"Going Out" : Meetings, Marriages & Memories, Edition 2

There must have been something in the water in this town, or parents just completely lost their minds letting their 9 year old daughters 'go out' with 9 year old boys. Literally, out to the movies, out to football games, out to the skating rink. Complete insanity. One way or another I dodged all of the elementary school ridiculousness, but oddly, didn't feel myself as fortunate as I did unattractive.

Sure the 'gross' boys at school would send me the 'I Love You' Valentines, but the mere thought made me want to vomit.

Enter the Junior High Years. By this time I was mostly contented to hang out with my friends and admire boys from afar. Until one day random Tuesday in the fall.

I was hurrying through the halls during our 5 minute passing time when a 9th grade girl that I hardly knew diverted my attention.

"Do you like B?" she asked me.

"Who?! Me?! I've never even talked to him," I suddenly felt like the entire school was staring at me as I floated down the hallway.

"Well, he thinks you're hot, and wants to know if you'll go out with him," she replied, clearly not understanding that I was in no place to make a snap decision.

Instead of being thrilled that a boy was interested in me, everything within me said 'Oh CRAP! A boy likes me?! A freshman boy?? This has never happened before what.do.I.do?!'

"Can I think about it for a little while?" was probably the only intelligent thing I said the rest of the day, hoping against hope that she would forget to find me or our paths wouldn't cross. But 'a little while' in junior high means one or two periods. She found me and my better judgement did not prevail.

I was 'going out'. I hadn't even TALKED to this boy yet. But we were going out. The bright red flush in my face didn't leave all day. And just as I was about to leave to get on the bus.....there was a tap on my shoulder.

The boy. And he was shorter than me. {Now, I say this as though I was suprised. I was not suprised. I knew who he was....our school wasn't THAT big. But now he was my 'boyfriend', and it mattered. Oh dear, it mattered.}

"Can I have your phone number?" he asked. Somehow I managed to stammer out the number, all the while trying to figure out how I was going to get around my parents knowing that this boy existed.

Sure enough, the phone rang that night. This in the olden days before cordless phones did not help my cause. Nor did the knots in my stomach. I knew that Friday being a home football game, I would be expected to go and hangout on 'The Hill' and sit on blankets with his freshman friends.

The next day, he managed to find me between classes two or three times. I concocted some crazzzzzzzy routes from one classroom to the next so that I might throw him off. Stinkin freshman boy wasn't so dumb after all.

Still the knots in my stomach and the incessant heart pounding were more than I could handle. I just couldn't stand it anymore and so I found the girl who 'asked me out for him' and 'dumped him'.

Poor kid didn't go down without a fight, insisting that he 'really' liked me, but I was done with the 'going out' scene. Especially with someone I didn't even know....

...but that didn't mean I wasn't still boy-crazy.