Friend Zone #3: Loz

I first became aware of Loz in 1982 when I went to the Drama Festival at Eastern New Mexico University during my senior year in high school. She was from Alamogordo High School and was a year behind me. She appeared in her class' production of a one-act play called "The Keep." She played a Rod Serling-type narrator and appeared before, between and at the end of the segments. She was notable because when she walked off the stage into the audience, she ran into the front row seats. There was a spotlight on her and she was blinded. However, she received one of the acting awards that were given out by the adjudicators.

Loz was overweight, but had a cute face, brown eyes and long, dark hair. The second time I saw her was during the Drama Festival my freshman year. She played the part of a desirable blond woman who had one line. When they colored her hair, they only did the front half with some sort of temporary dye. It didn't look good, but she wasn't really on stage long enough for anyone to care.

When she started attending ENMU the next year, she had planned on some involvement in the Theatre Department, but mostly focused her efforts on her major, computer science. I got to know her better because she frequently hung around a couple of her Alamogordo classmates, who were Theatre majors. During one conversation at the Theatre building, she told me about how she planned to design computer "bubbles" that would improve processing, or something like that.

She was very smart, the kind of person I had always been interested in having for a girlfriend. In addition to the Drama Department at her school, she was involved in Choir. She told me that while she was one of the top students in her class, her rank at graduation was #11. This wouldn't have been a problem, but she prided herself on being really smart and the top students had their gowns decorated with these indicators that they were among the top 10, and there she was at #11 with none of the glitter to show for it.

One strange thing she told me about herself was that she liked to drink vinegar straight out of the bottle. I can't even stand the smell of the stuff. To this day, I don't know why there are potato chips flavored like that.

One Thursday early in the semester, I was eating lunch with her classmates. She came and joined us. She was reading the student newspaper, which had an advertisement for the local movie theatre. "Strange Brew" was one of the films that would start the next day. She said out loud, "I would like to go see that." I then said, "I would like to see that, too. Would you like to go with me Saturday night?" I didn't mean to put her on the spot in front of her friends. I just saw an opportunity and decided to grab it. I think she was rather stunned that I asked her. She agreed to the date. I asked for her dorm phone number and she gave it to me. I told her I could call her later.

I called and we arranged that I would come get her around 6pm at her dorm and go to the movie theatre. The day before the big date, I had gone to my Marriage and the Family class (which was the most popular class on campus). Before class ended, the professor said something to the effect that we didn't know if that person we were going to date was going to end up being the person we spend the rest of our lives with. This was running through my mind on Saturday when I was getting ready. Right before I was about to head out the door, my Mom called. I told her I was about to go out on a date. She got WAY too excited about it. I shouldn't have told her because I was nervous enough as it was.

About 5:45pm, I started driving from my dorm at Lincoln Hall to hers at De Baca Hall. It's a straight drive about a quarter-mile down. When I got close to the dorm, I saw these two female students walking toward De Baca. It was Loz and her roommate. I hit the brakes and slapped the side of my car out my open window. I felt like I had arrived too early. She told me to park the car and come in the dorm lobby to wait for her. She just needed to change her clothes and she would be right down. I'm glad we didn't plan on eating a meal before the movie. We simply would have been late.

We arrived at the theatre and I saw one of the other Theatre students there. He was in the lobby playing the video game. He was making some comment about having wasted a quarter on the machine. He was also there to see the same movie. We went into the auditorium and he sat directly in front of us. I thought this was odd because this particular student (whom I had known since my first trip to Muncie, IN in 1980) was always complaining about how he didn't have any money. I wondered to myself why he would come alone on a Saturday night and pay full price for a ticket when the movie theatre had bargain matinees on the weekend and dollar night on Tuesdays.

I've since wondered if Loz was anxious about me and asked him to come "chaperone" in the event I started getting all grabby-feely with her. I wasn't planning on doing that. This was a first date.

