on the path to creepdom

Yesterday, I fell in love with a man on a bus. I sat next to him riding back from Boston to New York by chance, sidling into one of the few spare seats apologetically and barely glancing at him. He was reading intently for the most of the ride, making marks in some kind of pop-science book with a pencil. Then he fell asleep, and I took advantage of that to look at him more closely -- and found that he was actually pretty. When he got up to go to "get some air" at the only stop, he smiled at me, and when he fell asleep again towards the end of the ride, I was mesmerized for a moment by the way the sunlight filtered through his long eyelashes.

And that's all it took. I was in love. I spent the rest of the ride inventing entire conversations in my mind: he would notice the Arcade Fire on my iPod and strike up a conversation, I would stumble upon some unbelievably coincidental common ground -- oh, you're also in Teach for America?! Oh, you're also moving to Austin in July?! Stunning! -- he would shyly ask for my number before I got on the subway.

I'm ashamed to say that while I was enveloped in this world, he leaned towards me in his sleep, his shoulder pressed against mine, and I didn't move. I imagined further possibilities from this when he awoke, and embarrassed to find that he had been leaning on me, felt obliged to say something. Instead, he just shifted in his sleep. Asshole.

At the end of the bus ride, we both stood up without so much as a cursory glance at each other, and I said a silent goodbye to a man with whom, out loud, I had shared the following conversation -- "mind if I get some air?," "thanks," and "no problem" -- but with whom, in my head, I had lived an entire relationship. And then I got off the bus without looking back.

Sweet, albeit deranged sign that my heart is slowly beginning to open to other people? Further proof that I've retreated fully into a world of my own creation? First step on the path to being a total creeper?

Unclear.