Well, DB, I shall continue the not terribly edifying saga of my adolescent love life before moving on to something else next time. There’s not a lot left to tell, but for what it’s worth, here goes: When I was fourteen I had a crush on a boy called Grant and he was tall and blonde with blue eyes. I thought he was the most wonderful boy in the world. At fifteen the scales fell from my eyes, and I realized it wasn’t Grant I would love forever. I was going to love George forever instead, because he was tall and blonde and had blue eyes. Then, at sixteen, lightning struck once again, and George was also forgotten overnight. For how could I resist tall, blonde Gary, with those eyes of blue?
In reality there wasn’t anything to choose between them, this tall blue-eyed blonde boy I shall for convenience sake merge into one and call Grant-George-Gary. For Grant-George-Gary didn’t exist for me as a real individuated human being. He was a type, an ideal, an object of worship. Interactions with Grant-George-Gary were thus minimal, for I never had the courage to actually speak to him, as he stood there, up there on his pedestal.
In this highly charged atmosphere of one-sided adoration, the fleetingest of glances could be interpreted as highly significant, endlessly dissected: “Oooh, Grant-George-Gary looked at me, today, I swear he looked at me. Did you see him look at me? Do you think it means something? Do you think fancies me? Did that particular look say he fancies me? I’m sure it means he he fancies me.”
And just as George-Grant-Gary never became a real person for me, which is probably just as well, neither did I trouble the consciousness of Grant-George-Gary overmuch. He was oblivious to my presence, in fact, although I do remember him ruffling my hair once as he swanned past, looking gorgeous, as if to say “Here’s a small reward for having such good taste.”
It was only when I started having real interactions with real boys that the trouble started. It was so much better when they were up there on their pedestals, not saying a word…
And so to Ian, the first boy who ever kissed me. I evidently took this incident far more seriously than Ian, for when it came time for the school leaving dance, it seemed only right and proper that Ian should be my partner.
I spent an entire afternoon drumming up the courage to call him and pop the Big Question. Then, after a great deal of awkwardness, including many long and embarrassing telephone-related pauses, I stammered out my invitation. “I was…um.. wondering if…um…you’d like to…um…go with me to my..um…matric farewell dance?”
No, he said.
And that was that. No apologies, no excuses, just ‘No.’ To this day I detest the telephone, that awful, humiliating instrument of awkward pauses and opportunities for rejection. And did Cinderella go to the ball? Well, yes, in the end one of my brothers persuaded one of his friends to go with me, which meant I got to dance with the Pumpkin instead of the Prince. But hey ho, that’s life. So now you will see why I am tiring of talking about my early romantic life, because there wasn’t one, and because the only romance that happened took place inside my head.
I am looking forward to your response, because I have no doubt at all you will do better than me this week. J M.
Well, my dear M, I shall try.
As I wrote my blog this week, the irony that I have had two 'Ms' tear my heart out and use it as a play-thing made me ponder. Perhaps God is showing me that not all Ms have it in for me. You are perhaps the nicest M of the female persuasion that I have come in contact with. I think that you will agree, after you read how Marty Foster treated me, that the feminine 'M' was not the kindest letter of my youth.
Marty Foster was another cheerleader and my next big crush. She was over-developed for a girl in her early teens and sought after by all the boys in our class. Mindy made me weary of cheerleaders and beautiful, popular girls, so I was satisfied to worship her from afar.
Her boyfriend, Rick Johnson, was the quarterback on the football team who stood nearly a foot taller than me. Naturally, I despised him. They had a tumultuous relationship which was often the talk of the school. She was hot-headed and he was a practical joker - not a good combo. It wasn't unusual to hear Marty screaming at the top of her lungs in the hallway between classes at Rick for a prank he had stuffed inside her locker. I suppose it was he that planned the worst day of my life in the eighth grade.
The day began as the best day of the year, because it was the last day of school. The last day of any school is a complete waste of time. Tests and have been taken, grades have been given, and the teachers no longer give a shit, which is why it is so great. All you do is goof off and dream of summer. In our junior high, it was a shortened day, which made it even better.
