Dear M,
Let's do some house cleaning. I want to finish with my first drug-bust (hint for later blogs) and its impact on my pathetic life. We will then get to what our readers really want to hear: my pathetic love life.
After I buried the pot stem, my father made two proclamations: I would no longer be taking martial arts and I was to see a psychiatrist. Talking to a shrink might have been a good thing if my father was willing to come along (we might have gotten to the root of the problem, if either of us would open up to one another), but I suppose he figured that there must have been something wrong with my head if I was dumb enough to smoke 'dope'. Taking me away from Jiu Jitsu was possibly the dumbest thing he ever did.
My sensei was a crusty old soldier and a Marine Corps instructor of Combat Jiu Jitsu for many years before retirement. In a lot of ways he was like my father: harsh, demanding and not easily impressed. But he, and the sport, had a way of encouraging me into a level of self-confidence that my father could only dream of. He was also extremely anti-drug. I had great respect for him and loved martial arts. If he had been given a chance to chew my ass out for smoking pot, then I might have given it up on the spot. I never spoke a word to him or saw him again. My father told me that he wasn't going to pay for a pot-head to learn self-defense, and that was that. I lost the only good influence in my life.
Back in school, after my ten-day suspension, things were very different for me. This was partially due to the bust and the parental warnings to "stay the hell away from that Stephens kid," and partially due to another home-growing kid's bust. A guy that I didn't even hang around with was found with a barn full of upside-down marijuana plants and taken into custody. I never heard the rumor that I was to blame, but I imagine that my return to the office to spill my guts was talked about among the stoner crowd. I lost my popularity and became the loner I had been most of my life. Things were back to normal.
Speaking of normal, my failed shot at the horse-goddess was just a shadow of things to come. I'm a four or a five at best, but I was always attracted to nines and tens. I suppose every guy is (they didn't make the hotness scale because only tens like tens), but I've always aimed high, so I was constantly reminded why a ten doesn't date a five.
In my first year of Junior High, I set my sights on a cheerleader named Mindy. If Betty-Joe was a crush, then Mindy was a disintegration. I was obsessed with her to the point that I had to do something. I was too shy to go up and talk to her, so I got a crazy scheme in my imaginative little brain. I decided to become her secret admirer. But not just any secret admirer, mind you, I would be the code-speaking secret admirer. That way no one would know about my love except for her (or so I thought).
I made up a secret code using a set of strange symbols that I created myself. I made two copies; one for her and one for me. I then used my copy to tell her about my feelings for her and explained how she would be receiving more letters in the future and how she should guard this code with her life. I put her letter and the deciphering matrix into an envelope and slipped it into her locker at the end of the day, when I was sure no one was watching.
The very first class of the next day, I was shocked when she came strutting into my classroom and right up to my desk. It was minutes before class was to start and we did not share first period.
"Did you write this?" she yelled more than asked.
My coded letter was in her hand, which was thrust in my face. The chaos that fills a classroom at the beginning of a school day came to a halt. Every eye was on my reaction, and every ear was tuned in to my answer.
I don't know that I've ever felt so much pressure at any other point in my life. I felt as if my hopes and dreams of romantic bliss were being thrust in my face and there really wasn't a right answer.
"No," I replied, as convincingly as I could.
"A friend told me that you put it in my locker. Are you sure you didn't write it?"
I glanced around the room. The snickers and smirks were already starting.
"Uh, no. It wasn't me." I wasn't about to admit to anything.
"That's too bad," she said, as her countenance softened, "whoever wrote this sounds real sweet. I wouldn't mind getting to know him better." With that bombshell, she ran out of the room.
If there was a large rock in that classroom, I would have done my best to squeeze under it. Mindy had taken my secret and shown it to the world and I was mortified. We actually become friends the same year I got busted for pot. We shared a study-hall class together and she asked me again if I had written that letter. All of the embarrassment and humiliation came flooding back into my mind and I denied it again. You, my dear M, are the first one to whom I have confessed to being "guilty as charged."
I really enjoyed that, DB. The story about the coded love letter made me laugh out loud. It reminded me of the time when a young man I knew, for reasons known only to himself, painted a large red question mark on the front door of my flat. Now that really was taking coded messages to extremes. Unlike Mindy, I didn’t make the effort to decode the message though. That’s probably because your message was really very sweet and only a little bit mad, and there was something seriously, disturbingly and certifiably mad about the large red painted question mark.
On the subject of humiliating encounters with the opposite sex, I have a few of my own to draw on, although I had to dig pretty deep to find them. (I keep them locked away in a box labelled Do Not Ever Open This Again.)
