"You have not been putting yourself out there"
Terrence's words haunted Paris. He was right, though, after all. She hadn't been putting herself "out there" lately. In fact, in her almost twenty years, she hadn't ever really put herself out there.
In high school she had been too focused on her future to think about boys. While other girls painted their nails and fantasized about boys, Paris was doing homework and fantasizing about Harvard. And while other girls unbuttoned the top few buttons of their uniform during classes, and after classes were in the back seats of cars straddling boys with their plaid skirt hiked up around their waist, Paris' uniform remained buttoned and worn modestly all day. So of course, even when she did think a boy was cute, he would look right past her and see Madeleine and Louise – two girls who definitely put themselves out there. And so, she resigned herself to school work. She was good at school. And, she always convinced herself that she didn't want a boyfriend because Harvard didn't care if she had a boyfriend or if she "put herself out there." Harvard only cared about her grades. And so that was all that Paris cared about.
And then there was Jamie. Jamie who was cute, smart and sweet, and would stare at Paris with awe. But Paris was too focused to even notice. She hadn't gone to Washington, D.C. that summer looking for a boyfriend, but Jamie was kind to her and he was the first boy who genuinely liked her, who paid attention to her. She still remembered how surprised she was when Rory pointed out Jamie's long gazes across the conference table, and how Paris' insides would do flips any time she caught Jamie's warm brown eyes staring at her. But she hadn't tried to attract him: Paris wouldn't have known how to flirt if someone handed her a guidebook. She didn't even know how to act around him when they went out to dinner. That's why Paris was as surprised as anyone when she returned to Connecticut that August with a boyfriend.
And Jamie stuck by her. She had no reason to go attract boys at Yale: she had her very own Princeton man. She went on living her life with the same confidence and determination that she had in high school: focused on school and her future. And it was this attitude that attracted Asher to her. Paris was the kind of student that Professor Fleming rarely encountered, a force to be reckoned with. Soon, he was caught up in the rush that was Paris, and he went about wooing her, and she was of course attracted to him and so she complied. She in no way set out to sleep with or date or fall in love with Asher: she just had some very particular questions about the assignments.
And now she was the same Paris: fiercely determined to succeed. However, now she had no one who was attracted to that. There were tons of determined girls at Yale; a man wasn't going to just fall in her lap for the third time. She decided if she wanted a man she was going to go out and get one. She was Paris Gellar, and she got what she wanted.
It was Terrence's words and her own determination that propelled her to speed dating that day, and all these thoughts rolling around in her head as she walked to her room in a fog, Doyle's hand resting on her lower back. But as soon as Doyle kissed her, pressing her against her closed bedroom door, any thoughts of Jamie and Asher and Terrence were gone. And as Doyle maneuvered them to her bed and laid her down, trailing hot, wet kisses on her neck, Paris moaned and thanked whatever compelled her and Doyle to get out there.