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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 a loss 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 I 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,
Carol Roach is a
published writer and newsletter editor. You can purchase
her book: Picking Up The Pieces: A Woman's Journey at
www.publishamerica.com, or
www.amazon.com. You can also go to your local bookstore
and order it there as well. If you are interested in other
stories feel free to join her newsletter: Storytime Tapestry
at:
storytime_tapestry-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, or email
her directly at
winterose@videtron.ca and she will be glad to accomodate
you. Carol enjoys email and responds to every inquiry. |