We had but an extended lunch period before the buses would whisk us off away from prison. I had just left the cafeteria when Rick approached me in the hallway. Rick and I weren't friends, so I should have been wary about anything he did or said, but I still had a lot to learn about human nature. People can be so cruel.
"Here," he said, as he handed me an envelope. "Marty said to give this to you."
I was in shock. Other than the occasional gawk, I hadn't let anyone know of my obsession with the curvaceous cheerleader. What in the world could Marty Foster have to say to me? It had to be a joke.
I opened the envelope expecting a note from Rick saying, "stop gawking at my girlfriend, wimp, or I'll send you into the next life". Instead, I found a hand-written note in what could only described as 'feminine penmanship' asking me if I would like to "go steady".
I've often chuckled at how at that age you would go steady with a girl before you even went on a date. The progression was: go steady, date, make-out, get to third base. If you were really lucky, you'd end up having sex. Most adults these days go about things in reverse. Anyway, I think it was the magic of the last day of school filling my head, but I actually took the letter to be true.
"What did she say?" Rick asked, after seeing the shock turn to bliss.
"She said she wants to go steady. I thought you two were dating?"
"No. We broke-up again. I'm going steady with Mindy now. You should go for it, dude. Marty has great tits."
I didn't need her former boyfriend to tell me that. Her sweaters were the joy of every junior high boy around. But it was nice knowing that I had the meathead's blessing.
I found the sweater princess out by a large oak tree on the playground. She was surrounded by all of her cheerleader friends (which included my old heart-throb, Mindy). Walking up to her with boldness, I held out the letter and repeated the demand I had heard much earlier in the year.
"Did you write this?"
"Yes," she replied, with a smile that made my heart soar.
From heights I had never before reached, I asked another question that brought about the inevitable crash and burn to come.
"So, you would like to go steady?"
"Of course not! You're a little boy. I only go out with men!"
Laughter filled the air as I fell back to earth. I turned around to run away and discovered that Rick and a bunch of his meathead friends had crept up to watch my demise. I tore through their ranks and searched for a hole to bury myself in.
The buses were parked in front of the school. We weren't allowed to board them yet, but my bus driver took one look at my face and turned her head, as I ran on-board and found the back seat. I curled up in a ball and cried until I was dropped off at home, two hours later.
So, did I win? For some reason I feel like I lost.
In reality there wasn’t anything to choose between them, this tall blue-eyed blonde boy I shall for convenience sake merge into one and call Grant-George-Gary. For Grant-George-Gary didn’t exist for me as a real individuated human being. He was a type, an ideal, an object of worship. Interactions with Grant-George-Gary were thus minimal, for I never had the courage to actually speak to him, as he stood there, up there on his pedestal.
In this highly charged atmosphere of one-sided adoration, the fleetingest of glances could be interpreted as highly significant, endlessly dissected: “Oooh, Grant-George-Gary looked at me, today, I swear he looked at me. Did you see him look at me? Do you think it means something? Do you think fancies me? Did that particular look say he fancies me? I’m sure it means he he fancies me.”
And just as George-Grant-Gary never became a real person for me, which is probably just as well, neither did I trouble the consciousness of Grant-George-Gary overmuch. He was oblivious to my presence, in fact, although I do remember him ruffling my hair once as he swanned past, looking gorgeous, as if to say “Here’s a small reward for having such good taste.”
It was only when I started having real interactions with real boys that the trouble started. It was so much better when they were up there on their pedestals, not saying a word…
And so to Ian, the first boy who ever kissed me. I evidently took this incident far more seriously than Ian, for when it came time for the school leaving dance, it seemed only right and proper that Ian should be my partner.
I spent an entire afternoon drumming up the courage to call him and pop the Big Question. Then, after a great deal of awkwardness, including many long and embarrassing telephone-related pauses, I stammered out my invitation. “I was…um.. wondering if…um…you’d like to…um…go with me to my..um…matric farewell dance?”
No, he said.