But just for you I opened up the box, and out popped Andrew Watkins. It’s a long time since I’ve thought about Andrew Watkins, and I’d quite possibly never have thought about him ever again, were it not for this blog. That’s because my dealings with Andrew Watkins set a kind of painful precedent for all my subsequent relationships. (The relationship with Hugh that I told you about last week, ultimate failure though it was, was in fact my most successful relationship ever, which will give you an indication of how unsuccessful the others were.)
Anyway, back to Andrew Watkins: I was only about eleven or twelve– and I had developed a juvenile crush on him, my first ever. It wasn’t a proper full on crush or anything, because I’d not yet reached puberty, but he was tall and blonde and I thought he was just wonderful. He actually wasn’t. He was a bit of a dick.
Nothing bad would have happened if I hadn’t gone round telling people Andrew Watkins was my boyfriend. I don’t think I even knew what the word ‘boyfriend’ meant. He was a boy. He was my friend. Didn’t that make him my boyfriend?
And here’s where I learned another lesson, although I evidently didn’t learn it thoroughly enough, because I’d go on to repeat the mistake a number of times. The lesson is that you should never ever divulge to your trusted girlfriends the name of the boy you fancy. Even if they swear on a whole stack of bibles they’ll not breathe a single word to another living soul, they are lying. That kind of information is just too hot to keep to yourself.
The upshot was that the exciting news Andrew Watkins was my boyfriend was relayed to Andrew Watkins himself. It must have come as a bit of a shock, because one evening after youth group, and in front of absolutely everybody, he walked up to me and said: “What do you think you are doing going round telling everyone I am your boyfriend? I am NOT your boyfriend.”
Oh those words seared my soul in ways too deep and and profound to tell. I do believe they condemned me to replay the entire scenario time and again well into adulthood. And if I were now to write a memoir about my love life, it would probably be titled, “I Am Not Your Boyfriend.”
Next week I’ll delve back into that dreadful Pandora’s box labelled Don’t Ever Open Again and pull out a few of the other boys and men who managed to let me know in one way or another that they were not my boyfriend, had never been my boyfriend, and never would be my boyfriend. In the meanwhile I am looking forward very much to the next instalment in your (mis)adventures in love. M.
Let's do some house cleaning. I want to finish with my first drug-bust (hint for later blogs) and its impact on my pathetic life. We will then get to what our readers really want to hear: my pathetic love life.
After I buried the pot stem, my father made two proclamations: I would no longer be taking martial arts and I was to see a psychiatrist. Talking to a shrink might have been a good thing if my father was willing to come along (we might have gotten to the root of the problem, if either of us would open up to one another), but I suppose he figured that there must have been something wrong with my head if I was dumb enough to smoke 'dope'. Taking me away from Jiu Jitsu was possibly the dumbest thing he ever did.
My sensei was a crusty old soldier and a Marine Corps instructor of Combat Jiu Jitsu for many years before retirement. In a lot of ways he was like my father: harsh, demanding and not easily impressed. But he, and the sport, had a way of encouraging me into a level of self-confidence that my father could only dream of. He was also extremely anti-drug. I had great respect for him and loved martial arts. If he had been given a chance to chew my ass out for smoking pot, then I might have given it up on the spot. I never spoke a word to him or saw him again. My father told me that he wasn't going to pay for a pot-head to learn self-defense, and that was that. I lost the only good influence in my life.
Back in school, after my ten-day suspension, things were very different for me. This was partially due to the bust and the parental warnings to "stay the hell away from that Stephens kid," and partially due to another home-growing kid's bust. A guy that I didn't even hang around with was found with a barn full of upside-down marijuana plants and taken into custody. I never heard the rumor that I was to blame, but I imagine that my return to the office to spill my guts was talked about among the stoner crowd. I lost my popularity and became the loner I had been most of my life. Things were back to normal.
Speaking of normal, my failed shot at the horse-goddess was just a shadow of things to come. I'm a four or a five at best, but I was always attracted to nines and tens. I suppose every guy is (they didn't make the hotness scale because only tens like tens), but I've always aimed high, so I was constantly reminded why a ten doesn't date a five.
In my first year of Junior High, I set my sights on a cheerleader named Mindy. If Betty-Joe was a crush, then Mindy was a disintegration. I was obsessed with her to the point that I had to do something. I was too shy to go up and talk to her, so I got a crazy scheme in my imaginative little brain. I decided to become her secret admirer. But not just any secret admirer, mind you, I would be the code-speaking secret admirer. That way no one would know about my love except for her (or so I thought).
