For some reason in high school Jason had never really been popular, and as such he always assumed people or "popular people" thought he was a looser.
He was a big guy after all, at 6'5" he was tall for any age, and he worked out a fair amount, having played soccer his whole life, but that wasn't exactly a "jock sport" like football or basket ball. He wasn't even on the school team. His father was wealthy, and in his youth had been voted the most popular kid in his school, as had his step-mother. Likely, some day, his young step-sister would as well, since she had recently made the cheer team as a freshman.
Logistically, Jason should have been a pretty popular guy.
So why wasn't Jason popular? He was unreasonably shy. People would invite him to parties, and he would freeze, and over-analyze the invitation, worry weather it was a trick, why would the person want him there, would he enjoy it? People took his silence as intentional, and before Jason would muster up the courage to respond who ever had invited him would have given up and walked away.
Another problem was that Jason was naturally intelligent. He never studied, and rarely did any homework. In class he would never take notes, instead preferring to zone out and fill his notepads with art. Regardless of how hard he would try to slack off, he almost always aced his tests. His teacher's loved him, and would try to motivate him by bragging about him to the other students, or volunteer him to explain difficult concepts to the class. Jason hated feeling like a nerd, and he hated the attention.
He was also seen as too nice. Growing up, he had always stood up for the nerds against the jocks and bullies. This wasn't actually anything to do with caring about who was in the right or wrong, the bigger kids were just more fun to fight. No one else really knew about his real motivations though.
So all through high school Jason felt like a socially awkward nerd, and as such believed everyone else did too. So one year the most popular girl in the school, Mary, said he was REALLY cute and that she had wanted him to ask her out all semester. Over her shoulder, he literally saw her popular friends laughing at them. He may have been socially awkward, but he was no bodies fool. "Good luck with that." he told her sarcastically, shaking his head and walking away. Jason may not be cool, he reasoned to himself, but he was uncool on his own terms at least, no reason for him to fall for such embarrassing and obvious trickery.
So just before he turned 18, Jason went alone to watch this movie about becoming a spy. None of his friends had wanted to see it. The lead was challenged to get information from strangers, or get invited into their homes, while revealing nothing about himself. Jason was a self proclaimed student of psychology. While he had always been awkward about assuming what others thought of him, he had grown up watching others interact, and was pretty good at understanding how others thought or felt.
Jason reasoned that with enough planning and/or practice, he should be able to be like the guy in the movie, getting into peoples heads, saying the right things, earning trust, and all the while work himself passed his own mild agoraphobia. He would never have to fear what other people thought of him if he gained some control of that opinion.
Everyday that summer after seeing the movie Jason drove to the mall. He would sit against a wall and pick someone, a married man, an older woman, a family of three, a kid his own age, and watch them as they shopped or spoke to shopkeepers, maybe listen in on a phone conversation, and once he was ready he would "run into them" and just start up a conversation. For 90 days, 3 to 8 hours a day, Jason taught himself how to speak to people. He learned how to fake confidence at first, but as his successes mounted and his failures decreased, he grew to have legitimate confidence in himself. And he started making friends. A lot of them.
By his 18th birthday, Jason felt he was finally popular. At least at the mall.
He knew almost all of the mall-rats, and everything about them, who had dated who, who used what drug, who was a virgin, who was easy, who had a rough home life, and all they knew of him was his name, and Jason loved that they didnt seem to notice that they didn't know anything about him.
When they asked why he spent so much time talking to strangers he said he was learning to be social, which they took as a joke. The mall-rats never asked more than that. He even went to several parties by the end of that summer. By that point, people he didn't even know knew him by name.
****** The Mall Rat
One such party was held in an empty vacant apartment. Someone had jimmied the door and stayed a few nights, and decided it would be a great place for a party. There wasn't any power, so there wasn't any light either. He spent an hour talking to one guy, learning every detail about the guys life, when someone asked "Is that Jason I hear." The guy Jason had been talking to said "Who the fuck is Jason?" Jason, he decided about himself, was as skilled at being social as the guy in the spy movie. He hadn't even told this guy Kyle his name, and he knew more about him than most of Kyle's personal friends.
