6 years ago, I was wallowing in my own misery. I had, in fact, been rejected by a girl I was seriously into. I was already 17, how would I ever find time to meet someone else…at the rate I was going I was sure to die alone.
It boiled down to this. I liked a girl. We met, became good friends, then rather close, talking nearly everyday. I filled a lot of my time talking to her. But I made the mistake of trying to be more than friends, when I was so clearly in the friend zone. So I took a fairly unromantic and lame approach, asked her out in an instant message (cowardice really, fear of being rejected face to face). She rejected it, and like any self-respecting 17 year old I acted miserable about it for a while. But a major consequence of asking her out was that we really were not talking as much as we had been, thus leaving major gaps in my time to fill.
So I began to talk to others (a wise choice really, no one should end up talking to themselves). I believe one conversation I had was with a girl and about robots (a subject I have become only more of an authority on since we last spoke). She seemed to have enjoyed our robot conversation for I was invited to her birthday party. Now I must admit, I wasn’t often invited to parties in high school (or anytime in my life really), and this was something strange and new. I mostly hung out with the same three guys all the time. I decided to go.
Now for the most part, the party wasn’t terribly fun. I admit this is not really the party-throwers fault, but really just most of her guests were the smarter kids in school. So:
1) they weren’t the rowdiest group of folks
2) I hardly new any of them and wasn’t in on most of their jokes
3) I was also a closed off and miserable bore pining for the friend I lost.
But there was a glimmer of hope. One person who was doing nothing but cracking jokes, acting silly, being slightly obnoxious…and it must be said: looked totally hot. Now in most people’s hands, attempting to be the life of a party ends in disaster, coming off as totally irritating and not completely welcome. Somehow she pulled it off, and it came off as endearing.
I had known of her since elementary school, saw her name on an Honor’s roll list probably. She was in the same grade as my brother. I had definitely seen her around before. I had only once met her briefly at one of those miserable school dances where you go without a date and just mill around all night. She was very clearly trying to attract the attentions of my friend that evening. She said my hair looked greasy (which admittedly, it really kinda did), and I can’t say I felt bad for her when my friend made out with a cheerleader at the end of the night.
But at this party my hair wasn’t too greasy, and she was looking good (I usually like a more dressed down look than a more gussied up one) and being fun and said only nice things to me. She complimented my Chuck Taylors, and I believe I reciprocated and complimented hers. Then she proceeded to tell me a story, which ended up boiling down to the fact that she hated dogs. Needless to say I was immediately attracted. I made a decision in my head at that very moment “stick with this girl all night, but don’t try and make it look like you are trying to stick with her”.
So we became friends and we started to chat online a bit. This is where I learned of the one snag with this girl: boyfriend. We had only really talked online for a couple days or a week or something, so deciding to cut off all communications with her was kind of easy. We had no classes together, we didn’t really run in the same circles, and at this point we had only really talked in AIM. So I just decided that if I don’t contact her for a bit, and she didn’t start up any conversations, the friendship would just fade like so many do. No big deal.
It looks terrible but I had logical reasons at the time:
1) I was a dick.
2) I was a coward.
3) I had a bad track record of falling for girls who either had boyfriends or whom I had already entered the friend zone.
So I was bound and determined not to befriend her, get trapped in the friend zone, and then fall completely for her (as I was clearly on the track of doing) only to have her dump this joker and end up not being the one she turns too. Like I said: dick/coward.
And it worked. We sort of slowly stopped talking, and I moved on. Sadly I most likely moved on from her and back into wallowing in my own misery over the first girl. Luckily, that didn’t really last long. I started to get over it, as you do, and realized that I was pretty much an idiot for both wanting to pursue a relationship with her and even liking her as much as I had in the first place. So I became a much happier dude, with no lady in his life, getting accepted into UT and just ready to end high school.
But my plan backfired, suddenly walking to class on the first day of my final semester, I ran into the girl from the party in the hallway…and we were heading to the same computer class. I didn’t really see this is as a bad thing, in fact I wasn’t even thinking about how I cut off communication with her before. But we said hi, and caught up and then we began this class. We ended up sitting nearby each other. And talking. A lot. Even online again. And she still had that boyfriend. And I was developing a crush. And she still had that BOYFRIEND. GREAT.