Afterwards, we went to Tastee-Freez to get some sodas and talk some more. We had a really good conversation about our expectations for the future. I drove her back to her dorm and dropped her off. We met up for lunch a few times during the week with her friends. We did not make any immediate plans for a future date. A lot of my free time was taken up by rehearsals for "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The next Saturday morning, I was at the game room at the Campus Union Building, playing a few video games. Her friends were there. Suddenly, she came in and she had hickeys all over her neck. She was smiling and excitedly talking to her friends. While I couldn't hear the conversation, it was obvious she was talking about how she got the hickeys. My first thought was, "Oh, we're not really boyfriend/girlfriend yet. I should try to not let this bother me." But it did bother me. I felt my heart sink inside because she had let some guy do that to her. I had nothing but respect for her and she just let this other guy do all that.

Apparently, she went out with this guy the night before and he brought her to his room at Lincoln Hall. Right away, he started making moves on her. He started sucking on her neck and trying to get her in the mood. She left, but not before getting at least four or five hickeys on her neck. I guess she forgot to get the chaperone to come with her on that date.

After that, we actually started spending more time together. She invited me to come join her for services at the Baptist Student Union. Technically, this was not a date. I don't care what you say, going to church is not a date. Afterwards, we went to a nearby video arcade. (Still not a date, we were just hanging out.) We played a few games and there was one she really liked a lot. I thought we were finished playing at one point, but she grabbed and pinched my arm to indicate that she wanted to play some more. I pulled some more quarters out of my pocket.

I walked her back to her dorm. I made no moves. Over the next couple of weeks, we spent more time together eating lunch and dinner together. After dinner, I would walk her back to her dorm.

Once, this other guy (not the hickey guy, but a geek like me) asked her out for a date before she sat down for lunch. I guess they had hung out at the school's football game the previous week. She politely turned him down. After he left, she gripped my shoulder.

We had pleasant conversations, but things were not progressing at a rate I preferred. I knew I had to do something to step up the game.

I wrote her a letter to let her know how I felt, that I really liked her and enjoyed being around her. However, I was afraid it may seem like I was pressuring her for something she wasn't ready for, so I found a "form letter" in which I filled in the blanks with multiple choice answers. I thought she would enjoy the surprise when it wound up in her mailbox. Because I wanted her to get it right away, I watched her do the combination on her mailbox (the post office didn't have locked boxes back then). I memorized the combination, came back to the Post Office, opened her box and inserted the letter.

The letter sat there over the weekend. I was hoping she would stop by at some point to pick it up and be surprised, but the Post Office didn't deliver on Saturdays. After lunch on Monday, I went with her to the Post Office. She opened up her box and was pleasantly surprised to find the letter. She thought it was rather humorous.

The next day, we went into the Post Office with her friends. I went up, checked her mailbox, came back and told her she didn't have any mail. Her eyes widened. "How do you know I don't have any mail?" "I looked inside your mailbox." "How did you get inside my mailbox?" "I learned your combination. How do you think I got that letter in there without a stamp?"

At the time, I didn't really think I did anything wrong. I thought what I did was sweet and romantic, but I now realize I was exhibiting stalker tendencies. But honestly, I'd only had one girlfriend up to this point and had never dated anyone as smart as her, so I really didn't know what was unacceptable behavior. (Yes, someone less intelligent would not have considered it an invasion of their privacy.)

While she tolerated my presence at lunch and dinner with her friends, it was clear we weren't going to go out anytime soon. She didn't really talk to me much after that. Looking back, I can't really blame her.

She came back the next year. I called her room. She had the same room, but got a new roommate in someone who had just graduated from the same high school. She was still rather chilly. I did some small talk, hung up the phone and figured it was completely hopeless. I never called her again.

The next year, she was in the chorus of the production "HMS Pinafore." During the rehearsals, she struck up a friendship with one of the crew members. She started dating him. He was actually in the same attractiveness league that I was.

I didn't talk to her any more after that, but she married that guy before she graduated from college. If I hadn't pulled that "fatal" maneuver, I probably would have wound up marrying her. I really liked her that much that I could have seen that in our future.

She has remained married to that same guy for almost 30 years. It looks like they had some children. She now works at a software company in Grand Prairie, TX. She doesn't appear to be any more overweight than she was in college, even after having kids.

Honestly, I still feel like she treated me a lot worse than that guy who gave her the hickeys.