NOT SO MUCH FUNNY AS JUST REALLY REALLY LONG

(seriously)

This is as humorous as this one gets.

The High Fidelity Thing: 1983-1999

So I spent the last week simultaneously having no idea what to write about, re-reading a lot of the Emily archive at P-Boi, and doing my own stock-taking. I assure you that this process was both shallow and melodramatic, and those of you who were fortunate enough to have missed it should count your blessings. To those who were witness to it, well, I apologize. You know why.

High Fidelity is quite the astute movie (and novel.) Women love it because they see their men’s lives, and insecurities, and foibles, and self-centeredness, and wounded pride, and everything else, only exaggerated so as to make it work on screen. Men love it because they know that none of it is exaggerated. Still, as anyone who has seen it knows, the personal history of the women in Rob’s life is dead-on, and telling, and painful for anyone who sees the same sort of thing in their own past.

You ever get that thing where you remember some dumb-ass thing you said in 5^th grade, and you feel so embarrassed all over again that you can’t make eye-contact with your friends until another good song comes on to distract you from your thoughts? Because it happens to me all the time. I asked a few months ago how our opinions of our past actions are colored by our current opinion of our lives. My thoughts are that if you’re happy with yourself, it’s easier to laugh off the follies and mistakes of youth, and to think, “Well, even if it sucked at the time, if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” On the other hand, if you’re disgusted with yourself, then every dumb thing from the past just gives you more ammunition against your own dumb ass. (Nietzsche said that he who hates himself still respects himself as one who hates. I say, let that be the only time I ever quote Nietzsche.) Also, in place of the optimistic fatalism, you get regret. And anyone who’s ever been in a funk knows the best thing you can possibly do is to rue the day when everything went wrong. That helps loads, particularly because you’ll learn that in all of the events you can point to, the decision you made was either completely benign at the time, or else made with the best of naïve intentions.

I’m not depressed right now. I’m not even unhappy with my life, though I wish my cash-flow were healthier. There are a lot of things going on that I’m psyched about, so don’t let me get you down. I’m just feeling pensive, nostalgic, wistful, and other synonyms. I wish I were Edna Modes. I wish I could never look back because “it distracts from the now.”

I can’t do that though, so I’m talking. And when I talk, I talk about girls.

Jessica M.

Jessica M. was the first one, the pre-school crush/girlfriend. She lived in the neighborhood, which of course meant fuck-all to me at 3 years old, but made things easy for my parents. I don’t remember anything about her at that time, except for a vague – likely fabricated – memory of a grey faux-rabbit fur coat. Still, she was the first, so I guess she should get some kind of door-prize for that.

Susan B.

Also pre-school, though more important. Susie lived just down the street, and we would stay at each other’s homes when our parents were out of town. I remember Susie vividly, down to her roller-skates. It’s worth mentioning here that, even at that age, I viewed these girls very much as “girlfriends,” and was very attracted to them, even if I didn’t know why boys and girls were supposed to be attracted to each other. I once had to take a shower with Susan and her mother when I was staying over there one time. I spent the whole time staring up at her mother’s breasts (and I still recall the uncomfortable on her face, though she said nothing) but I made no note of any other… differences.

Still, I loved Susie in the way only a three-or-four-year-old who doesn’t know anything can. I stole a bracelet for her from Dillard’s once, because I didn’t know that I was stealing it. She made me tell my mom and return it. Another time, during a Davey and Goliath movie in Vacation Bible School, as we were all laying on the floor, I turned my head and whispered for her to give me a kiss. She screamed out a resounding, “No! Not here!” She was always smarter than I was, but you know what? I was more romantic.

Courtney R.

Once in Kindergarten, Jessica M. was around again, and so that was back on, I guess. We hung out a lot, but not nearly as much as I did with my guy friends Ryan and Owen, especially considering that I was old enough to go over to their houses on my own now, and Jessica’s was a little beyond my scope of the subdivision. Also, I was preoccupied with school, so I wasn’t thinking too much about girls. It should be known that this phase didn’t last long.

In second grade, I had classes with Courtney. She was from the next neighborhood over, which was far more ostentatious than mine (if you’ve ever lived in Houston, you know the type of subdivision I’m talking about) but now that I’m older, I like mine more. The homes were marginally smaller, but more nicely designed, and the streets were a beautiful tree-shrouded tangle that pizza-guys dreaded like the plague. It was like the west village to Courtney’s upper east side.

I have no idea what Courtney and I talked about, save for that she and my new friend Stephen (from her ‘hood) both hated each other, but we kissed a lot – that cute little mouth-peck thing that single-digit kids do in the photos that come with your picture frames. I brought her a heart-full-o-chocolates for Valentine’s Day. Every teacher had to gush over it and make a scene. Apparently teachers, though they work with kids all day, every day, have no idea how much an eight-year-old can be mortified by something like that.

My brother, who was a senior, took Courtney’s rebellious older sister to prom that year. I thought that was funny. I found out years later that he had lost his virginity to another older sister of a girl in my class after prom the previous year. Just an odd note.

I went to Courtney’s birthday party that summer, and we had a grand time. We hung out a few other times, and then didn’t. I was doing swim-team and T-ball and hanging out with Ryan and Owen, so I didn’t think about it. When I got back to school, I found her as soon as I could. She looked at me with a pitying scorn that could only be described as preternatural in a third-grader, and told me that we had broken up as if this were old news. Apparently I’m the asshole.

Lauren O.