I invited her to go to a little concert my friends and I were playing at Scott’s Folkatorium*. Then she subtly mentioned how her loser boyfriend wasn’t even considering taking her to the Winter Formal dance. I thought I’d be charming and ask her to the dance, which I did, and she accepted. I say I thought I’d be charming because I genuinely thought “what a smooth way to get rid of that loser she’s with”, but in reality it was part of her grand design…to get rid of that loser she was with. I basically did everything she was hoping for. She’d drop hints, and not being able to read women at all, I haphazardly would just follow her instructions, thinking I was being the clever one.
Soon was the Winter Formal, for me it was just a night of furthering my feelings for her…but the problem persisted: boyfriend. Clearly, after winter formal, we were both caught up in it. I don’t think either of us was of the opinion that we weren’t going to go for it; it was just a matter of when.
Anyhow she came to the show, and I mostly remember thinking, “Don’t just stare at her all night, it’ll freak her out.” I was, of course, completely incapable of completing that task. I glanced at her seat most of the night. Granted there were only 15 or so people in the audience, but I couldn’t remember a single other one of them. Luckily, it didn’t freak her out and she seemed to be into it. It was strange. At the end of the show she very clearly exclaimed to her friends that she wished to have ice cream (her web was being spun, and I am the fly), and that they should venture to Denny’s. I suggested the same thing to my friends (who had performed with me that evening) and they agreed. “This should go well” I thought. Unfortunately everyone else from our audience that night also seemed to think it was a tremendous plan.
So now instead two small groups at Denny’s trying to get ice cream as an attempt for myself and the girl to sit next to each other, now a whole group of noisy asshole teenagers are going to Denny’s and I can’t even get a seat on the same end of the table as her. She tried to move over next to me, but after some waiters were kind of rude to my friends (granted we were 15 asshole noisy teenagers pissing off the staff of Denny’s), and they demanded to leave. Being that I was the only one of my friends with a license at that time…I was sort of stuck leaving. Denny’s was a massive failure.
The next day we spoke online, she told me how much she enjoyed the show, but lamented how she still hadn’t filled the ice cream sized hole in her heart. Denny’s had been out or ice cream. Once again unwittingly taking the hint, I offered to take her to Dairy Queen. It was the first time we were really just sitting together, without anyone else around. It wasn’t a classroom, it wasn’t show, it wasn’t online, and it sure as hell wasn’t Denny’s. So we sat. And we talked. I often dodge answering this question because I am never too sure if it was here or at the Folkatorium show…but this quite possibly is the moment I started feeling it wasn’t just another dumb crush. I genuinely liked being with her.
One night she sent me this cryptic message: “I kind of just broke up with my boyfriend”. She wasn’t online long enough following this statement, and I was left for the better part of a week wondering, “What the hell does ‘kind of’ mean”. KIND OF? Did you or didn’t you? Finally it became pretty clear that she had, in fact, dumped his ass.
We hung out a little more. We went for a walk in Goodyear Metro Park, ending up at a pavilion with a fire going in a fireplace. We sat by it for several minutes as I contemplated and chickened out of actually kissing her or asking her out and fairly romantic setting we just happened upon. Let me allow this moment for clarity: I AM A MORON. Unfortunately in a far less romantic setting we had our first kiss that night: during the end credits of Edward Scissorhands, holy cow I’m class.
So I worked it all out, wrote her a song (yea I can put you sorry bastards to shame when I need to make up for not kissing her by the damn fire), took her out to her favorite pizza place, brought her back to my hour where I sung her the song…and then we were a couple. Boom.
That leads us to today. For years our lives have become so intertwined that I can barely picture any life without her. This includes the future. She is the perfect girl for me. I mean that. She seems to think I am an attractive guy…I’ll take it, and she is always supportive of me (even if I am just a loser spending most of my time not with her watching Star Trek and Doctor Who). I personally think she is one of the most gorgeous girls on the planet. She’ll tell you her nose looks funny or that her ears stick out, but to me all other noses are inferior and I LOVE that her ears stick out. I mean it. I find them to be one of those qualities that are so her and I can’t help but find attractive. She also happens to be really smart, and is always fun to be around and a good person to talk to always.
We have spent most of our relationship with distance. First she was in Akron while I was in Toledo, then she came to BG (but our conflicting schedules made even that much shorter distance difficult to see each other more than once a week), and now she is finishing up school in BG while I am the one back in Akron. With the help of cell phones, texting, e-mail, Facebook, and Skype…we have managed to make it work. For five years. That is a long time really, especially for a relationship that started mere months before I left for college. I’d being lying if I said I didn’t think it would all go to hell after that first summer. But it never did.
