It Takes Tuition to Tango

Story Sent in by Ronald:

I discovered Liz studying in my university library. There were a series of long tables, and I sat down a few seats away from her. I noticed that she was poring over a textbook that I had read for a class two semesters prior, and I asked her if she was taking the same class. She was, we struck up a conversation, I offered to help her study if ever she needed assistance, and it ended with me scoring her email address.

We sent messages to each other, and then graduated to instant messaging. We'd be up, talking to each other long into the night. The messages, after a while, became flirtatious, then raunchy and very hot. We were both into each other in a big way, and hadn't been out on a single date yet.

I rectified that by asking her out to a Saturday night dinner. She asked me if I could spend some time helping her study after dinner, and I told her that I would. Dinner and a study break may not sound too romantic, but I was into spending time with her however I could.

The study break, back at her place, turned into a lot of kissing and rubbing and touching. We parted that night, I like to think, both pretty happy with how things had turned out.

I wrote her the next day to tell her that I had a nice time. She said that she had to study for an exam in the class in which I had "helped her study," and so she didn't have much time to talk. I told her that I'd wait to hear from her, and wait I did.

That Wednesday, I received an email from someone I didn't know: a graduate student who was also a teaching assistant for that class. He wrote, "We've never met, but you'd probably want to know that Liz wrote me, the other teaching assistant, and the professor with copies of your IM conversations. She said that you distracted her from studying for the test and that's why she  thinks she didn't do as well as she could have.

"Of course, we're not blaming you, but if anything, I thought you'd like to know."

I wrote a hasty thank you to the teaching assistant and then called Liz up. Voicemail. I wrote her to ask her what she was thinking, copying our conversations over to two teaching assistants and a professor, for crying out loud.

I never heard back from her, and only saw her once, from a distance, for the rest of my time at the university. To this day, I have no idea why she had thought that to be a good idea.