Lauren came to our school that year from France, though she had lived in the U.S. before, so she spoke better English than any of us and her accent was only noticeable enough to be irresistible. I was crazy about her. It’s worth noting that no one else was, nor did anyone else seem to even know she was there. I had the first of what could possibly be considered “sexual” fantasies involving her. I wasn’t masturbating, as I had no idea what sex involved, but I would go to sleep wishing for some reason that she were straddling me, and that we were just talking and laughing. On another side note, this is a great reason not to teach sex-ed too early. Every kid should get to have dreams this innocent and adorable.

I couldn’t talk to her. I should have had no problem at all, especially in retrospect. She didn’t have any friends in Houston, and I was wild for her, so why not? Because Courtney had shattered my confidence for that year right out the gate, and Courtney was part of the new popularity, to boot, and thus started a downward spiral that would last for far too many ill-advised years, and which there are arguably traces of to this day.

Allison B.

I also started to notice Allison that year, but because of my crush on Lauren I didn’t give it any real thought until fourth grade, when I wasn’t in classes with Lauren anymore. She was good friends with Courtney, so one might have good cause to ask what the hell I was thinking, but we should remember that I was ten and that I was too shit-scared of rejection to try anything anyway, so it didn’t matter in any case. I was never afraid of cooties, girls were never gross to me, and whenever Ryan or Owen (usually as a pair) would go into this line of reasoning, I would take the piss out of them. No, I was just afraid of rejection.

Now this is such a purely Texas occurrence that I can’t expect anyone else to possibly relate, but every February was “square-dancing month” in the P.E. classes Houston, and the boys were to politely choose their partners on the first day. While I surely wasn’t the coolest or most suave of my class, I was one of the fastest, and I ran like hell to get to Allison first. She said yes.

More than anything else, I remember how clammy her hands were. Not knowing shit, I just thought that some people must have really clammy hands. Looking back, I can remember how much she was looking around the room, how uneasy she seemed, how much she, well, would rather have been dancing with anyone else. But she was never anything but nice to me about it, to her great credit. If I had learned about Heartbreak and rejection a year-and-a-half before, this was Allison B. learning about the importance of politely saying, “no.” I wish I could’ve gone through my entire life and never taught that lesson to anyone, but we don’t get everything we want, and at least there wasn’t a scene. I gotta give her that.

Kristin O.

By fifth grade, my eyes were wandering to damn near half the girls that I saw, but it was all intellectual to me because I knew I wasn’t going to act on any of it. High upon this list was Kristin, who I’d known a little bit the entire time I’d been in school, but only spoken with a few times. As opposed to Courtney and her friends which now included a newly returned Jessica M., and who were by now leagues above me socially, Kristin was approachable. I didn’t know her very well, but I knew that I was into her.

One morning as Ryan, Owen and I were walking through the library to our first class, Kristin and her friends ran up to find me. We stopped.

Kim, Kristin’s best friend, stepped forward and asked me if I wanted to go out with Kristin. My heart skipped a beat. I opened up my mouth to say yes as Ryan and Own both jumped in front of me to yell NO.

Kristin walked off, crestfallen. I didn’t know what to do, so beholden was I to my friends, and so confused by the whole situation. I should’ve run after her and said whatever I needed to say. Even if I were going to deny her, which there wouldn’t have been a chance of, I should hope that I would’ve been nicer than that about it. But instead I just stayed rooted to my spot, watching Kristin walk off with her head in her hands as Ryan and Owen laughed.

I regret that one. I really, really regret that one. And it started one of the worst patterns of my romantic life.

Kelly D.

This is one of the biggies, the first to truly make the A-List.

As I finally left Yeager Elementary School, I was among the bottom rung, or at least near it. The neighborhood held a dance for us at the pool over the summer, which of course we all went to. Some of the older kids were actually dancing, but some part of us knew that we hadn’t earned that right. So we hung out by the pool tables, learning how to look bored so as to avoid taking risks. It was then that I saw a new girl. She wasn’t particularly my type, and I’m not sure I ever even learned her name, but who cared? She was new! She didn’t see me through the eyes of everyone who’d grown up with me. She was sitting between two girls who may as well have grown up in the womb together, both named Katy B., and both of whom detested me for no good reason considering that we’d never had a conversation throughout the six years that we’d gone to school together.

It was time to break out of the old mold, I thought, and the summer humidity and sugary punch gave me the impetus I needed to go up and ask her to dance. She smiled and half stood up before the Katy’s yanked her back down, proclaiming that she couldn’t. Looking back, I can see the karma in this, but at the time I just left. And once I got outside, I started to cry.

Crystalyn McCloud, the token black girl in our class and also far-and-away the smartest, caught up with me outside. We had never been close, really, but we’d always been friendly, and she was the only one to come out and try to comfort me. All I can recall is that she wanted me to know that, no matter what Katy and Katy were saying inside, that the girl had said yes first. All I was thinking at the time, however, is that it was no use. My reputation would follow me as long as there were people to tell it. I wish that Crystalyn had been there to say the same thing to Kristin, and I wish that I had taken her message to heart. It would’ve helped a lot with Kelly D.

(BTW, Crystalyn McCloud is the only name I’ll use in full here, and I hope I’m spelling it right, because if she ever googles her own name and finds this, I want her to know that I remember. And that it was an awesome thing that she did.)

Sixth grade was in it’s own school, Hamilton Intermediate, and we were the first class to attend there. Something like six different elementary schools were feeding into it. It was “semi-open concept,” which meant that we were put into one of seven large rooms called “pods” where we had most of our classes, and which were each divided by cabinets into four smaller classrooms. Houston schools are odd and experimental. Anyway, lo and behold, I was the only person from Yeager in my pod. I was able to get past my reputation after all, except for that niggling fact that I still couldn’t really talk to girls unless I had no interest in them.

