I had one girlfriend my sophomore year in school. I thought I would be doing pretty good if I averaged about one girlfriend a year. I had to set some sites on potential new girlfriends. However, as you might have seen in the past, I had a lot of restrictions:
1. They needed to be smart.
2. I needed to find them attractive, but hoped that other guys wouldn't.
3. Quirkiness was a virtue.
4. While I didn't have a problem with them being overweight, I did not find obesity attractive.
5. They have to avoid wearing too much make-up. I actually liked them better if they didn't wear make-up at all.
6. It didn't matter to me whether or not they were virgins. I wasn't planning to have sex with them, anyway.
And my newly-minted rule going into my junior year:
7. It was best if they knew practically nothing about me.
That last rule pretty much eliminated every girl I had ever gone to school with up to that point. My first girlfriend had never gone to the same school as me because she was two years older. This meant she didn't know me in junior high school or intermediate school and was not aware of my loser reputation.
A few weeks into the new school year, our Algebra II class got a new student. She sat in the row next to mine, just a few feet away. Her name was Shaz and she met all of the above requirements. She was a little overweight, but that wasn't an issue. She was indeed very smart, and actually, kind of funny. She had a rather endearing look about her in which she did not wear make up and I didn't think that any of the Alpha males had noticed her yet. After knowing her for one week, I made my move.
I followed her to her locker after class. (The lockers were right outside the classroom.) I straight-forwardly asked her if she would like to go out with me. She said, "Well, I have a boyfriend who lives out of town, so I really can't." I was a little disappointed, and somewhat surprised because she was acting like she was flirting in class, not just with me, but with the other guys in my row.
I stopped all attempts to pursue her and let things get back to normal in the Algebra class. I avoided making any conversation with her outside the groups in the two rows.
A few days later, I saw her walking in the hall, holding hands with one of the other boys in my row. This guy was not what I referred to as an "Alpha Male," but was a very popular student, was the Student Council's Assembly Chairman and considered a born leader in the class.
I got almost as angry about this as I was about not being asked to be in Student Council the year before. So many thoughts went through my head. I couldn't believe that she just LIED to me about having a boyfriend out of town. From what I could tell, I got to her first, before anyone else, before she found out what a geek I was. She could have told me the truth and said there was someone else that she liked and was hoping to date. I probably could have accepted that. And to find out that way, with a public display of mild affection, it was almost like she was flaunting that in my face. And it would have felt that way if she made eye contact with me.
(I should note that I never saw them like that again, so I don't know if they were just playing around at the time. However, she had a big smile on her face while they were holding hands.)
Anyway, I got over that eventually. I guess I just didn't count on other guys finding her that attractive, but I determined toward the end of the school year that I was completely wrong about that perception. What follows is an explanation of how I came to that conclusion. It has a lengthy set-up, but it's necessary:
Toward of the end of my junior year, around the time we were having the Student Council elections, we had the cheerleader elections. There are a couple of things you need to know about our cheerleader elections: The popular vote only counted for part of who qualified to be a cheerleader. The candidates had to audition for judges and were given a score. The popular votes would be added to that score and that determined who would get to be a cheerleader the next year.
During my sophomore year, all six of those who were elected as cheerleaders (including one guy) would all be seniors the next year. This meant that our school would have no incumbent cheerleaders to carry over to my senior year. The emotional effect of the shutout of those potential cheerleaders from my class was so bad that none of the junior varsity squad from my sophomore year even bothered to audition the next year (and there were six of them).
The school decided to keep this from ever happening again by instuting a rule that everyone, when making their six choices, had to vote for at least two candidates who would be seniors the next year and at least two who would be juniors. This left the door wide open for just about anyone to try out for cheerleader. This meant that everyone from my class who auditioned for cheerleader had never actually been cheerleaders before. One of those who tried out was Shaz. She actually got elected. All of a sudden, that placed her on the "A" list at my school. So for her to actually make that journey from the unknown new student to varsity cheerleader meant that a lot of other guys found her attractive. (Although I have to admit that our cheer squad really stunk that year and it was due to the senior members having an obvious lack of experience.)
After graduating from high school, I saw her once when I was working at K-mart in Artesia. She appeared to be dating this one guy who was in our class our senior year, but only for the first semester. He was one of those who graduated in the middle of the school year. I wondered if this was the out-of-town boyfriend she first mentioned, but I never found out.
I never saw her again after that. However, I was able to find her on Facebook. She actually still looks about the same as I remember, just older. I was able to recognize her the moment I saw a photo of her. She still lives in Artesia. She is married and has two kids, a boy and a girl. Her occupation on one site I found was listed as a tax preparer, but it seems like she just sort of does that just to make a little extra money the first 3 1/2 months of the year. Her mother also passed away late last year. I never knew her mother.
I don't know where she lived before she came to Artesia, but I find it sort of odd that she came to our town when she was sixteen and just decided that she didn't want to live anywhere else.
I would never take another chance on trying to get a girlfriend for the remainder of high school, but I did try to get a date for Prom. That's the topic of a later post.
No comments:
Post a Comment