I made up a secret code using a set of strange symbols that I created myself. I made two copies; one for her and one for me. I then used my copy to tell her about my feelings for her and explained how she would be receiving more letters in the future and how she should guard this code with her life. I put her letter and the deciphering matrix into an envelope and slipped it into her locker at the end of the day, when I was sure no one was watching.
The very first class of the next day, I was shocked when she came strutting into my classroom and right up to my desk. It was minutes before class was to start and we did not share first period.
"Did you write this?" she yelled more than asked.
My coded letter was in her hand, which was thrust in my face. The chaos that fills a classroom at the beginning of a school day came to a halt. Every eye was on my reaction, and every ear was tuned in to my answer.
I don't know that I've ever felt so much pressure at any other point in my life. I felt as if my hopes and dreams of romantic bliss were being thrust in my face and there really wasn't a right answer.
"No," I replied, as convincingly as I could.
"A friend told me that you put it in my locker. Are you sure you didn't write it?"
I glanced around the room. The snickers and smirks were already starting.
"Uh, no. It wasn't me." I wasn't about to admit to anything.
"That's too bad," she said, as her countenance softened, "whoever wrote this sounds real sweet. I wouldn't mind getting to know him better." With that bombshell, she ran out of the room.
If there was a large rock in that classroom, I would have done my best to squeeze under it. Mindy had taken my secret and shown it to the world and I was mortified. We actually become friends the same year I got busted for pot. We shared a study-hall class together and she asked me again if I had written that letter. All of the embarrassment and humiliation came flooding back into my mind and I denied it again. You, my dear M, are the first one to whom I have confessed to being "guilty as charged."
I really enjoyed that, DB. The story about the coded love letter made me laugh out loud. It reminded me of the time when a young man I knew, for reasons known only to himself, painted a large red question mark on the front door of my flat. Now that really was taking coded messages to extremes. Unlike Mindy, I didn’t make the effort to decode the message though. That’s probably because your message was really very sweet and only a little bit mad, and there was something seriously, disturbingly and certifiably mad about the large red painted question mark.
On the subject of humiliating encounters with the opposite sex, I have a few of my own to draw on, although I had to dig pretty deep to find them. (I keep them locked away in a box labelled Do Not Ever Open This Again.)
But just for you I opened up the box, and out popped Andrew Watkins. It’s a long time since I’ve thought about Andrew Watkins, and I’d quite possibly never have thought about him ever again, were it not for this blog. That’s because my dealings with Andrew Watkins set a kind of painful precedent for all my subsequent relationships. (The relationship with Hugh that I told you about last week, ultimate failure though it was, was in fact my most successful relationship ever, which will give you an indication of how unsuccessful the others were.)
Anyway, back to Andrew Watkins: I was only about eleven or twelve– and I had developed a juvenile crush on him, my first ever. It wasn’t a proper full on crush or anything, because I’d not yet reached puberty, but he was tall and blonde and I thought he was just wonderful. He actually wasn’t. He was a bit of a dick.
Nothing bad would have happened if I hadn’t gone round telling people Andrew Watkins was my boyfriend. I don’t think I even knew what the word ‘boyfriend’ meant. He was a boy. He was my friend. Didn’t that make him my boyfriend?
And here’s where I learned another lesson, although I evidently didn’t learn it thoroughly enough, because I’d go on to repeat the mistake a number of times. The lesson is that you should never ever divulge to your trusted girlfriends the name of the boy you fancy. Even if they swear on a whole stack of bibles they’ll not breathe a single word to another living soul, they are lying. That kind of information is just too hot to keep to yourself.
The upshot was that the exciting news Andrew Watkins was my boyfriend was relayed to Andrew Watkins himself. It must have come as a bit of a shock, because one evening after youth group, and in front of absolutely everybody, he walked up to me and said: “What do you think you are doing going round telling everyone I am your boyfriend? I am NOT your boyfriend.”
Oh those words seared my soul in ways too deep and and profound to tell. I do believe they condemned me to replay the entire scenario time and again well into adulthood. And if I were now to write a memoir about my love life, it would probably be titled, “I Am Not Your Boyfriend.”
Next week I’ll delve back into that dreadful Pandora’s box labelled Don’t Ever Open Again and pull out a few of the other boys and men who managed to let me know in one way or another that they were not my boyfriend, had never been my boyfriend, and never would be my boyfriend. In the meanwhile I am looking forward very much to the next instalment in your (mis)adventures in love. M.