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Being the shy person that I was in high school it was
difficult for me to approach boys let alone flirt with them.
But the hormones were raging and after all I was a teenager.
I was 15 years old and starting to feel oh so grown up! I
bought 16 Magazine faithfully. Like all my girl friends at
the time, we had our lockers plastered with posters of Davey
Jones, from the Monkeys, and all the other larger than life
teen idols. It is really funny but I can??™t even remember my
most beloved teen idol. All I remember was that he was blond
and gorgeous; the all American male, just like Ken (Barbie
and Ken). As far as I know he was probably a one hit wonder.
For the life of me as I write this piece I cannot even
remember the song that he sang. Nevertheless his face was
plastered all over my locker, inside and out.
My high school crush had been my grade 9 history teacher; a
person I knew that I would never date anyhow. Since I was
always over weight I did not get many boys paying attention
to me during those all important years. Even if some boys
did approach me I was too shy to ever consider flirting let
alone date them. But there were a few boys that I did admire
from afar.
Our school was located downtown but more or less served the
Greek and Armenian communities. Even though the kids from my
elementary school attended we were definitely in the
minority. Having said that there were very few boys from my
old school that had blonde hair, most had black, and the
Greeks and Armenians had dark brown and black hair
respectively. No wonder my teen idol was blonde, he was so
different from any other boy I ever knew.
By the time grade 10 had arrived a new student came to the
school. He was from Sweden and as you can imagine he had
blonde hair and blue eyes. He was tall and handsome and I
thought he looked like the Greek God Adonis. I was instantly
in love! But try as I might, I could not get this boy to pay
attention to me. He actually seemed rather annoyed when I
asked him if I could borrow a pencil, or how did he like the
latest English assignment. I was lost as to what to do to
get him to see and more importantly like me!
It was at this time that my friend Maxine a black girl (you
will remember her from other stories) was attracted to a new
black student from Jamaica who recently transferred to our
high school as well. Like me Maxine was shy and did not know
how to get this boy to pay any attention to her.
Since we found it easier to talk to boys that we really
didn??™t like in that special way we devised a plan wherewith
each of us would approach the other??™s love interest and
befriend him. By doing so we would gain the boys??™ confidence
and then we could promote how wonderful our friend was to
them. In other words I would go to the black boy, David,
become his friend and tell him how wonderful Maxine was and
she would do the same with Adonis.
The plan seemed to be working. David and I became friends,
and Adonis and Maxine became friends as well. So what could
possibly go wrong?
The next phase of the plan was to get each of us together
with our love interest and that did not prove to be an easy
feat at all. Every time Maxine tried to get Adonis and I
together he seemed always to have other plans. And whenever
I tried to get David and Maxine together he would agree but
never specifically state when this meeting would happen.
Finally a golden opportunity presented itself. There was
going to be a day excursion for the grade 10 students to the
history museum in a neighbouring province (Ontario). Each of
us invited the boys respectively. Adonis declined the
invitation and David accepted it.
During the train ride, Maxine and I sat together and David
sat facing us. We laughed and joked and had a really good
time. David was polite with Maxine but seemed reserved. I
took it to mean that he was just shy and more comfortable
with me since he knew me better. At the exhibition I jabbed
Maxine in the arm to indicate that she needed to make her
presence known a little more forcibly if she ever expected
to get this guy to pay attention to her. I have to admit she
did try.
When we were on our way home and respectively sitting in our
seats on the train I decided that I had to take matters into
my own hands. I came straight out and asked David if he
liked Maxine now that he had finally met her. I don??™t know
what I expected to hear but he answered ???yeah she is cool???.
I then said well ???that??™s cool maybe you and Maxine could go
out sometime together, I know you don??™t have many friends
being so new to the school and all???. He didn??™t answer and
Maxine gave me ???that look??? so I just gave up. The
conversation shifted to something else until we reached
home.
That evening when we were talking on the phone I found that
Maxine was furious with me she thought that I had gone too
far. Somehow her fury was lost on me. I thought that was the
plan.
The next day at school I found that David was snubbing me as
well. Okay I had enough at this point and now it was my turn
to get annoyed. Why was this happening; I followed the plan.
I cornered David and demanded to know why he was acting so
weird. At first he wouldn??™t talk but when I wouldn??™t let him
go into his classroom until I got an answer he said to me;
???why would you ask me to go out with Maxine, don??™t you know
how much I love you???. I had no clue about his feelings. I
had no clue how to answer him either. So I let him go into
his classroom and made the excuse that I was now late for
mine.
I couldn??™t wait to tell Maxine what had occurred but I
didn??™t know how to handle it. On the one hand I had Maxine??™s
feelings to consider; after all David was her love interest
and on the other hand this guy said he was in love with me
and I was not interested in him at all. Surprisingly, Maxine
took it well. She thanked me for trying to get the two of
them together even though it didn??™t work out for her and
then went on to say that I had the bigger problem that
needed to be worked out. So we decided that the best thing
to do was just to tell him the truth and hope that he and I
could remain friends. We rehearsed together what I would say
to him in order to let him down as gently as possible. We
made up the story that I already had a boyfriend though he
did not attend the school. My friendship with David ended
there. He didn??™t want a friend he wanted a girlfriend.
As far as Adonis is concerned after the fiasco with David,
Maxine and I thought it was best to leave well enough alone.
It got to the point that Adonis hardly spoke to Maxine
anymore. The last thing we heard about him was that he was
dating this beautiful blonde haired blue eyed German girl
who transferred into the school by the name of Krysten.
Carol Roach
winterose@videotron.ca
If you enjoyed this story and would
like to read more of my work please contact me at my email
address:
winterose@videotron.ca or you can join my newsletter
storytime_tapestry-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
Stay tuned for my book: Picking Up The Pieces: A Woman??™s
Journey which will be out in bookstores, at
www.publishamerica.com and
www.amazon.com within the next month or two. I like to
thank all of you who have supported me all these years and
encouraged me to write the book. I will be eternally
grateful.
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To read archived stories, click on this link:
http://archives.zinester.com/9516/2004
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Blessings to you today
Bob Johnston
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