So yesterday, March 11, 2011, our anniversary, I took Megan on the same trail we walked five years ago, to the same pavilion, to find (to her surprise) yet another fire burning in that same fireplace…and I made up for not kissing the damn girl.
Megan Elizabeth Erwin and I are getting married, and I couldn’t be happier.
*Scott’s Folkatorium was, in fact, one of the greatest places in the history of the universe. In the back was a real small concert venue: little stage, and could fit probably somewhere between 50 to 100 people. I can’t really remember how many people could fit and how many were legally allowed. But it was small and cool. But in the front, oh in the front…it was the most amazing store of crazy old trinkets and knick-knacks, of toys and antiques, collectables and Happy Meal toys still in the packaging, and even old signs and license plates. Anything odd or amazing or strange you could find in some corner somewhere. I can still hear the enthusiasm in Scott’s voice when Matt and I questioned him about a bag we found, and his eyes got real big and excited as he exclaimed “Oh! Now THAT is a bag of Genuine Antique Jockstraps”. Like I said, you could find any number of strange things in that store. My brother Curt still has his Dick Goddard Bobblehead from that place. Sadly a couple of years after I met him and most of this story takes place: Scott, owner and founder of that wonderful place, passed away, and the magic store closed its doors forever. Scott was tremendous guy, really fun to chat with, a totally eccentric old hippy who was always encouraging to us and our little music, even when our second show didn’t even make half as much as our first show did at the door. I might give many a thing to get one more day to browse the nonsense in that place.
Author’s Ending Note: I am a fairly private person. I am often quiet and closed off when I meet people, and as a result I occasionally do not make new friends easily. It takes me a couple weeks to start opening up around people and being myself. So as a private person, I usually boil this story down to the bare-essentials when asked: “We went to the same elementary, middle, and high school…and we met a party.” That is usually all I say. I don’t want to monopolize a conversation with all the details of how we came to be, and most seem to like that version, mostly because they don’t REALLY care how we met. Anyhow, I decided the occasion was right to tell my whole version, especially because MEGAN seems so interested to hear how I would tell it. So from my perspective these are the events as they were. You better be balling.**
**Last sentence directed solely at Megan.
It boiled down to this. I liked a girl. We met, became good friends, then rather close, talking nearly everyday. I filled a lot of my time talking to her. But I made the mistake of trying to be more than friends, when I was so clearly in the friend zone. So I took a fairly unromantic and lame approach, asked her out in an instant message (cowardice really, fear of being rejected face to face). She rejected it, and like any self-respecting 17 year old I acted miserable about it for a while. But a major consequence of asking her out was that we really were not talking as much as we had been, thus leaving major gaps in my time to fill.
So I began to talk to others (a wise choice really, no one should end up talking to themselves). I believe one conversation I had was with a girl and about robots (a subject I have become only more of an authority on since we last spoke). She seemed to have enjoyed our robot conversation for I was invited to her birthday party. Now I must admit, I wasn’t often invited to parties in high school (or anytime in my life really), and this was something strange and new. I mostly hung out with the same three guys all the time. I decided to go.
Now for the most part, the party wasn’t terribly fun. I admit this is not really the party-throwers fault, but really just most of her guests were the smarter kids in school. So:
1) they weren’t the rowdiest group of folks
2) I hardly new any of them and wasn’t in on most of their jokes
3) I was also a closed off and miserable bore pining for the friend I lost.
But there was a glimmer of hope. One person who was doing nothing but cracking jokes, acting silly, being slightly obnoxious…and it must be said: looked totally hot. Now in most people’s hands, attempting to be the life of a party ends in disaster, coming off as totally irritating and not completely welcome. Somehow she pulled it off, and it came off as endearing.
I had known of her since elementary school, saw her name on an Honor’s roll list probably. She was in the same grade as my brother. I had definitely seen her around before. I had only once met her briefly at one of those miserable school dances where you go without a date and just mill around all night. She was very clearly trying to attract the attentions of my friend that evening. She said my hair looked greasy (which admittedly, it really kinda did), and I can’t say I felt bad for her when my friend made out with a cheerleader at the end of the night.
