Love is a promise,

Love is a souvenir,

Once given never forgotten,

Never let it disappear.

These are the words that 18-year old Raymond McGregory saw written in chalk on the sidewalk as he walked to his first ever college class. Raymond was no Sherlock and didn't give much thought as to why this quote was here, and just assumed that it must have been left by some adult who wanted to brighten up someone's day. For Raymond however, this quote caused him to remember a time when he was in love. More specifically, he remembered the day he first confessed his love to a girl and began his journey in the dating world. It was a warm spring day with his 8th grade graduation drawing near when Raymond confessed his love to the girl of his dreams.

He asked her to date.

She asked him to die.

And that was both the beginning and the end of Raymond’s “dating journey.”

Wait a second, that’s not a happy memory. I need to think back to the day I kissed a girl romantically. Ah yes, me and her were both in the rain when it happened.

As Raymond sunk deeper into his memory of that day, he had a hard time recalling most of the of what had happened. And that’s probably because it’s impossible to remember something that never happended, and what little he had remembered of that day wasn’t “remembering”, it was his imagination.

Okay, I have to have done something romantic in my life.

Then Raymond remembered the time where he did the impure heterosexual act of romantically holding hands.

He had a big smile stretched across his face as he held her hand from behind.

Then she turned around and he saw her face in its entirety,

and he realized that the girl he was holding hands with wasn’t even a girl at all.

If love is a souvenir than what the hell kind of souvenir was that? The bootleg action-figure kind where they change Mickey Mouse’s name to “Mike the Rat” and Mickey’s face looks like some kind of freakish garden gnome? But I guess they did get the whole “never forgotten” part right because those memories have been seared into my brain with a blowtorch. Either way I have to have at least one good romance related memory!

Raymond caught a memory of himself standing at the front of a ship hugging a girl and lifting her up into the air. Thing is, this was just Raymond remembering a scene from the movie Titanic.

Raymond kept searching his mind for a good romance related memory but he couldn’t find a single memory that wasn’t heartbreaking, imaginary, or just plain wrong (though he did see this one memory of him petting his cat Boople Snoot, which made him happy). Truth be told, Raymond was a guy who was single by choice …… of others, and the only relationships he’d ever had were with his left hand and his couch sleeve. He was what you would call a KHHV: a kissless handholdless hugless virgin.

***

Raymond soon found himself in front of his classroom. After waiting for the classroom door to open and the room to fill with students, he sat down and began thinking about his plan to get a girlfriend. You see, in the summer months leading up to Raymond’s first semester in college, Raymond felt very lonely and thought up a plan to get a girlfriend. His plan was very simple: come off as a very nice, and the bitches will come in hoards. Raymond called his plan “How to Cure a Single Boyfriend”. Of course the title for his little plan was a total oxymoron. Being a boyfriend by its very definition means that you aren’t single, which makes his plan's title a complete contradiction, but this is the very contradiction Raymond saw himself as. Raymond felt his three strongest traits in the sexual marketplace was that he is the “ultimate nice guy”, not a land whale, and male. To him these three traits clearly made him an alpha male, or at the very least not a lowly beta male. Because of his clear status as a dominant male, Raymond believed he was basically already someone’s boyfriend, it’s just that the person he was in a relationship with didn’t know he was her boyfriend, and vice versa. And this is why Raymond came up with his plan: to match with his dream girl, and to cure him of being single. And he had a feeling that whoever this “dream girl” was, was about to come right through the classroom door.

And just then, the door opened, and Raymond turned to look at the dream girl who had just entered the classroom.

It was the teacher, an old women who looked like she was seventy-years-old.

Goddammit, I've been cockblocked by some old geezer! What? Is my life so pathetic that I can't even have a good romance related memory of seeing a pretty girl walk through a fucking classroom door on the first motherfucking day of college? Like, does god have some weird fetishistic dating sim game planned for me where I go on the "Granny Route" and end up marrying someone who belongs in a retirement home? Is that what god has planned for me? Is that the kind of treatment nice guys like me get? Well, screw you god! Actually, don't do that. Then you'd have a good romance related memory of getting screwed unlike a certain 18-year-old with two thumbs and a thing for couch sleeves. Get unscrewed god!

Suffice to say, Raymond felt both frustrated and awkward.

But as soon as Raymond’s frustration and awkwardness expired, the door opened, and she came into the classroom.

Raymond's dream girl had arrived.

She was easily one of the prettiest girls Raymond had ever seen and the essence of feminine beauty. It was love at first sight.

Her natural scarlet hair glowed in the morning sun.

Her eyes were like blue diamonds that sparkled like the stars in the night sky.

Her face looked like a painting that only the most talented of renaissance artists helped create.

Her lips were as red as the sweetest of apples.

She walked with the grace of an angel.

But the best part about all of this,

was that Raymond didn’t think of any of this poetic bullshit.

Yes, while it was love at first sight for Raymond, his thoughts weren’t at all that poetic. What he actually thought was:

Jesus Christ, did she shove volleyballs down her shirt?

He also thought of a bunch of other really vulgar trash, but the christian staff on RoyalRoad.com probably wouldn’t let me write it down, so I’ll just let you use your imagination. After Raymond was done thinking, his little angel walked gracefully to the the desk right in front of him and sat down. Raymond’s veins instantly filled with joy.

Oh my god, a girl sat next to me. She must be into me! I guess dreams really do come true!

That was the only seat left for her to sit in though, and Raymond soon realized this.

***

Since Raymond didn't know his newfound crush's name, he wanted to make one up for her in the meantime. Considering he just thought she was into him even though no real evidence was there, Raymond decided to name her “Miss Interpretation.”