So. Y'all have probably heard of Tobin by now. The grad student who likes me.

Well, today, I went to my mailbox to get my mail. I found a slip saying that I'd recieved a package. I thought, "great, Rachel's got round to mailing me the notebook we're sending back and forth!" Surprise, surprise, it's from Tobin. And what has he sent me? Mix CDs. I love mix CDs, but this was just... I sat on my bed for a couple of minutes in shock. Not only did he just pick out really nice stuff and put them onto CDs, but it's the way he did it. He did two little leaflets for them, coloured in carefully featuring stuff like the Sabres logo, England, New York, that one drawing of Matilda done by Quentin Blake that I really love, a picture of Darwin (who we were discussing the other day) along with song lyrics from a lot of the songs he put on the CDs. (Stuff like "You're the only song I want to hear - a melody softly soaring through my atmosphere," "Listen to the music of the moment, maybe sing with me?" from LE MRAZ and he even quotes the opening lines of Twelfth Night, which I love.) I know that he means every single word he's written down on there. Because you don't do anything remotely this nice for somebody who is just your friend. It all reminds me of what Jiyoon does with her letters and her mix CDs, but I've known Jiyoon for years. He even has handwriting like Jiyoon's. In short, it's all very beautiful and the music is good too.

I feel so torn right now. I have absolutely no idea what to do. I showed these to Amanda when we were in the lobby of our dorm and she immediately took me into the kitchen and started squealing, "This is the SWEETEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN. You HAVE to try with him. Forget the age difference. You just HAVE to." I told Brynn and she said he was acting like a creeper. I know that the intent is totally not creepy, that he means it all but he's not like "look-at-me-I-want-you-in-my-pants." He cares. He really cares. I've never seen anybody really fall or fall so hard so quickly like this... especially for me. I'm quite surprised, actually, because it's the first time I've been on the recieving end of anything remotely of this scale. I am so reminded of myself (I tend to fall pretty hard and pretty quickly) and I am speechless (although obviously I am not entirely speechless because I am blogging about it). I know this sounds dumb but I need opinions and I need opinions badly. I like talking to him and we have interesting conversations, but the age thing has always been in my mind and whenever I mention the seven year age difference (which is the age difference between my youngest cousin, Claire, and me -- she is seven years older, not younger, obvs) I feel like ALDKSAJADSKLFKJLSJD:LSKAK:SL. It is painful to watch, it really is. That's the only way I can really describe it all. It's just painful.

I don't know what to do, but I can't break his heart. He doesn't deserve that. I just can't. Although I have a feeling he'd take it all in stride and be like "aww it's okay" because that's how he reacted initially when I freaked out about it all... he's been through a lot. I don't know. He's liked a lot of girls over the past five years and yet they've all turned him down. Twenty of them. I am the twentieth and he views himself as a failure because he hasn't had a girlfriend in the past five years and he's "scared them all away." I know what that's like. Okay, so I haven't scared away twenty people, but still. I've been there.

Blee. I need some sleep but opinions on this matter would be wonderful.