It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single female college student in possession of a beautiful face, must be in want of a boyfriend.
That truth never applied to me, because, one, I don't consider myself beautiful and two, I don't want a boyfriend. Having a boyfriend would just ruin my five-year plan that I had mapped out for my college years. It was neatly compiled in a green binder, entitled, 'Leslie Knope's Five-Year Plan: Road to Graduation and After Graduate Studies'. I wanted to add a subtitle but it wouldn't fit the side anymore.
But anyway, this universal truth did apply to my best friend, Ann. The minute we entered the Freshman Orientation party, she was already scouting around for good looking boys.
"Leslie! Oh my God, look at all these cute men!" She whispered excitedly in my ear. The music was loud but I could hear her well enough to roll my eyes at her.
"I don't think we can call these boys 'men' yet..." I looked at the group she was pointing at and was not surprised that they were a bunch of varsity looking dudes. "Remember the last time you had a varsity boyfriend?"
"Oh, God. You're right..." Ann pouted but kept her eyes on the jocks.
"Come on, let's go check out those sign-up sheets for extracurricular activities." I was hoping this would distract her for some time. I was not about to let her go down the rabbit hole of dating another athlete again. I had to comfort her for a week when we found out her last boyfriend was cheating on her.
As we headed to the first table, I immediately regretted it, though. Sitting on the table were two dark-haired upper levels that I knew already fell under Ann's category of 'hot' because they were older.
I felt Ann grip my arms tightly as she exclaimed, "Leslie! Do you see what I see?" Her smile widened as she turned on her charm. She walked ahead of me, practically hopping towards the table. I shook my head in resignation.
"Hello, ladies." One of the boys stood up to greet us, but the other stayed seated, his arms crossed and looked almost broodingly at us.
"Hi!" Ann's hand shot forward to accept the handshake that was offered to her. "I'm Ann Perkins."
"Ann Perkins." The boy pronounced every syllable of Ann's name in a weird intonation. "My name is Chris Traeger."
He turned to me and extended his hand. I shook it as I told him my name.
"Leslie," he paused and tilted his head slightly, "Knope. With a silent K, I hope?" I nodded and smiled to acknowledge his impromptu rhyming.
"This is Ben Wyatt." Chris gestured to the grumpy looking boy next to him. Ben just nodded his head and didn't even bother to look up. I raised my eyebrows at this.
Wow, he looks like a fun guy.
I was a little bit intrigued by him. Usually, upper class-men who volunteered for this were a lot more enthusiastic to help the incoming freshmen. He, on the other hand, looked so bored and gave off the impression that he wanted to be anywhere but here. He was OK, face-wise. But his mood was a major downer.
And because I was focused on grumpy looking Ben, I hadn't noticed that Ann and Chris were already whispering things to each other in a flirting manner.
Oh boy. This was on me for steering her to this table. I hoped this Chris isn't one of those playboys. I felt a little awkward watching them, so I turned back to Meany Benny. I smiled at my witty name for him.
"So, what activities can I sign up for?"
"The list is on the table."
Seriously? This guy was getting on my nerves. If he didn't want to be here, why the hell did he volunteer then?
"You're not very helpful, you know." I replied curtly as I grab one of the papers from the table.
"Sorry." He mumbled, not really sounding sorry.
I wrote my name on the top and my student number and started checking things I knew I wanted to get into. I handed the paper back to him without a word. He took it and skimmed through the list. He glanced up at me and gave me a questioning look.
"You wanna take all these?"
"I checked them, didn't I?" I knew I was a little too sarcastic, but he started this tone so I wasn't about to start being all cute to him just because he paid attention to me.
"Debate, drama, comedy, social sciences, political sciences, psychology, anthropology..." Ben's voice trailed off as he continued scanning the list.
"Yes. I plan to ensure that my college experience is maximized." He stared hard at me. I, of course, stared back. I admit I was a very competitive person. And I knew this staring contest was not really a competition. But if it was, I had to win…
He lowered his eyes first and looked back at my form. I smiled triumphantly.
