One of my favorite stories detailing how inept I am when it
comes to the ladies occurred in high school.
It sums up everything about me and how my brain works when women are
involved. It also says a lot about me
that I enjoy telling it so much. It’s not
the most embarrassing story in the world, but I certainly don’t come out of it
looking suave, and yet, there’s something that compels me to tell it on a
regular basis. I’m sure there isn’t
anyone who knows me that hasn’t heard it.
And I guess in a small way, it’s the impetus for this whole thread of
blog posts. There’s some small part of
me that wants to embarrass and demean myself in front of the whole world and as
much as that doesn’t sound healthy at all there is purpose behind it. Maybe people will be entertained by my
stories. Maybe people will find solace
knowing that they aren’t the only ones that go through this kind of stuff. Maybe I’ll unburden my soul by throwing all
this out in the open.
The high
school I went to was an all boys private high school in New England. Don’t think that the all boys part plays any
role in the tales I tell. I’ve always
been comfortable around women; that isn’t the issue. Whatever social anxieties I have are equal towards
both guys and girls and the stories I write here about my problems with the
fairer sex deal with girls I wanted to like me, not all girls in general. That’s an important distinction to
understand. I have more friends that are
girls then I do guys. Turning those
friends into something more is where I stumble.
Anyway, the school has a nationally recognized hockey program and the
local NHL team at the time had built our rink so they could use it as a
pre-season training facility. That being
the case, we had a close relationship with the team and they would give the
school a group of discount tickets. On
the Saturday nights that the team played at home, anyone who wanted to could
sign up for $5 tickets and the school would bus us to the game.
Now, I
wasn’t a fan of this team at all, nor were any of my friends, but it’s hard to
pass up a night out at a professional hockey game at the age of 15 with really
no one watching over you for $5. We
would go whenever we could and since we cared less about who won or lost we
tended to focus on other teenage things.
What I’m trying to say is, we saw it as a chance for a bunch of guys who
didn’t get to see girls all day long to meet and pick up women. I use those terms very loosely because we
were shy awkward young boys who were all talk around friends and had no real
idea how to meet girls at large public events.
Every game pretty much played out the same. We would look around the arena, spot an
attractive girl or group of girls, talk about how hot they were, say that we
should move over to where they were (the team wasn’t very popular, so we were
always able to sit where ever we wanted in the arena) but never actually move,
and then head back to the bus when the game was over having accomplished
nothing other then recognizing beauty.
This particular game was different
though. We were sitting behind the net
and off to our right, four or five sections over, was an extremely gorgeous
girl. Things were playing out just like
normal, except every time we looked over at her, she and her friends were
looking back. This sparked a whole new avenue
of debate between the group of us, who was she looking at? “It’s me!”
“No way would she be looking at you, it’s obviously me.” “She’s not a chubby chaser, dude. She totally has a thing for me.” This went on for two and a half periods,
until one of the guys in our group spotted another girl. The debate shifted to whether this new
subject of attention was actually hot or not and rose to such heights that it
was finally decided, with minutes left in the game, that we would walk over to
her section to get a closer look.
Why we decided to move closer this
game as opposed to all the others, I’ll never know. Maybe we were starting to get more confident
about what we were trying to accomplish.
Maybe there was a collective frustration about just sitting there and
talking every game and never having anything to show for it. And on the surface, this new bit of
confidence (or whatever it was) didn’t change a thing. We hadn’t sat down for more then a minute
when the guy who initiated the move conceded that the girl was not attractive
at all and we should head back to the bus.
But if it wasn’t for that move I probably wouldn’t have this story to
tell. We all got up and headed out the
door, me slightly behind. As I rounded a
corner, trying to keep up with my friends, I ran smack into the girl who had
been looking back at us for two and a half periods. We both stopped, looked at each other, and
she said, “Do I know you from somewhere?”
I’ve never had a better opening in
my life prior to or since that moment shy of a girl telling me straight out
that I was going to take her out on a date.
It seems so obvious now what a huge chance this was for me, how it was
everything any of us could have wanted to happen every time we showed up at one
of those games. But me being me, all I
could think about was the fact that my friends were walking away and I had a
bus to get to and what if it left without me.
So, I gave one of the most regratable answers I have ever given to any
question ever asked of me.
“No,” I said as I hurriedly walked
away to catch back up with my friends. I
never even stopped for a second to see or hear what her response would be. I just booked.
To make matters somewhat worse, I
could have just kept that little run in to myself and no one would have been
the wiser, but the first thing I did when I caught up to everyone was fill them
in on what just happened. I think there
was part of me that thought I would be a minor hero because the answer to the
night’s debate about who the hot chick was looking at was now obviously me, but
really all I did was admit to all my friends was that I was a chump who
couldn’t close the deal with a girl.
Would they have responded any better if the tables were turned? Probably not, but there was no proof that
they would have acted as poorly as me while I willfully gave them all they
needed to make me look like a fool.
The saddest part of the whole thing is, I’m not sure
much has changed over the 20 years since.
We all like to think that we learn from our experiences, especially the
embarrassing ones, and don’t repeat the mistakes, but I don’t know that I would
react any different if that girl walked up to me today. I’d like to think that I’m a bit more mature
and would at least be able to spark up some sort of conversation given that
opening, but I also know that the scared 15 year-old is still present. I mean, I’ll never worry about missing the
bus, chances are at 35 I drove myself, but there always seems like there is
some rationalization for just saying no and walking away as fast as possible
and chances are I’ll find it.
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