And that was that. No apologies, no excuses, just ‘No.’ To this day I detest the telephone, that awful, humiliating instrument of awkward pauses and opportunities for rejection. And did Cinderella go to the ball? Well, yes, in the end one of my brothers persuaded one of his friends to go with me, which meant I got to dance with the Pumpkin instead of the Prince. But hey ho, that’s life. So now you will see why I am tiring of talking about my early romantic life, because there wasn’t one, and because the only romance that happened took place inside my head.
I am looking forward to your response, because I have no doubt at all you will do better than me this week. J M.
Well, my dear M, I shall try.
As I wrote my blog this week, the irony that I have had two 'Ms' tear my heart out and use it as a play-thing made me ponder. Perhaps God is showing me that not all Ms have it in for me. You are perhaps the nicest M of the female persuasion that I have come in contact with. I think that you will agree, after you read how Marty Foster treated me, that the feminine 'M' was not the kindest letter of my youth.
Marty Foster was another cheerleader and my next big crush. She was over-developed for a girl in her early teens and sought after by all the boys in our class. Mindy made me weary of cheerleaders and beautiful, popular girls, so I was satisfied to worship her from afar.
Her boyfriend, Rick Johnson, was the quarterback on the football team who stood nearly a foot taller than me. Naturally, I despised him. They had a tumultuous relationship which was often the talk of the school. She was hot-headed and he was a practical joker - not a good combo. It wasn't unusual to hear Marty screaming at the top of her lungs in the hallway between classes at Rick for a prank he had stuffed inside her locker. I suppose it was he that planned the worst day of my life in the eighth grade.
The day began as the best day of the year, because it was the last day of school. The last day of any school is a complete waste of time. Tests and have been taken, grades have been given, and the teachers no longer give a shit, which is why it is so great. All you do is goof off and dream of summer. In our junior high, it was a shortened day, which made it even better.
We had but an extended lunch period before the buses would whisk us off away from prison. I had just left the cafeteria when Rick approached me in the hallway. Rick and I weren't friends, so I should have been wary about anything he did or said, but I still had a lot to learn about human nature. People can be so cruel.
"Here," he said, as he handed me an envelope. "Marty said to give this to you."
I was in shock. Other than the occasional gawk, I hadn't let anyone know of my obsession with the curvaceous cheerleader. What in the world could Marty Foster have to say to me? It had to be a joke.
I opened the envelope expecting a note from Rick saying, "stop gawking at my girlfriend, wimp, or I'll send you into the next life". Instead, I found a hand-written note in what could only described as 'feminine penmanship' asking me if I would like to "go steady".
I've often chuckled at how at that age you would go steady with a girl before you even went on a date. The progression was: go steady, date, make-out, get to third base. If you were really lucky, you'd end up having sex. Most adults these days go about things in reverse. Anyway, I think it was the magic of the last day of school filling my head, but I actually took the letter to be true.
"What did she say?" Rick asked, after seeing the shock turn to bliss.
"She said she wants to go steady. I thought you two were dating?"
"No. We broke-up again. I'm going steady with Mindy now. You should go for it, dude. Marty has great tits."
I didn't need her former boyfriend to tell me that. Her sweaters were the joy of every junior high boy around. But it was nice knowing that I had the meathead's blessing.
I found the sweater princess out by a large oak tree on the playground. She was surrounded by all of her cheerleader friends (which included my old heart-throb, Mindy). Walking up to her with boldness, I held out the letter and repeated the demand I had heard much earlier in the year.
"Did you write this?"
"Yes," she replied, with a smile that made my heart soar.
From heights I had never before reached, I asked another question that brought about the inevitable crash and burn to come.
"So, you would like to go steady?"
"Of course not! You're a little boy. I only go out with men!"
Laughter filled the air as I fell back to earth. I turned around to run away and discovered that Rick and a bunch of his meathead friends had crept up to watch my demise. I tore through their ranks and searched for a hole to bury myself in.
The buses were parked in front of the school. We weren't allowed to board them yet, but my bus driver took one look at my face and turned her head, as I ran on-board and found the back seat. I curled up in a ball and cried until I was dropped off at home, two hours later.
So, did I win? For some reason I feel like I lost.