Ha! I win!
He was obviously done talking to me. And I wanted to be far away from him as I possibly could. I gestured to Ann that I was going to the ladies room, or as I like to call it, the whiz palace. She waved her hand and went straight back to chatting with Chris.
I was glad there was no one in the rest room. I could stare at myself for as long as I wanted without getting funny looks from other girls.
Looking back at me through the mirror was a messy blonde-haired girl wearing a loose ratty white t-shirt that said 'I ❤️ Pawnee'. I looked like I was raised by hippies.
I ran my hand through my short curls to settle the frizz, wiped a smudge on my face that Ann hadn't pointed out earlier and re-applied my pink lip gloss before I left the whiz palace.
Hearing my stomach grumble reminded me that I needed to get something to eat. I headed to the buffet table and started filling up my plate, adding double portions to share with Ann. I was sampling the brownie when I saw Chris and Ben standing in the punch corner. I was near enough so, that I could hear everything they were saying but they hadn't noticed me yet.
"Ann is amazing!" Chris said to Ben excitedly. "She is full of life and laughter. She is literally the most beautiful girl in this building."
"At least one of us is enjoying this..." Ben mumbled.
"I'm so, sorry that this isn't more fun for you. Hey, what about Ann's friend, Leslie? It looked like you guys were talking for a bit there."
"Ech... She's so... Type A... And seriously, she isn't as pretty as Ann. She looks like a fucking mess, really. I don't wanna waste my time on her."
At this point, a huge chunk of brownie that I had tried to swallow got stuck in my throat. As much as I wanted to stay invisible, or melt on the floor or possibly die from overhearing what Ben said, I had to cough to dislodge the brownie.
My tiny cough caught both boys attention and their heads turned towards me.
"Sorry, *cough*, brownie, *cough*, throat..." I tried to explain between cough as I pounded a little on my chest.
Ben and Chris looked horrified. Maybe there was even a little sneer on Ben's face, I didn't care. I knew my face was all red both from choking and from overhearing something private and so, I abruptly turned my back at them to look for Ann.
I finally spotted Ann near the entrance. My mind re-winded the little exchange Chris and Ben had as I made my way to her. They were obviously buddies by the way they candidly spoke to each other. Then my mind gets to the part where Ben said all the stuff about me.
Oh, my God. What a jerk! How dare he call me a mess. I'm the only one that can call myself that! What a jerk! Wait, I think I mentioned that already... Well, he is a jerk. Ugh! Why do I even care? I don't care! I don't. I really don't…
I repeat that last lines over and over until I reached Ann.
"Leslie, what's wrong?"
"Nothing..."
"Spill it, you look all flustered!"
"Oh, I just overheard Ben say nasty things about me." I gave a little laugh to pretend it was something funny and not embarrassing at all.
"What? Oh my God, what did he say?"
"It's nothing. I doesn't matter, really..." I didn't want to admit even to myself that maybe it did affect me a little and I wanted Ann to drop it because repeating what he said was embarrassing.
"You wanna go? We can bail if you want, Chris already has my number and he said he'll call me tomorrow."
I rolled my eyes at this. I could already predict this would be a problem because Chris's friend was someone I wanted to avoid from now until eternity. And if Ann started dating Chris then it might become too hard for me to make that possible.
I didn't want to deal with all this what ifs, though. My brain was already cloudy from having to hear hurtful and truthful words about me.
"Yeah, fine, let's go." I took a peek behind me as we pushed open the door to the outside world. To my horror, I saw Ben staring at me. I caught his eyes and he haughtily turned his face back to Chris.
Oh God, he doesn't even look remorseful about what happened. Well, fuck on a spatula. I don't care about Mean Ben. I wouldn't waste my time on him too. And I hope I never see him again.
The satisfaction of cursing him in my head was enough to erase the hurtful words he said. At least for the time being...