Later that night, Kyle's girlfriend, who was one of the mall-rats Jason kind of recognized walked off down the street from the party, and Jason soon caught up to her to ask what was wrong. Since Jason knew about their relationship problems from Kyle, it was easy to get her to open up. It didn't take too much encouragement before she told him all about how her 24 year old boyfriend wanted her to give up her virginity, especially now that she was 18, and how she really loved him but was scared to do so.
So Jason told her all sorts of generic B.S., if he loves you, he will wait, don't do it until it feels right, tell him to slow down or hit the road. That kind of thing. It was certainly the opposite of what his new friend Kyle would have wanted. He was ready to dump Kat if he didn't get some ass. But that was not appropriate advise for Jason to tell the girl. Plus, she was not exactly ugly and had a great rack, so Jason as a guy was not strongly motivated to help Kyle get some ass. Jason had the 'maybe if he dumps her I can hit it' mentality.
Eventually they got back to the party, and she left with her boyfriend. Kyle seemed none to pleased that she had walked off with another guy. Jason had a "sucks for you" attitude about it. The chic had been short, had a decent rack, and a revealing top. Jason, being 6'5" had had a great view walking beside her.
Then one day the following week, out of the blue, Kat brings in a batch of homemade brownies to the mall for Jason. Jason hadn't expected that at all. To the best of his knowledge she still had a boyfriend. Still, moving on instinct, he accepted the brownies and offered her a ride home. He had learned on their walk the week before that she usually walked home, because Kyle had wrecked her car and her dad worked second shift until passed midnight.
She agreed, and they exchanged numbers. He then returned to the conversation at hand while enjoying his brownies, sharing with no one, but completely blowing Kat off at the same time. This wasn't to be mean, but he had never "made a move before" and was worried that if he kept talking to her he would start being goofy about it and ruin his chances. Kat wasn't hot, but she was cute. She had dirty blonde hair that maybe could be washed more often, and was one of those girls who tried to hard to hide behind he rack. In fact her T shirt said squeezable across said chest.
Eventually the mall closed, and after texting Kat he spotted her standing patiently by a wall where she could see him. He said his goodbyes, then walked up and took her hand wordlessly leading her through the mall and to his car. Once inside, the silence was palpable, broken only by his questions about directions and her warmly spoken answers. He pulled up to her house and parked on the street.
***** The Flirting
"Thanks for the ride, that was really sweet of you." She said to him, looking at him with a blush.
Jason had never really had a girl look at him quite like that, but played it off as if he had been there a thousand times. "Thankful enough for a kiss?" She blushed deeply, and he turned his head and pointed towards his cheek patiently. Eventually, slowly, she leaned over and gave him a peck, followed by another thanks. He said "Wait here." as he hopped out of the car and walked around to her side opening the door and helping her out. "I'm going to walk you to the door."
She smiled and looked to the ground as he helped her out of the car, but didn't release his hand once she was out. 'Was it really this easy?' he thought to himself, amused by how much she seemed to be into him. "You don't have to do that." she said.
"Its only fair. You kissed me on the cheek as thanks for the ride, and I haven't gotten to thank you yet for the brownies. I think I will have to thank you the same way when I walk you to the door..." She seemed keen on that idea, and followed him willingly. He could tell by the way she smiled so broadly at the ground that she wanted Jason to kiss her.
Jason's mind was calculating what to say next, wondering how far he could take this...
On the porch, he waited for her to unlock the door, then he opened it for her and let her take a step inside. There she turned and presented her cheek to him and asked him for her 'thanks'. He smiled and shook his head. "You kissed my cheek for simply giving you a ride, and that was nothing. The brownies you made me were amazing! I think I can give you a better reward than that." He took her hands in his and pulled her against him, they made eye contact briefly, before he let his eyes trail down to her lips and waited.