Kelly was the first crush I had that I really think I could’ve been hospitalized for. I know that we had several classes together, but I only recall Pre-Algebra. The Teacher, Mrs. Bennett, had us seated in two sets of rows of seats, facing one another. I was facing Kelly. Kelly had grown up on Mrs. Bennett’s street. This is relevant.

Kelly had strawberry-blonde hair, a slight build, and the prettiest face I had ever set eyes on. Mind you that by this time I had built up a taste that ran counter to the “hotties” running around. They looked bland to me. I had no interest in them. But when Kelly wore her pink, short-sleeved shirt that connected the sleeves to the body but left the shoulders bare, well, that was just about the sexiest thing I had ever seen.

I guess I was a little bit obvious, because when Mrs. Bennett had to pair us up for groups, she started pairing me up with Kelly first. The first time this happened, I was dumbstruck. I searched in my disorganized backpack for any piece of paper to work on, while the whole class watched. When I finally came up with a crumpled piece, though unmarked, Kelly gently said, “I have paper. Don’t worry.” But the damage was done, on my end.

Still, with the knowledge of Mrs. Bennett and Kelly living on the same street, I started to research her phone number. It didn’t occur to me that if I were to call, I might as well just ask Kelly for her number directly. No, I looked at the Bennetts in the Houston Phone Book for street names. There were about thirteen of them. Meanwhile, Kelly’s last name took up three and a half pages. Ryan and I (we had grown apart from Owen at this point, with all the needless cruelty that could entail) diligently started our quest, before Ryan seemingly got tired of it. Over the next few days I kept checking street names against the two names, starting at the beginning. On the third day, Ryan gave me a call.

He had been hanging out with some other neighborhood kids who I thought didn’t give two shits about me, and had told them about the research. They wisely started at the back-end of the names and had a match on the seventh name in. I had the number.

I never called.

At the end of the year, the school threw us a dance during class hours. There were a lot of tears from the double-X-chromosome crowd. Half of us were being sent to Bleyl Jr. High, and the other half sent to Campbell. Kelly and her best friend were being split up, and of course Kelly was going to Campbell, so this was my last chance. I bided my time, because I’m a big pussy and I didn’t know what to do.

Then I saw Kelly dancing politely with this kid who’s name I can’t remember but who resembled nothing so much as a whiny chemo patient with bad style. I talked to him afterwards, cordially. He told me that he’d had a crush on her forever, and spoke of her in almost possessive tones. Here’s where I learned that if there’s one thing that will help me overcome my fear of rejection, it’s my sense of competition. I walked up to her and asked her for a dance in what would be the second-to-last song of the “night.” She said yes, but what she meant was, “It’s about damn time.”

We danced, my arms around her waist, her hands on my shoulders, and I know that we talked, but I can’t tell you what it was about. Probably Bleyl and Campbell. She spent the last song huddling and crying with her BFF, while I wished for one moment longer. It didn’t matter.

A lot of songs, movies, poems and what have you will talk about the one dance. The Garth Brooks song comes to mind. Whatever, the point is that my whole year had built up to that dance, and because I had no expectations of anything but the chance to have the dance itself, it didn’t disappoint. It was beautiful, and silly, and stupid, and it meant nothing at face value, but it was the difference between nostalgia and regret in this story. And for this one, that made all the difference in the world.

Kristen E.

Not to be mistaken with Kristin O. Junior High is a war zone, and as such I can’t blame anybody for anything done in the course of it, including myself. During seventh grade, I was rejected many times by girls whose names I can’t remember, and I rejected girls whose names I can remember. Once, Courtney R. called me over to her lunch table to tell me off in front of everybody for saying that we’d gone out when we were eight. I think I’d let it go an hour later. That’s how much seventh grade sucks. Still, on the last day before Christmas Break, I made a gentleman’s bet with all of my friends that some girl, any girl, would give me something before the day was up. During last period, as all the guys were giving me shit about it, since of course I hadn’t gotten anything, Crystallyn McCloud came up to hand me a candy cane. I really can’t say enough about her.

Kristen E. was a seventh-grader when I was in eighth, but we still shared a few classes. I liked her enough, but she was obsessed with me for some reason. I flirted all year, but never bit. This, too, will become relevant.

Jill L.

She had the look of always wearing a brand-new shirt. I asked her out on a date on the same day that my buddy Iain was asking his own crush out. Jill said yes. Iain’s girl didn’t.

My first real date. Jill said that she was bringing her friend Suzy, which I should’ve seen as a sign, but I brought along Iain. We had a decent time. There wasn’t a second date.

Allison J.

Artsy girl. Very short hair. I’m not sure just how I met her, because we didn’t share any classes, but we would talk about our art projects in the lunchroom sometimes (Bleyl in eighth grade was not just under year-round schooling, but under block-scheduling as well. I told you Houston schools were weird.)

As the Eighth Grade Dance approached, my mother made a pact with Ryan’s mother that we couldn’t go without dates. Neither of us were playing at that level yet, but Ryan is an oldest child, and didn’t know what to say, so he ended up not going. I’m a youngest child, raised by siblings, and claimed to be going with Allison, though for the life of me I don’t remember ever mentioning anything about this to Allison herself, as I didn’t really know her, and it was just a ruse so that I could go stag and hang out with my buddies Mike and Alex.

Still, soon after we got there, Allison found me. We danced all night, with me only showing minimal interest. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, quite frankly, and I had the odd sit-com feeling of being caught in my own lie but not being able to say anything about it. I just kept talking, all the while Allison’s repugnant friend hung just off to the side, pulling her away for brief whispered conversations.