But at this party my hair wasn’t too greasy, and she was looking good (I usually like a more dressed down look than a more gussied up one) and being fun and said only nice things to me. She complimented my Chuck Taylors, and I believe I reciprocated and complimented hers. Then she proceeded to tell me a story, which ended up boiling down to the fact that she hated dogs. Needless to say I was immediately attracted. I made a decision in my head at that very moment “stick with this girl all night, but don’t try and make it look like you are trying to stick with her”.
So we became friends and we started to chat online a bit. This is where I learned of the one snag with this girl: boyfriend. We had only really talked online for a couple days or a week or something, so deciding to cut off all communications with her was kind of easy. We had no classes together, we didn’t really run in the same circles, and at this point we had only really talked in AIM. So I just decided that if I don’t contact her for a bit, and she didn’t start up any conversations, the friendship would just fade like so many do. No big deal.
It looks terrible but I had logical reasons at the time:
1) I was a dick.
2) I was a coward.
3) I had a bad track record of falling for girls who either had boyfriends or whom I had already entered the friend zone.
So I was bound and determined not to befriend her, get trapped in the friend zone, and then fall completely for her (as I was clearly on the track of doing) only to have her dump this joker and end up not being the one she turns too. Like I said: dick/coward.
And it worked. We sort of slowly stopped talking, and I moved on. Sadly I most likely moved on from her and back into wallowing in my own misery over the first girl. Luckily, that didn’t really last long. I started to get over it, as you do, and realized that I was pretty much an idiot for both wanting to pursue a relationship with her and even liking her as much as I had in the first place. So I became a much happier dude, with no lady in his life, getting accepted into UT and just ready to end high school.
But my plan backfired, suddenly walking to class on the first day of my final semester, I ran into the girl from the party in the hallway…and we were heading to the same computer class. I didn’t really see this is as a bad thing, in fact I wasn’t even thinking about how I cut off communication with her before. But we said hi, and caught up and then we began this class. We ended up sitting nearby each other. And talking. A lot. Even online again. And she still had that boyfriend. And I was developing a crush. And she still had that BOYFRIEND. GREAT.
I invited her to go to a little concert my friends and I were playing at Scott’s Folkatorium*. Then she subtly mentioned how her loser boyfriend wasn’t even considering taking her to the Winter Formal dance. I thought I’d be charming and ask her to the dance, which I did, and she accepted. I say I thought I’d be charming because I genuinely thought “what a smooth way to get rid of that loser she’s with”, but in reality it was part of her grand design…to get rid of that loser she was with. I basically did everything she was hoping for. She’d drop hints, and not being able to read women at all, I haphazardly would just follow her instructions, thinking I was being the clever one.
Soon was the Winter Formal, for me it was just a night of furthering my feelings for her…but the problem persisted: boyfriend. Clearly, after winter formal, we were both caught up in it. I don’t think either of us was of the opinion that we weren’t going to go for it; it was just a matter of when.
Anyhow she came to the show, and I mostly remember thinking, “Don’t just stare at her all night, it’ll freak her out.” I was, of course, completely incapable of completing that task. I glanced at her seat most of the night. Granted there were only 15 or so people in the audience, but I couldn’t remember a single other one of them. Luckily, it didn’t freak her out and she seemed to be into it. It was strange. At the end of the show she very clearly exclaimed to her friends that she wished to have ice cream (her web was being spun, and I am the fly), and that they should venture to Denny’s. I suggested the same thing to my friends (who had performed with me that evening) and they agreed. “This should go well” I thought. Unfortunately everyone else from our audience that night also seemed to think it was a tremendous plan.
So now instead two small groups at Denny’s trying to get ice cream as an attempt for myself and the girl to sit next to each other, now a whole group of noisy asshole teenagers are going to Denny’s and I can’t even get a seat on the same end of the table as her. She tried to move over next to me, but after some waiters were kind of rude to my friends (granted we were 15 asshole noisy teenagers pissing off the staff of Denny’s), and they demanded to leave. Being that I was the only one of my friends with a license at that time…I was sort of stuck leaving. Denny’s was a massive failure.
The next day we spoke online, she told me how much she enjoyed the show, but lamented how she still hadn’t filled the ice cream sized hole in her heart. Denny’s had been out or ice cream. Once again unwittingly taking the hint, I offered to take her to Dairy Queen. It was the first time we were really just sitting together, without anyone else around. It wasn’t a classroom, it wasn’t show, it wasn’t online, and it sure as hell wasn’t Denny’s. So we sat. And we talked. I often dodge answering this question because I am never too sure if it was here or at the Folkatorium show…but this quite possibly is the moment I started feeling it wasn’t just another dumb crush. I genuinely liked being with her.
