

Last fall, I attempted to take him on a date. It was no date. I asked him to see a play with me, and he accepted. He picked me up and I was so nervous sitting in the car with him. I never know what to say when I'm in that situation. And when we took our seats at the theater, I wasn't sure whether to put my elbows on the armrests next to his, or to keep them by my sides. And what about our legs? I didn't know if I should gently let my knee touch his, or if I should cross my legs. Aside from my stomach turning all night from nerves, I was so infatuated with him.

Afterwards, we had a bite to eat at a place in Uptown. The ball was in his court now, and I thought the next move would be him asking me up to his apartment for a coffee (he lived only a few blocks away). I was eager to see his new apartment, too. (Well, not really. I just wanted to be in it with him.) I had already written my own ending to the night, and it started with him gazing longingly into my eyes and asking me in. We would have a beer or a tea and maybe he'd woo me with his guitar playing. We'd get cozy on his couch and I'd tell him that I thought he was stunning, or something along those lines. However, rather than being the gentlemen I wanted him to be, he drove me back to my dorm and dropped me off. And, just like that, he was gone. I realized then, that my crush of so many years (eight) was never going to like me. We still occasionally send flirtatious emails, but I have to bring myself down from my dream world and remind myself that there will never be a Will and Lucy.

Thus, the tale of my unrequited crush on the boy of my dreams comes to an end. And though I have still not come to grips that it will never be, at least he's not my only crush.