Allison eventually went off to the ladies room, and Repugnant Friend to say, and I quote, “Allison’s just waiting for you to shut up for two seconds so that she can kiss you.” When Allison got back, all grins, I talked like the micro-machine-man for the next half hour. I didn’t find Allison unattractive by any means, but ever since the Kristin O. debacle I had found it in my best interest to gauge my friend’s reactions first, and they were nowhere to be found, especially with Allison at my hip all night.

Finally, she just pulled me off into a deserted hallway leading to the band room, shoved me up against the Coke machine, and devoured my face in what was my first real kiss.

This went on for a while, and I definitely started to enjoy it, until I came up for air to see the doorway to the corridor, which was all steel and windows, and every inch of the windows was covered with peering faces. As I started to protest, Allison pulled me around to the blind corner of the Coke Machine and continued. It’s still one of the best kisses I’ve ever had. And it was both of our first.

That night, Mike and I went back to stay at Alex’s place. I joked about the whole matter, and they laughed along with me, so that when I saw Allison on Monday I played it off like it was all nothing. That wasn’t the reaction that she was hoping for, but she was cool about it. I wish I hadn’t done that.

Jenny D.

Jenny wore a tiny silver back-pack and looked, now that I think about it – like an even sexier version of Kelly D. I used the same approach, though Jenny’s last name is almost unheard-of, so I got the number pretty quickly. This time I called, and left a message. And then I felt horrified for even trying it.

The next night, as my parents and I were eating dinner, the phone rang. My mom read the unusual last name off the caller I.D. and asked if I knew anybody by that name. Embarrassed, I said nothing. She didn’t leave a message.

Rachel O.

Over the Summer, my friends and I all went out to AstroWorld. While having a grand-old-time and generally making an ass of ourselves, Mike and Alex (and Joel and Nick) all kept mentioning this hottie that we kept passing, but I could never see who they were talking about. Finally, while in line for XLR8 or something, they pointed her out.

It was Kristen E. Naturally, I went over to say Hi.

She was there with her boyfriend David S., who was as big of a patsy as I’ve ever met in my life, and got my competitive hackles, I dunno, hackling again. We only talked for a few minutes, but David definitely got the idea that she was more into me than him. My boys were impressed. I had the go-ahead.

Ryan and I went to the homecoming game in the fall, and because I didn’t consider us cool enough to sit with the rest of the class lower down in the bleachers, we moved up. There we found Kristen and David. It was on, and I’ve rarely acted more horribly in my life.

We embraced for FAR too long. We talked for an hour. I demeaned David to his face. I talked her into kissing me, and we made out right in front of him. Soon, he moved them down into another row, away from me. I followed, sitting in the row right in front of her, and leaned my head back.

She stroked my hair for a minute before squeezing the top of my head between her legs and throbbing it into her crotch. This was a new one to me, and I can honestly say that I’ve never come across it since. This went on for an eternity, but if it were still going on, I doubt very much that I would complain. I don’t know what finally ended it, but when it did, I actually had the balls to ask if she wanted to run off to fuck somewhere.

She said that she would if David said it was okay. I half-expected capitulation, but David pulled the last of his dignity from the floor and said no, and we left it at that. Still, when Ryan and I got back to the Scout House where we were to sleep that night, I didn’t sleep at all, and when I walked home at six in the morning, it was my first taste of slinking. And it was something great.

That Monday, people I didn’t think knew my name were asking me about it. I didn’t pay attention to the game, but I guess it wasn’t anything too spectacular, because all eyes were on me, apparently. I know now that the context of the questions was, “Who was the hot girl you were hooking up with,” but my training in humiliation and paranoia took it as, “what the hell were you doing with her?” That afternoon, when I got home, she called me that she’d broken up with David, and asked if I wanted to be her boyfriend.

Against all better instincts, I told her that I didn’t think that was a good idea.

Rachel O. was Ryan’s crush, though as I’ve said, he knew even less than I did about what to do with that sort of thing. At the time. Ryan’s engaged now, and I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing. So there you go.

Rachel and I (and Ryan and Mike) had first period Health Class together freshman year. Rachel and I had spoken a couple of times, but nothing much. Still, when it came time for a project when the boys and girls were supposed to pair up for a family economics thing, she was first out of her chair and rushed back to me to ask if I would be her partner. She had curly blonde hair and a smile that could melt Stalin. This was cool enough to me that I mentioned it at home, and if you’ve learned anything from my Jenny D. story, it’s that I don’t mention much at home.

Rachel and I got into the habit of walking between fifth and sixth hours together, though I would always hang back once I crossed paths with Joel, who told me every single day that I was an imbecile for not just talking with Rachel another minute longer. Not in my mind, because in mind I never had a shot. I never asked her out, and that one’s another regret. In the last weeks of Freshman year, when I knew I’d be moving to Oklahoma very shortly, she asked me if I wanted to buy a CD by a high-school group named Timmy. She told me she had a crush on the lead singer and wanted a chance to talk to him again. I know now what a last-ditch jealousy ply this was, but at the time it felt like a Sam Weir/Cindy Sanders thing, and I said yes, giving her the ten bucks I had on hand.

Less than a year later she was shot through the shoulder in a gang initiation. She came out okay, but it freaked me out, most of all because I didn’t have contact information to call her and ask her about it myself. I still have the Timmy CD though, and I’ve got to admit that it’s one of the best albums I own.

Aimee L.

Before I move onto Oklahoma I should mention that after not seeing her once throughout all of middle school, I once again had classes with Kristin O. my freshman year. She grew up well, to say the least, and all of us guys in the theatre group (the aforementioned Joel, Mike, Alex, Nick and myself) were crazy for her. I started asking my friend Libby (not short for Elizabeth, BTW) and Libby said that I might have a chance there, but that I was doomed to be judged by the company I kept and, well, the guys were all assholes when it came to women. This is true, but they were my buds, so it was a Renton/Begbie type of thing.

