Daylight

It was one of those nights when from the moment I started getting ready I knew my goal for the next 5 hours wasn’t to have fun with my friends, or meet new people, or even to drink and let loose, but to get some. This desire, no, not desire, this need to get with a fresh face was exhibited perfectly in my outfit choice. I knew that with the combination of alcohol intake and the inevitable masses of sorority girls in different variations of the same LBD, my white minidress would stand out like a caucasian boy in Harlem, only I’d be getting hit on, not shot down. I put on my outfit, did my hair and makeup, and knew that as soon as I stepped out of my dorm room I was stepping into a mission.
The story starts out the same as most: my friends and I ventured off to a frat where we drank and mingled with the brothers. But per usual, our disadvantage came when the flocks of blonde haired sisters came in who, unlike my friends and I who were meeting the guys, already knew them. Eager to fulfill my purpose for the night, I found a group of guys that weren’t occupied by sorority girls. I introduced myself and they introduced a handle into the conversation so my new friends and I took some shots. The more I drank, the more aware I became of how familiar one of the brothers looked. Who the fuck does he look like, I racked my brain, trying to match his face to another from my memory. After minutes of what in retrospect I realize was me staring into space with my mouth agape, I exclaimed “Ben Affleck!”
What was more interesting than my unprompted, tourettes-like exclamation of the Good Will Hunting actor’s name was how unfazed the brother was by this.
“Hah, yeah, I get that all the time.” His cheeks reddened a little, looking almost embarrassed.
“Well, at least he's attractive and it's not like you look like John C. Reilly or someone ugly,” as soon as I made this bizarro-flirty statement I knew I’d found my purpose for the night. The more I drank, the more he looked like Ben Affleck. And so it goes that after a little more talking we were kissing on the roof until I started getting the spins from having my eyes closed and had to fabricate a Friday-8 am-class lie in fear that if I didn’t go back to my room and kept kissing him that I’d throw up in his mouth.
Given my hangover, the next morning I woke up surprisingly upbeat. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my class-free Friday: I wanted to get coffee with my friend, dish about last night, and then go back to my room to nap and watch Pearl Harbor. I phoned my neighbor and together we walked from our dorm across campus to the coffee place.
“I wish I could show you a picture of him, he was so cute! Like, I’m not exaggerating when I say he looks exactly like Ben Affleck. I think it’s the eyes. They have the exact same shape eyes. And coloring. Like seriously, he was so cute.”
We walked along and talked, consumed in our own world until a passerby disrupted our bliss.
“Oh hey, Taylor!”
I jerked my head out of the conversation to see ‘Ben Affleck,’ which immediately rendered me shocked. It wasn’t that he looked nothing like Ben Affleck, he looked like Ben Affleck in one of those unfortunate pictures that super trashy tabloids use to accompany captions like “BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE AT HOSPITAL AFTER METH OVERDOSE,” or “THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH BEHIND HIS PARTY NIGHTS WITH SHEMALES.”
“Oh, uh, hey!” I was too stunned to stop my legs from walking, so I gave him a smile and carried on with my friend.
After that I didn’t want breakfast anymore. And I certainly didn’t want to watch Pearl Harbor. I just wanted to go back to sleep.