One night she sent me this cryptic message: “I kind of just broke up with my boyfriend”. She wasn’t online long enough following this statement, and I was left for the better part of a week wondering, “What the hell does ‘kind of’ mean”. KIND OF? Did you or didn’t you? Finally it became pretty clear that she had, in fact, dumped his ass.
We hung out a little more. We went for a walk in Goodyear Metro Park, ending up at a pavilion with a fire going in a fireplace. We sat by it for several minutes as I contemplated and chickened out of actually kissing her or asking her out and fairly romantic setting we just happened upon. Let me allow this moment for clarity: I AM A MORON. Unfortunately in a far less romantic setting we had our first kiss that night: during the end credits of Edward Scissorhands, holy cow I’m class.
So I worked it all out, wrote her a song (yea I can put you sorry bastards to shame when I need to make up for not kissing her by the damn fire), took her out to her favorite pizza place, brought her back to my hour where I sung her the song…and then we were a couple. Boom.
That leads us to today. For years our lives have become so intertwined that I can barely picture any life without her. This includes the future. She is the perfect girl for me. I mean that. She seems to think I am an attractive guy…I’ll take it, and she is always supportive of me (even if I am just a loser spending most of my time not with her watching Star Trek and Doctor Who). I personally think she is one of the most gorgeous girls on the planet. She’ll tell you her nose looks funny or that her ears stick out, but to me all other noses are inferior and I LOVE that her ears stick out. I mean it. I find them to be one of those qualities that are so her and I can’t help but find attractive. She also happens to be really smart, and is always fun to be around and a good person to talk to always.
We have spent most of our relationship with distance. First she was in Akron while I was in Toledo, then she came to BG (but our conflicting schedules made even that much shorter distance difficult to see each other more than once a week), and now she is finishing up school in BG while I am the one back in Akron. With the help of cell phones, texting, e-mail, Facebook, and Skype…we have managed to make it work. For five years. That is a long time really, especially for a relationship that started mere months before I left for college. I’d being lying if I said I didn’t think it would all go to hell after that first summer. But it never did.
So yesterday, March 11, 2011, our anniversary, I took Megan on the same trail we walked five years ago, to the same pavilion, to find (to her surprise) yet another fire burning in that same fireplace…and I made up for not kissing the damn girl.
Megan Elizabeth Erwin and I are getting married, and I couldn’t be happier.
*Scott’s Folkatorium was, in fact, one of the greatest places in the history of the universe. In the back was a real small concert venue: little stage, and could fit probably somewhere between 50 to 100 people. I can’t really remember how many people could fit and how many were legally allowed. But it was small and cool. But in the front, oh in the front…it was the most amazing store of crazy old trinkets and knick-knacks, of toys and antiques, collectables and Happy Meal toys still in the packaging, and even old signs and license plates. Anything odd or amazing or strange you could find in some corner somewhere. I can still hear the enthusiasm in Scott’s voice when Matt and I questioned him about a bag we found, and his eyes got real big and excited as he exclaimed “Oh! Now THAT is a bag of Genuine Antique Jockstraps”. Like I said, you could find any number of strange things in that store. My brother Curt still has his Dick Goddard Bobblehead from that place. Sadly a couple of years after I met him and most of this story takes place: Scott, owner and founder of that wonderful place, passed away, and the magic store closed its doors forever. Scott was tremendous guy, really fun to chat with, a totally eccentric old hippy who was always encouraging to us and our little music, even when our second show didn’t even make half as much as our first show did at the door. I might give many a thing to get one more day to browse the nonsense in that place.
Author’s Ending Note: I am a fairly private person. I am often quiet and closed off when I meet people, and as a result I occasionally do not make new friends easily. It takes me a couple weeks to start opening up around people and being myself. So as a private person, I usually boil this story down to the bare-essentials when asked: “We went to the same elementary, middle, and high school…and we met a party.” That is usually all I say. I don’t want to monopolize a conversation with all the details of how we came to be, and most seem to like that version, mostly because they don’t REALLY care how we met. Anyhow, I decided the occasion was right to tell my whole version, especially because MEGAN seems so interested to hear how I would tell it. So from my perspective these are the events as they were. You better be balling.**
**Last sentence directed solely at Megan.
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