In the last week of that year, the Drama teacher had a “lock-in” at the theatre, by which I mean that we all stayed at the theatre overnight but none of us were actually locked in. At one point, I went outside to find her laying face-down on one of these mesh-plastic picnic table benches. So I slid underneath the bench and asked what was up. She smiled. Her silver James Avery cross necklace was hanging down through the gratings. We talked, we flirted, I took her hands. It was all very sweet. When she said she had to go inside, I playfully held onto her hands and pulled her back. She laughed. This went on for another minute, and somewhere I missed the line where it crossed over from playful to aggressive and creepy, because she hollered a “Let Me Go!” that was anything but amused, and I’d fucked it up once again. Lenny and the mouse.

I knew that Bartlesville was my opportunity for as much reinvention as possible short of surgery. I also moved there in the early summer, and was five months short of a driver’s license, so meeting people wasn’t going to be easy at first. In August, I went to the FUMC with my mom one Sunday morning, and some lady from the church administration asked if I wanted to come to youth group that night. Clever ruse. I had certainly nothing better to do, so I went, on what turned out to be the night where there theme was to be as friendly and accepting to anyone new as possible. Being the only new person, I was hailed like a conquering hero, and immediately taken under the wings of Kyle and with-him-is-always-his-Katy. Kyle didn’t have any close male friends, and I really didn’t now anyone, plus he had a car, so this worked out well.

(Aside: Kyle is still one of my best friends on earth, and is the type of guy who bends over backwards for you if there’s even the chance that it might help. I daresay that he’s been a much better friend to me through the years than I’ve been to him.)

When school started that year, I found out that B’Ville is big on pouncing on the new kid across the board. As I walked into the Mid-High (9^th & 10^th grades), before the first period bell, a girl who I described then as “hot” and would describe now as “slutty” bounded up to me as soon as I was through the doors. I’m not sure I ever talked to her after the initial conversation, though I later found out that Kyle had fingered her in one of the church closets ages beforehand.

My first period class was French, and I was sat behind a girl named Kelli S., the second of two people I still keep in contact with from that town, and whom my family still expects me to marry some day. Anyway, to the point…

We started Our Town rehearsals in short order. I was to be Simon Stimson, the drunken preacher, a role I’m uniquely suited for. Kyle pointed Aimee out to me, and she was indeed a cutie, plus she was on the debate squad, so for a nerd-girl fan like me, this was a great idea. Kyle had dated her for about nine months before dumping her on Valentine’s Day and starting something up with Katy. Apparently she dug me, so I waited way too long to ask her out to see, like, The Brady Bunch Movie or some other such bullshit. I can’t really remember what the movie was, because she brought her new guy, Landon, who of course I knew nothing about, to the movie with her. Imagine one cringe-worthy moment in Curb Your Enthusiasm, and then stretch it out to a full hour-and-a-half. The thing is, I can’t imagine that it was any fun for Aimee either, but she never got the lesson that Allison B. got back in the day on how to politely say no, so there we were. I imagine that Landon was pretty pleased with himself, however, so maybe it wasn’t a total wash.

Sara M.

Now it was Katy’s turn to try and hook me up. She pointed me to her friend Sara, who had mentioned something, and I asked her out in short order. We went to see Bulletproof, the god-awful and forgotten Sandler/Wayans joint. There wasn’t a second date. Katy later advised me that women don’t like piece-of-shit action movies and that maybe I shouldn’t have hugged my knees the whole time. Live and learn, I guess.

Kristi F.

Do any parents still name their daughters variations on this? Was this the de facto name given to immigrant girls who’s parents had died on the voyage over? I don’t get it. Anyhoo…

Kyle and I were put into the “Competitive Drama” class, which meant sixth hour was at the high school (11^th and 12^th grades) which meant I had class with Kristi, a senior who had that farm-girl-who-could-model-if-she-knew-of-such-a-profession kind of look, complete with the vacant stare. I blew through many a class chatting away with her, and though she was vacuous, to be sure, she was also a sweetheart and she made no question of her interest in me. Unfortunately, I didn’t start anything up with her until shortly before Christmas break. I lent her my stereo for the interim (her house was like nothing so much as the house in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? complete with the enormous, shut-in mother, though Kristi herself was a rail.

When I returned, she had bleached her beautiful brown hair, and had started seeing some dude named Jeremy that she’d grown up with. I didn’t care that much, to be honest, but a phone call would’ve been nice. Also, while I won’t reveal her last name, it was perfect as a description of this type of romance, if not a little cliché.

Melissa S.

Melissa was Katy’s older sister, also a senior, and much, much cooler than Katy herself (as it turned out, Katy kind of sucked a big one.) Melissa was the kind of girl who always got the private joke before you had to tell it. Once again, inaction on my part, though we went to a dance in February and could have been fucking on that dance floor if not for the fact that we were both hell-bent on leaving everything as tacit as possible. She got frustrated and moved on shortly after that, but we stayed friends. Melissa is the model for how all girls should act if they don’t want to come across as a gigantic pain in the ass half the time. Also, she created “Melissa’s First Law of Movies,” which simply states that any information you need to know within a movie will be provided by the time the movie is over, so shut up and let me watch already.

Anna

I’m having trouble picturing how I possibly went from February to August when I was sixteen without having any more stories to tell, but there it is. Oh, now I remember, I had a disgusting inflammation in my eye, and then a subsequent surgery that left my eye a solid blood-red for the coming months. Hard to believe I forgot that.

