Twenty-Mile Problem

I am a junior in high school, in California. I am somewhat introverted; while I do have a small, trusted circle of friends, I am not gregarious and rarely attend social functions. My main attribute I suppose is that I am considered to be extremely dedicated; once I start something, I don't really quit. This way, I have accumulated quite a few prestigious academic awards and have somehow built a strong body after years of working out since I was six, mainly because I didn’t want to be frail and thin anymore. Yes, I realize how arrogant I sound, by the way.

Anyway, I digress (I just added that to give a bit of background). Just this Saturday, I went with my parents to their friends' 25th anniversary celebration (a rare event for me). I didn't really have much to do there, since the adults were busy interacting with each other ("interacting" is perhaps too light a word at Indian parties, if you know what I mean). I noticed a girl sitting by herself in the corner, looking very bored as she stared into a school-copy of The Great Gatsby, and I was pretty bored by this point as well. I managed to pick up the courage to walk over to her and say hello.

I ended up spending the rest of the night talking with her (it was a six-hour party). As it turns out, she is quite like me. She is interested in academics (we are both obsessed with engineering), and happens to be a track and field runner as well. We both adore Pokémon, and both play "competitively" on-line in our spare time (some games are just too good to ever end; you just raise the level of your play). We both even enjoy cooking, although I am pretty pathetic skill-wise (I can barely assemble a sandwich), and she is apparently a very passionate cookie baker. We both play piano, and we both play songs by ear (as in listening to it on an iPod and then translating it onto the piano). Appearance-wise, she was quite attractive, what people would consider “cute” (as opposed to “hot”). I had politely mentioned this to her (namely, without sounding like a douche), and she laughed and said, “I actually really like you too already, but I suppose you hear this from girls a lot!”. This is the first time I have heard anything like this; like I said, I’m not usually a social person. I can’t tell if she was just saying that, but she earnestly seemed to like me. We listened to music, talked, and laughed the night away. She asked how to spell my name at the end of the night (understandably, she didn’t know how to spell my nineteen-letter long first and last name). Later, I saw that she used this to add me on Facebook, to which I happily complied.

During the party, she somewhat abruptly asked if I was going to junior prom. I chuckled and replied that I’d figure it out later. She smiled and said that she was just curious, since someone had asked her the previous day if she’d go to her school prom with him. She said that she said yes, mainly because she didn’t see a reason to refuse him at that moment (she said that she knew him for a while). Then she laughed and said she asked me just because that’s what her “hormonal mind was thinking about today”. Just something I thought a potential replier might want to know.

I would love to spend more time with her, but unfortunately, she goes to a different school than I do. These parties are not very frequent either; maybe three or four times in a year. I have chatted with her on Facebook since, but understandably, this isn’t quite the same. I don’t necessarily want a relationship though; I simply want to spend time with her. However, junior prom is in fact coming up in two or three months, and even awkward turtles like me wouldn’t want to miss that or go alone. I really am not remotely interested in the girls at my school. I understand that some of you will say that “oh, it’s just because you haven’t spent as much time with them”, but believe me, I really don’t care for them. Do you think I could ask her to my school’s promotion, even though she lives twenty miles away from me and doesn’t go to my school? My parents don’t really know hers very well either, so that could be another variable.

Thanks for reading my wall of text, and I look forward to any replies.

P.S. She is Chinese, if ethnicity makes a difference, and I am Indian, as I had implied earlier. Just thought I’d add that in as an after-thought. I made an account specifically to post this, since I don’t know someone I would be comfortable asking “girl advice” for in real-life.