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

She thought they were extremely rude and obnoxious. Whenever she passed any of them on campus—which was always in a group because none of them liked to walk alone—Denise could sense that they were laughing at her and thought that they were above her.

After I finished talking to Denise, I decided to walk to the police station and read the report that Rich filed against me. Officer Washington had told me most importantly to avoid Rich and had wanted to know how Rich and I knew each other. She had even asked me if Rich and I were a couple. It was so embarrassing.

There was more in the police report than just the e-mails. Rich told the police officer that while working at the admissions office, I looked at his file, which made Rich extremely uncomfortable. I denied that I ever looked in Rich’s file and wondered how he knew. The only person I ever told about my file searching was him, but only in my head during one of our telepathic conversations. Now it was in a police report. The report also included copies of the e-mails that I wrote Rich. Most of them were perverted because Rich was a sexist male chauvinist who was a pig himself. When I was in high school, I got called “fag” or “pussy” because I wasn’t masculine and I looked innocent. In college, I found out that when I acted perverted, I got a bunch of laughs. As a way of becoming more extroverted, I started talking more about sex and anything that was remotely sexual. Since I had no real experience with sex, most of my knowledge came from pornography magazines. Learning about sex from explicit pornographic sources is morally wrong, but it kept me from pressuring some girl into having sex prematurely, like Rich and other teenage boys did.

In the e-mail that was submitted into evidence, the first line was “Sure, I talk about vagina, but who doesn’t love the smell of vagina.” This was the quote that was put in the police report. I was mortified. Reading the quote made me realize that I was putting myself down and being someone I wasn’t just to get external approval. Officer Washington told me, “Well, if you thought he was your best friend, he’s not.” As I left the meeting, the officer told me that I would have to discuss the matter with a representative from the dean’s office.

Upon leaving the campus police station, I decided that I was going to transfer to SUNY Albany and commute. I loved SUNY Geneseo, and I had met great people. I had always wanted the voices in my mind to end, but I finally realized what shape my life was in. I had a mental health disorder that was now getting me in trouble with the law. I wanted to get better and have a clear mind. I was back on my medication after taking some weeks off. The medication alone was not working for me.

The following day, I went to the dean’s office and spoke with the dean of student affairs. The meeting was heated, and the dean said that I was disgusting and shouldn’t have a job in the admissions office where I had access to confidential information. I was once again humiliated. My only reservation about transferring to SUNY Albany was that three of the voices I had heard during high school were on that campus. What if I ran into Carmine, who was now my friend Randy’s roommate? I definitely didn’t want to hear more voices in my mind. Still, I knew there were over twelve thousand students at SUNY Albany. It would be a good opportunity for somebody who wanted to start over.

The first person I told about transferring was Denise. Then I told Diana, Vanessa, Jody, Shannon, and Diana’s friends. The girls were all extremely disappointed and sad. They didn’t understand why I would want to leave. On the outside I appeared to love college. When the admissions office staff found out that I was leaving, the director of admissions said to me, “We don’t want you to leave, Luke. We love you.” The experience highlighted another problem I had when I was young. Ninety-nine people could say good things about me, but if one person didn’t like me, I would focus all of my attention on figuring out what I needed to do to get respect from that person. I didn’t appreciate the friends I had or the great people who surrounded me.

I wanted to tell Randy that I was transferring because we had always hung out during breaks when I was home from college. I didn’t know exactly how to tell him or how would he react. When I came home for Columbus Day weekend, I broke the news. I actually showed him the notice I received with the quote from the e-mail. Randy thought it was hysterical. He still hung out with Eric and Carmine, so I let him keep the notice just so he would show them—once again, I sought their approval.

After I came back to Geneseo from Columbus Day weekend, I was surfing the Internet and found out that Bruce, my former roommate, had made a website. At the top of the website he wrote, “After popular demand, I have granted everybody access into my life”—proving just how arrogant he really was. The website was about two pages, if it was printed out. The first page was about Bruce and his girlfriend; he was a sophomore in college and she was still in high school. The second page was dedicated to me. As I scrolled down the screen, I saw a picture of myself, looking disheveled, that I couldn’t remember posing for. Below the picture was the caption “WARNING, WARNING! Do not talk to this man. Notify police immediately” and other derogatory statements. Although today there are tons of social networking sites and people are used to seeing themselves online, this was in