In August I went to a week at Dayspring, an Oklahoma Christian retreat. She was the first person I met there, and we were more or less inseparable through the week. On the fourth or fifth day, we set out a “prank” for Kelli, so that in the middle of a conversation, when Kelli turned away, she’d turn back to see us kissing. We pretended this was a prank. We were idiots.

Anna lived in Tulsa, and probably still does, so it was difficult for us to see each other. But about a month after Dayspring ended, she showed up in town for a night when Bartlesville was having a street carnival. I asked her out on the Ferris Wheel, and thus Anna became my first real girlfriend. Even after asking her out, I didn’t know how to make the move to kiss her, so that was put off until she was leaving, when she finally pinned me to my mailbox and made out with me for probably three glorious seconds, and I walked on air for a few hours afterward.

We talked every night about Counting Crows or Cowboy Mouth or how much we loved each other, because we really thought we did, and we saw each other every weekend. Anna’s friend Scott started dating Kelli, so this worked out well for all of us.

Anna was bizarre, which I neglected to mention. Beyond being dysgraphic, which is essentially bad handwriting as a mental problem, she was a total spaz, had chopped and died her cute-as-shit red hair into a short brown (not black) bob, and wanted more than anything to join the R.O.T.C. Her bedroom was a windowless disaster area covered in black-and-white splatter paint, with one dangling light bulb, so that it resembled nothing so much as the CBGB’s bathroom after a grisly murder. She always smelled like vanilla, though, and there’s a shirt I have back home that still smells like her.

After a weekend at her aunt’s place for Anna’s birthday, wherein she told me that she wanted to marry me some day, and my eye started wandering to Scott’s sister, who sort of looked and acted like you think of Ginny Weasley, I decided that it was time to drop the bomb on this one. It took me until Thursday, when I did it by phone, with Kyle by my side writing helpful comments on a note pad such as, “Ouch! Honest, though.”

Oh, and I used the name of her favorite song to break the news to her, because I’m an asshole and I wasn’t thinking clearly.

Beth W.

Beth was dating my neighbor Joe. I hated Joe. I liked Beth. Joe was cheating on Beth. Kelli and I went over to tell her this at one point, but it turned out that the family was more concerned with her missing brother, and Joe came around while we were there (Kelli’s Jeep was in the driveway, and there’s no way Joe wouldn’t have recognized it, having dated Kelli before.) That meeting was one of the more ill-advised of my ventures, but never before have I ventured so far into the W.B. than hiding from Joe in Beth’s closet while he discussed her missing brother Clint with her parents.

I did go on one date with her, while she was going out with Joe, so I guess I don’t know what that was really all about, but one day Clint came up to me in the hallway to congratulate me and give me his stoned blessing. We went to see Scream 2. There wasn’t a second date, but we were weird around each other from that point forward.

Rebekah W.

I mentioned to a friend that I was into Rebekah, and this friend did what she could to set it up. We were at a Drama tournament that Saturday, and a girl actually came up to me and said, because I remember it like it was yesterday, “Hi, I know I don’t know you, but you’re really hot, and I’m kinda horny, so do you wanna go off somewhere and fuck?” This girl was my type, too, but I said no, on account of I wanted to start seeing Rebekah. In retrospect, I’m a fucking moron, and no, I’ve never gotten that offer from a stranger since then, and certainly not from one so cute.

Rebekah and I start hanging out, like at school, and about a week and a half into me getting this thing on the road, Kyle says to me, “So, you’re okay about the kid?”

This was the first I had heard of this. The reason that I hadn’t heard of it before is that it was already old news when I moved into Bartlesville in 10^th grade. That’s how young she was when she had her daughter that I’d never heard about. Now, I have a lot of sympathy for this sort of thing now, and I’d like to think that I had some then, but that kept me up nights, stomach churning. I finally came down on the side of I Don’t Care. Alex in Houston had dated this girl Bethany, whom he liked quite a lot, and dumped her after hearing her rape story because he couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want to be that guy.

After a good date (As Good As It Gets. There isn’t much to do in Bartlesville) I was moving in to kiss her, but now I had no idea where she came down on hooking up. I mean, obviously she had a history, but one with consequences that easily could’ve acted as a sling-shot the other direction. I did nothing. That next Friday, when I went to find her, she was patching things up with her ex (not the father.) I got over it in a matter of hours. I think I was happy simply to not have to deal with it any more.

About this time Kyle and I got cast as Algernon and Jack, respectfully, in the town’s production of The Importance of Being Earnest. Kristi F. was cast opposite of me as Gwendolyn. She was still with Jeremy, who wasn’t pleased about this arrangement. Two minutes before dress rehearsal, he dumped her. She was a wreck, obviously, and came to me for support because nobody else really knew her. I didn’t try anything, because I’m not that much of a shit. Then, two days later, right before opening night, he storms into her dressing room to say that he’s going off to the army, and will you marry me?

She didn’t give him an answer. Once again she came to me for advice between shows. I told her to say no. He was a flake, he had no sense of timing, and above all that he had the eyes of a trained douchebag. I don’t know what she decided, ultimately, but I can tell you this. Both of those nights she was bawling off stage, but the instant she stepped on stage she left it all behind her like flipping a switch. That girl was a pro.

Ellen P.

I was into a girl named Ellen. She was Beth W.’s best friend. Nothing happened.

Still, during this time (over the summer) I was brought down to Houston for my friend Christian’s birthday. There are far too many stories from that weekend to go into, but when I first arrived, we went off for coffee with Christian’s friend Jessica M. We had a good time, after Jessica told me off for dumping her in preschool for Susan B. According to Jessica, I liked Susie’s white faux-rabbit fur coat more than Jessica’s grey one. I can’t believe she remembered that, but I’m glad that fifteen years later we were finally over it.

