He was Red Hood. I think. It wasn’t a big stretch of the imagination to think so, really. I knew a lot about him, I’d become an amateur stalker in the course of the last few months, and Red Hood was his favorite character in all of the Batman universe. The character was fairly obscure, not sharing the same limelight with Nightwing or Robin, or even most of the villains. And there was a Red Hood at the party… ergo…

I tried to talk to him, but I think the helmet distorted, or muffled, or completely eradicated sound. He didn’t seem to hear my hello, and walked away. As he did, a strange girl – as in a stranger, not weird – passed by and bumped me. I spilled my beer on myself, making a trip to find a towel more of a priority than following my crush.

I’d worked all week to prep myself for this. I was going to talk to him, finally. I was at least going to have a superficial conversation about the weather. Ideally, I’d work up to asking him out, but my goal was to at the minimum exchange a few words. I couldn’t keep hiding and admiring from afar. It would get me nowhere.

This spilled beer, of course, wasn’t helping my goal.

Trying to keep an eye on that red helmet, I moved toward the kitchen in hopes of finding abundant paper towels, after all, who throws a party and doesn’t prepare for inevitable spills? Instead, all I found was a mess. I felt a little sorry for the owner of the residence, and then felt worse when I realized I had no idea who that was.

I don’t know how long I stood there trying to spot anything that might absorb the liquid on my dress, but when I looked again for my crush, he was nowhere to be seen. Abruptly, I forgot about the beer down my front, determined to find him again. I couldn’t let the night end without that conversation, I couldn’t.

My first lap proved fruitless. I reversed course and made a second, then a third. On the fourth, I asked a few people as I went. Nobody had seen him. How can you not see a tall guy wearing a shiny red helmet? It’s not inconspicuous. I was thankful that nobody looked at me like I was a freak for asking.

Pathetically, I spent the better part of an hour playing hide-and-seek with an unknowing partner. When it got to the point that I was making myself uncomfortable with my pursuit, I abandoned it all, deciding it was not meant to be.