My History with Women - Part Two (Fail Harder)

 The failure continues. Now I’m in high school, and driving has led me to discovering a whole new world of independence. I had also discovered a new, nearly 100% effective, form of birth control… bad facial hair. The summer before junior year (nothing to report for sophomore year) I found out that I could grow a goatee and mustache without needing to shave my cheeks or sideburns (it just grew in as a natural Van Dyke). I immediately stopped shaving because I thought this was stupendous (I still struggle with acknowledging how terrible of an idea this is). My poor grooming choices did fail to keep one girl from liking me, and this brings us to the most advanced romantic experience of my life.

Don't let the beautiful Alaskan scenery fool you, that beard was terrible

It all started in the lunch room, which would be the key location of our whole relationship. One day while heading back to class I was stopped by a girl. This would easily be enough to make me nervous but this girl really threw me off. She was what I will describe as Hard; an open lesbian, and a punk (spiked dog collar, buzzed hair, authority problems), so I figured that I was about to get punched in the throat. Turns out she wasn’t trying to steal my lunch money, and she informed me that NAME REDACTED liked me and that I should ask her out. I was so startled that I failed to ask her to point this girl out, and left in a daze, desperately trying not to forget this name.

At this point in my life I had realized that I desperately needed some experience with dating. I pulled together all of my paltry resources to find out who this girl was. I caught a break when one of my friends who was working on the yearbook (on the nerdy computer end, not the cool pictures and surveys end) got a picture of her and was able to point her out. I found her attractive and I decided to go for it (I would have found any girl who I knew liked me attractive at this point). I tried something new this time and asked her out in person (it’s easy to be brave when you already know that she is interested).

Our first date was a movie. Her mom had to drive her there since it turned out she was young for her grade (a 15 year old sophomore), and couldn’t drive yet. We barely talked during the whole movie (she had an uncanny ability to answer every question in a way that prevented further conversation on the topic), and the date ended with a hug in front of her mom, so… a lot of progress actually. Other dates include roller skating (I got a blister the size of a golf ball), bowling (with just the two of us, so it was impossible to hold a decent conversation), eating Italian food (I hate Italian food), watching the Super Bowl (I don’t watch football), and religious events (I’m not a fan of organized religion). There were a few particularly awkward moments as well. After we had been dating for a while I had to specifically ask her to go out with me, because apparently dating and going out isn’t the same thing and she wasn’t officially my girlfriend yet. I was also threatened by one of her male friends if I ever hurt her feelings, but he did handstands while he roller skated, so I think I could have taken him. 

Why you gotta always use so much cheese Italians?

At one point, I remembered how we first met. I was walking out of the lunch room a few weeks before the previous mention, when a girl asked me what my name was. I fought the urge to panic as I realized that a girl was talking to me, and over-enunciated my name like a champion. She then asked me if I knew some guy (I forgot his name). I said that I didn’t, so she responded with “Oh, I thought you might since you have the same facial expressions.” That preposterous statement rendered me speechless, and I soon forgot about the occurrence (I also forgot her face, since I managed to avoid eye contact during that whole encounter).

Trouble started in the relationship when she and her friends started mixing with my friends. If I hadn’t been intoxicated by the fact that girls were finally paying attention to me I probably would have found them annoying as well (they were weird kids; a number of them were Wiccans, which I would later insensitively describe as devil worship to make the story more interesting). Her friends thought that they were now friends with my friends, which means that I was the only person ever to bring girls to our lunch table, or fans to our basketball games (I think the main similarity between my friends were their lack of contact with females), but there were some complaints. I had some newly acquired female friends (second degree friends really, but I still thought my girl problems were coming to an end. SPOILER: They weren’t), and my girlfriend was being more forward than they were comfortable with (as in my parents are out of town, can I stay with you for five days).

It was time to break up (this was six weeks in). I had yet to kiss her (the hugging had become a terrible habit), and the peak of the relationship was some side boob I got when she fell into my arms while roller skating. It was a Friday when I decided I would break up with her, but I would only do it face to face, so that meant waiting until I saw her Monday at school. I couldn’t stand to talk to her and pretend everything was okay, so I stopped answering her calls (smooth). She called somewhere in the ballpark of 25 times over the weekend, and this was on a home phone, since I refused to own a cell phone (in case the beard wasn’t enough of a deterrent). After weathering that storm, I met her in the lunch room (naturally) on Monday morning. It turns out that breaking up is one thing that I can do with aplomb. I laid down how I felt and what I wanted and stayed firm. I also finally took the opportunity to check out her missing tooth that she had from when a horse kicker her (it was behind the Canine so you had to look for it).

I found out after we broke up that she was bisexual, so if I was the kind of guy who was into threesomes I might feel like I had missed out (I always thought that she was joking when she said she would go gay for Hilary Duff). She was also a cheerleader (which was uncool at my school), so I can say that I dated a bisexual cheerleader in high school, which sounds fairly interesting out of context. All told, I ended up with some good experience, and she was actually a very nice girl even if this story is biased against her.

I think Hilary Duff and I look pretty similar actually

Next post will tell the tale of the rest of my high school tomfoolery.