Leryn D.

I met Leryn on a tour of UCLA over spring break. Cute-as-a-button Jewish girl from Albuquerque who mentioned a summer theatre program that she was applying to at USC. I made sure that my family went back to U.S.C. so that I could pick up one of those applications. I followed her there, hung out, and soon came to realize that she had 99 problems and the bitch (me, I guess) wasn’t one. Still, that month over the summer was one of the greatest times of my life, even if I did start smoking there, and FWIW, that’s where I met Mariah, my oldest friend in NY, who may as well be my sister. So Leryn was cool, but it’s no big loss. And at least I got to hang out in her room as she was changing clothes that one time, and was able to watch surreptitiously in her closet mirror.

Laura S.

Another one for the All-Star board. For the first two weeks of school, I would go out to lunch with my friends Ben and Alicia, and Ben’s friend B.J., who calls himself Bill now but will always be a B.J. to me. Anyway, one day, B.J. wasn’t with us, and Ben wouldn’t go into it, so the three of us just went out to the Washington Café. We couldn’t have picked a worse (or better) place to go, as that’s where B.J. had chosen to break up with his girlfriend Laura, who sat right next to me in my next period class. Laura was a Junior, one year below me, and a cheerleader (and great singer, and great actress.) When she came in, she was crying, and so I decided on the spot that I was having a party that Friday, and I drew her out a cute little map of how to get there, and she laughed, and cheered up, and something was started.

Laura came to the party with her best friend Kyle G., whose whole name I would like to use except that he might one day find it and try to sue me for libel. Anna also made a surprise visit, and I cruelly embarrassed her in front of all my cronies, so that she left within minutes and didn’t try to come between me and Laura. Sorry about that one, Anna. Laura and I went cliff-diving, driving around, and sitting at home watching movies, and there through it all was Kyle G., hell-bent and determined to be the third wheel. After one football game, Kyle G. and I went across the street to her house, where her parents told us to just go upstairs and wait for her to get back. Once up there, Kyle told me that I should get used to the look of her bedroom. Another night after a play rehearsal, I ran over there, and her parents met me at the door, telling me that they were about to go pick her up from her job coaching gymnastics, but that I should probably go instead. I did (she was surely surprised to see me) and we drove around, talking about colleges and such. She mentioned that she wanted to go to NYU, and my early-decision choice was settled then and there. When we got back to her place, I kissed her on her doorstep and left feeling ten pounds lighter. Still, nothing felt better than the first time she just laid back into my arms as we were watching a movie. That was amazing.

We took to hanging out at “the precipice,” a little-known rock which overlooked the town. It was there, on one of the rare nights without Kyle G. present, that I held my breath, knowing that when I couldn’t release until I asked her to go out with me. It came out sounding about as stupid as that sort of thing possibly could, but she laughed and said yes with the inflection that said that we already were. From there, I bravely bounded into the world of feeling-up and going-down and all of that. Meanwhile, Kyle G. bounded into the world of hiding and surprising us during intimate moments. We laughed it off, though it was getting weird, and we said that we were in love. One night Kyle G. drove her over to my house. She was sobbing, but she needed to admit to me that she and B.J. had slept together three times back in the day. I didn’t sleep at all that night, my chest boiling with rage, but then when the sun broke, I was fine with it. She wanted me, not him, and in fact his breaking up with her was supposed to be a ploy to get her to be more obedient to him, which just backfired on him. I had won.

That Thanksgiving we did it, which was not without its complications, as my nerves were shot when the day finally arrived. It wasn’t good, but it was great all the same, and we kept practicing as winter came upon us, keeping one eye out my bedroom window in case my parents should drive up. We listened to a lot of Dar Williams and we came home at sunrise too many times to count. And I got into NYU, which was cool. My family HATED her, including my grandmother, but her parents loved me, and at one point almost bought me a card to say, “Thank You for making our daughter so happy.”

That Christmas I was an insufferable prick for two weeks in Crested Butte. The only time I was smiling was when I was on my nightly phone call to Laura, who was back in Bartlesville with everyone else. At one point I talked to Kelli, who wanted to “warn” me about her history with B.J. I told Kelli that B.J. had nothing on me and that I wasn’t concerned. Kelli was quite upset by this, but I didn’t give a shit about anything but getting back from Colorado.

On New Years’ Day, Laura was pissed. Seems at a party the previous night, Rob, another ex of hers with a notably small cock, had walked in, thrown a package of condoms at her, and left. I admitted that I had told Kelli, but that Kelli wasn’t a rumormonger and that it had to have come from somewhere else. No luck, I was responsible for sullying her non-existent reputation, and that was that.

I bought her a little figurine and barreled home at 90 m.p.h. on the last leg of the journey. I immediately went to see her in her basement, where she was waiting with Kyle G. She had written out what she wanted to say, and was gushing tears as she broke up with me, kissing me the whole time. Kyle G. just stared at me with a cold, unwavering gaze.

The next night, I was watching Sliding Doors with my friend Bione, and I asked her what had really happened at the party. It had gone down exactly as Laura had said, but when I asked if the information had come from Kelli, Bione simply shook her head very slowly.

Kyle G. Of course. Little Fucking Bastard. He had practically called a meeting.

Monday morning, in first period drama, I walked up right behind him, and told him off in the coldest, most measured tones, saying the meanest things possible. It’s worth noting at this time that Kyle G., while closeted, was as queer as a seven-dollar bill. I had thought that he simply was pissed off about being the third wheel, but as the picture came into focus, I realized that he simply wanted to spend more time around me, and catch me in the act if possible. I told him that I was going to destroy him, not for his crush, but for his tactics.

