Missing the Big Picture by Donovan, Luke (great book club books txt) 📕

I noticed that Randy had become a little shyer and less sure of himself since entering college. In high school Randy was known for his leads in the school plays and a talent show skit in which his friends satirized the crazy boy bands popular at the time. Now Randy missed high school and didn’t like college that much.

The main reason why Randy disliked his freshman year of college was the same reason he loved his senior year of high school: his girlfriend, Michelle. Michelle and Randy were madly in loved when they finished their senior years of high school. They went to the same college and lived on the same floor, but Michelle started to enjoy college life and all the drinking and partying associated with on-campus living. Randy, on the other hand, was very religious. He would go to parties, but he never smoked marijuana or drank too much, which was the main reason he was just an acquaintance of Carmine’s and Eric’s—and not a full-blown member.

Even though high school was over, the drama between Eric and his friends and me apparently wasn’t. When I was in college, I was still angry at Eric and would occasionally prank him since he was outside of my area code. My mother told me that she in turn had gotten prank phone calls up to three times a week, and she got caller ID as a result. When I was home from break, I noticed a car outside of our house for long periods of time. It looked like a single passenger was sitting in the vehicle, and I would tell my mother about it. Suddenly, I noticed that the car was parked in front of our house very frequently—every other day, in fact. One night I woke up my mother and we decided to go outside to see who was driving it. When we walked outside, though, the car sped away. I would ask Randy if he knew anybody who would want to stalk me, but Randy pretended not to know the identity of the driver. My mother thought I was paranoid and that the neighbors just parked their car in front of their lawn every night. It wasn’t until I went back to college that the car stopped coming back.

Besides Randy, I hung out with my old friends Taylor and Melanie on that vacation. Taylor started cracking up when this old woman and I started singing together in the grocery store. Taylor and Melanie did play games with me, though. One time they stole my car keys from the table at a diner where we were eating dinner. They locked the door and drove around the block before finally returning to pick me up.

Taylor was in the middle of a massive weight loss when we started becoming friends. She lost close to one hundred pounds between her junior year of high school and freshman year of college. She was voted “Most Changed” for the class of 2002. The yearbook staff asked her in what ways she changed, and she responded with, “Well, I don’t think anybody has noticed, but the biggest way I changed was I switched my shampoo from Herbal Essences to Head & Shoulders.” By the time she finished high school, Taylor was a very sexy, attractive young woman.

I was excited to go back and see all of my new friends when I returned for the second semester of my freshman year in January 2002. When I was at home during break, my friends and family asked if I was dating any of the girls that I was hanging out with. Even though most of my college friends were extremely attractive, they didn’t see me as boyfriend material. They talked openly about their periods and other men in my presence. When Diana went home for a weekend, she told her roommate, “Tell Dad [Luke] that I made it home okay.” After that, I tried saying to them, “Who’s your daddy,” but that didn’t work, either. Most of them were single during the first semester, but second semester some of them starting dating and liking guys. This changed the dynamic between us.

The only girl I was friends with who had a boyfriend when I met her was Diana’s roommate, Renee. Renee was a strong, fun-loving girl; she even had two boyfriends at one time. Renee always promised me that someday we would reenact the scene from Ghost where they play with the pottery and have a physical encounter at the same time. One time Kaitlin, another of Diana’s friends came back to her room and saw flowers on her desk. Attached to the flowers was a note from Renee saying that the flowers were from her boyfriend Mark, but she had to hide them in somebody else’s room because Tony, her other boyfriend, was there. Her boyfriend Mark was twenty-five, and Tony was twenty-two. Renee was only eighteen, but a very mature eighteen.

In fact, many of the girls I associated with, especially Renee, were more masculine than I was. Renee would usually complain that everything at the dining hall was overpriced, and she often stole silverware or other items in retaliation. She once tried to put some food in my pocket, and I put it back. She yelled, “You’re such a pussy, Luke!” Another time she mixed me an alcoholic drink called a peppermint patty, but it was too strong for me to finish. I spit some of it out. She looked at me and said, “Watch—this is how a real man drinks a peppermint patty.” I was waiting for her to call in some frat boy, but to my surprise, she drank the whole thing straight. Renee was a very confident person. She was always at the bar either getting to know people or playing pool with her friends. One time she told me, “I’m just a girl who knows how to enjoy life.” It was great to spend time with a person like