Passive Aggression

I'm in the middle of a cold war with the girl who sits next to me in one of my classes.

We met at orientation when we were both ducking out of speeches to go buy books ahead of the rush. We seemed to hit it off pretty well, and had been talking together a lot after class and when we ran into one another at social events. Nothing romantic at all, just similar outlooks on life, it seemed. When the time came to sign up for seats in classes (you have assigned seats in law school so that the professor can call on you by name, but Columbia lets you pick your seat online) I chose a seat next to her in the one class we share, in the far back corner.

Things went relatively well the first few weeks of real classes. Then we had a memo due for Legal Writing. After working on it a lot, she finished and I offered to buy her a drink. She declined, politely. This is where I believe I may have made a big mistake.

You see, afterwards I became paranoid. I've had problems in the past with coming on too strong with people. When I make a new friend, I tend to latch on and not let go until they get really sick of me and would rather not see me anymore. At this point, I became worried that I had crossed an invisible line and she was now tired of me. What could I do to push the pendulum the other way? Clearly the answer was to ignore her. This would demonstrate that my life did not revolve around her, and would prevent me annoying her further. After a detente, we could resume talking and everything would be well again.

She didn't show up to class on Monday. Fine. Ah-ha! A chance to show I'm not obsessive! In the past I'd immediately e-mailed my notes to her when she missed a lecture. Today I would NOT e-mail my notes to her. The professor sends out daily summaries that are better than anything I put together, anyway, so she wouldn't really be the worse for it.

The next day I hadn't done the day's reading, and was poreing over it when she came in. I grunted in reply to her greeting, but didn't acknowledge her further and left class quickly at the end without saying a word. That night I was up until 6 AM finishing my memo (my associate set a later deadline than hers) so the next day I was legitimately barely coherent by 2:45, when class started and I mumbled a hello. By 4 PM I was legitimately in a rush to get home so I could go to sleep. Nonetheless, this seems to have been the straw that broke the dromedary.

All of last week what attempts at conversation I made were instantly rebuffed with curt replies. All this week we have shared, I believe, two words, both of them "Gesundheit." What began, for me, as an attempt to demonstrate pointedly that I was not coming on too strong and was not going to annoy her has now turned into a passive aggressive war of wills. If she's not going to talk to me well, damnit, I'll show her by not talking to her! This leads to an almost comical display when class nears a close; we both begin slowly putting our books away prior to dismissal. When the professor does dismiss, it's a race to see who can get their bags packed and shouldered and get themselves out the door fastest. I believe the idea is that neither of us is talking to the other, but the one who gets out first is the one who officially has snubbed the other, and therefore wins a point in the ongoing war.

In any case, this is all very stupid. I hope one of us gets over it and clears the air between us soon, or it'll be a highly unpleasant rest of the semester. Moreover, I think we do get along well, and it'd be a shame to lose a friendship over something so silly as this. Any thoughts or suggestions?