I was never a big flirt and I kept waiting for the experience that would up my confidence. University was a frustrating thing, in that I think I was just starting to feel comfortable in my skin late in high school (around the age of 17-18), and then, at a time when most American kids are experiencing a first taste of freedom, for me it was as if I was suddenly dropped into this reactionary, status-obsessed boys' club (William and Mary is coed, but the dormitory floors aren't, and the testosterone just hung in the air). I felt like I'd taken a step back, and it took almost the whole four years for me to find a comfortable social niche there.

I'd tend to get the worst crushes on women whenever I entered a new social environment. I think the idea I had was that with no reputation, I could start from scratch and become this newer, hipper person; and step one was to find somebody to ask out on a date. But then of course I'd start having sweats and palpitations and building up this massive fantasy about this arbitrarily chosen person instead of just doing it, and in my head the poor girl would become a symbol of my attempt to reinvent myself, and it would just be completely doomed. When I met Sam, for once I wasn't trying to reinvent myself at all.