The rest of the day, I got the evil eye from his entire entourage. Laura called me up that night, angry, and told me that Kyle G. had gone home after my little rant, and was now committing himself for the next couple weeks at a psyche hospital. Good, I thought. Meanwhile, this did nothing to get me back together with Laura, who had started dating my friend Patrick.

Heidi G.

Heidi was a German girl who had lived enough of her life in America to not have an accent. She was beautiful, but almost disturbingly childlike. You expected her kisses to taste like peanut butter and jelly. I met her the previous year during a home tournament that we were throwing. She was like Kristen E. all over again, with me holding onto the leash while giving nothing back because I liked her but was too concerned with what my friends would say (she was two years below me.)

I actually did go out on a date with her in junior year, which required me to first take a driving test with her mother and step-father, which I passed, though I sat through a green light while chatting with them. That Christmas, her real father, who was convicted in Germany for drug-trafficking, kidnapped Heidi and her younger siblings and took them back to Germany. She left a note for her friends to let them know what had happened, and once in Germany, made a break for it to the embassy and arranged for their extradition back home. Throughout all of this she still seemed the little girl.

At the first tournament of my senior year, an overnight thing in Muskogee, Heidi stepped onto the bus with a guy I’d never seen before, and they sat in the back across from me. Never one to let my competitive spirit down, I jovially greeted them, “Hi, Heidi. Who the hell are you?” I found out that his name was Patrick, that he didn’t know anybody, that he was scared shitless of meeting new people, and later, that we had to share a bed in the hotel. He didn’t say anything the entire ride. I explained myself and apologized that night, and we became close friends.

Now it was early January, though, and he had started going out with Laura. We were cool about it, though, including when Laura invited us both down to her basement to “figure this all out.” We yelled a little bit, and got frustrated, and at one uber-tense moment of silence, Patrick let loose with a little, “I don’t wanna wait…” and we all cracked up. Patrick’s a good guy.

Throughout the spring, I set my sights on a number of freshmen girls because I didn’t give a shit anymore and they were less likely to have as many issues as where I was coming from. Where parents used to fawn over me, now I got icy stares. I’m surprised I didn’t get another driving test, or even the business end of a shotgun. Laura and I went to “Snow-Ball” together in February, as we had already settled on that, but as prom rolled around, I had to figure out what I was doing.

I’d been flirting with a freshman named Stephanie, who was smarter than most of my class by half and in far better control of herself. We ran lighting and sound for a independent production of The Diary of Anne Frank, and the second night she had dolled herself up completely for a night spent alone in a booth with me. I got the message, but being as good at doing nothing as I am, that was my plan. Laura caught on, though, and started throwing herself at me, though she was still with Patrick. And Stephanie was probably already going with my friend Tim, who was instrumental in Katy’s break-up with Kyle (the good one) and, well, the apocalypse was upon us.

While I was at U.S.C., Kelli had called me up one morning to ask me to the coming prom. I told her I’d have to let her know when the time came. Nine months later, I accepted her invitation, forcing her to drop whatever plans she had. Meanwhile, Patrick and Laura had broken up, probably because she was coming into her own as a little libertine, but they were all set to go together, and so on and so on. (BTW, Laura’s story now was that she and B.J. had been physically incompatible, and that though they had tried on three separate occasions, they had never actually accomplished the deed, ipso facto I was her first. I was happy to go along with that.)

Prom was a simple matter of standing in line for a picture and then getting the fuck out of there, but our group had a hotel room rented (by B.J., natch) with a hot tub and champagne, so we went there post-haste. At the room, everyone’s dates shifted one over, so that now Laura was with a freshman football player named Josh, whose father was the town sheriff, Kelly and Patrick were together, and I was with… Heidi.

I dated Heidi off and on all summer, but mostly off, as I was spending the better part of the summer sleeping with Laura on the down-low, as she didn’t seem to want to fuck Josh. Josh was none the wiser, until one night when she called me over, and by the time I got there, she was half asleep. We made out for a bit and then went to sleep. Josh, however, saw my car in the driveway late that night, and of course asked her what was up. Laura told him that she had woken up with me inside of her. I don’t need to tell you that this was 100% bullshit.

So Heidi’s sixteenth birthday came around, and she had a small toga party with her parent’s permission. It devolved into truth or dare, and then somehow into she and I alone in her driveway doing things that were surely illegal to do outside. A couple of days later, I get a call from her that her parents are out of town, and that her mom said she can do whatever she wants as long as she doesn’t have sex on their bed (a rule that Laura and I had definitely broken at my house) but that I should come over and fuck her because it’s time for her to lose it.

I get down there, and Heidi is acting… odd… in a way that I can’t adequately describe. We made out for a bit before she told me that we needed to go up to her room. Fair enough. Once there she pins me to her bed and demands that I kiss her. Note that she isn’t kissing me herself, which would have been fine, but demanding it of me. I play along by refusing and untying the strap on her shirt, which she quickly ties and then tells me to kiss her first. This exchange goes on for way too long before we finally get down to it, but she never stopped acting oddly.

As I was leaving, she looked at me with a sadness that didn’t exactly translate into longing, or regret, or any other obvious signal that I could interpret.

A few months later, in New York, I found out from Patrick that Kyle G. had talked her into it, and that she had him hiding in her closet watching the entire time. I threw up.

I wish I could say that things have gotten easier, but they haven’t. The older we get, the more misperceptions we acquire, the more scars we’ve got to account for, and the less we trust each other when we should just hurtle ourselves into romance with reckless abandon. It’s not that easy anymore. I wish I could go back to the day when it was just about a grey coat or a white one.