Don Quixote of La Provo

McKenna and I's apologies for the delay in getting up today's post. Finals have been killing us, and I just now got some time to get in my latest awkward singles ward moment.

If you'll notice the title of my post, you might've already made the connection to a famous work of Spanish literature. Allow me to explain the reason for the literary reference:

There's a boy in my ward, who is of Spanish-speaking origins and who has been trying to get a date out of me for months, even though I've already told him I'm not interested. Now, the fact that he speaks Spanish was not the only thing that made me decide to refer to him as Don Quixote.

Those of you who are familiar with the story know that it's about a man who gets so wrapped up in the fantasy of chivalry that he becomes obsessed and goes chasing after something that is really just a dream. The very definition of the word "quixotic," which finds it's root in this book, means impractically pursuing lofty romantic ideals.

That word defines him perfectly; he's living in a fantasy land. And I'm not just talking about trying to chase after me when I've turned him down. But he's got some heavy paranoiac tendencies. He also tells everyone he's a karate champ, but he's done demos at the ward talent show and it's pretty clear he's not. I could go on and on, but for the sake of leaving him some of his dignity I won't. You now have context for what comes next:

Ward prayer night happens once a week, every week. I showed up for this past week, chatted with some acquaintances for a while as McKenna fended off the boys who were looking for NCMO's (see our glossary page if you don't know what that means), and after a few minutes took my place kneeling on the floor ready to pray.

Just then, I see him coming towards me, but McKenna is still too busy breakin' man-hearts to see my signals for back-up. He kneels next to me and all possible chances of quickly changing places are finagled by the closing in groups of people who are also getting ready to pray. I smile, say hi, and try to just be kind but non-invitational.

The prayer starts and everyone has the eyes closed, heads bowed. Suddenly, I hear the sound of shuffling knees next to me and I can feel him getting closer. I peeked a bit and could see that he was trying to scooch in close enough to make bodily contact during the prayer. I'm not sure if he's ever touched a girl before, but this might've been one of his only chances to catch a stolen arm brush against female flesh.

Needless to say, I myself start to scooch away. We bumped into other people, there were a lot of whispered "sorry's". I'm sure a good number of them started opening their eyes to see what was going on. It was the longest three minutes of my life.

As soon as I heard "amen," I hopped to my feet and headed for the door. I kept looking behind me as I walked back to our apartment to make sure he wasn't still in hot pursuit.

                                                              The Unwilling Windmill- 1
                                                                    Don Quixote- 0