BAD DATES The Men Kind, Not the fruit kind.
Date Number One: The pedophile saves the day.
I never seem to know the appropriate thing to wear. Also, when I was 14 I had a secret 23 year old boyfriend. He was not on this, my first real date, but he is important because he never cared about what I wore. Were it not for the crushing disaster of my first real date, he may have remained just an old guy I waved to on the street.
On the occasion of my first real date I wore my aunt’s Clara’s 1988 black lace puffy three tiered strapless beaded cocktail dress, everyone else wore jeans. It was a double date, with my beautiful friend Frelly, some boy whose name I can’t remember enough to protect him by changing it and another guy we’ll call, Smosh. Frelly and I were Soo excited about our date, I don’t remember where we went first, but I do remember making up several elaborate stories about some fancy event I had just come from to explain my attire. I looked like I was playing dress up in a vintage carnival photo booth brothel scene….I vaguely remember a feather boa…but Frelly says it was just the evening gown..
Frelly liked the boy whose name I can’t remember, can we call him pizza face? Is that offensive, I loved acne even then, and was a bit jealous that Frelly was getting so close to him. He was oozing pus and I wanted to be alone with his face so bad, But they were ” in to” each other. Aside from his pizza face, Pizza Face was very normal looking, like a JC PENNY catalog model, and they looked great together.
I am going to describe my friend Frelly, she was a head turner, a leggy, blond, flirty, slouch socked over tight jeans beauty. I was the weird girl. My date was a weird guy. Just Perfect for me, he was different looking, a musician, a hippy..I liked him already. I had brown hair, he had brown hair, we were the same height, Frelly and PF were the same height…..nature would take it’s course, we would have double weddings, Frelly and I would become pregnant at the same time, and dress our daughters in matching frocks..it was all so perfect!!
Early in the evening it became apparent that Life could be a dark cruel ruleless travesty.
I trailed behind Frelly watching as the two gentlemen suiters flanked her side, both vying for her attention. I watched as both of them reached to hold her hand, a boy/girl ritual I had yet to experience. Chills overcame me as the boys raced to open the door for Frelly, smiling with cartoon eyes as she walked thru. I remember the weight of the door to that cheese steak establishment. I reached to keep it from closing as Smosh let go of it absently before I entered. I grabbed it as the door suction fought me with momentum and the bell on the greasy handle dinged, more then it needed to. Heads turned. The entire restaurant inhaled with stunned appreciation for my olde timey hooker gown. I don’t know if I mentioned it didn’t fit, Did I mention it didn’t fit? It almost fit, I hitched it up as I tried to catch up to Smosh, but I couldn’t move fast because I had to keep my arms at my sides, my clenched armpits were the only things holding my dress up.
Smosh was power walking to the booth where PF and Frelly were already seated. This moment, I kid you not, this defining moment would foreshadow a poetic 20 year dance with unrequited love. It is slow motion, Smosh looks at me, waddling robot style in my weirdo dress, and he leans down, as he tells Frelly to scooch over, he squeezes beside her, all three of them Smosh Smooshed on one side of a booth…..so he could sit next her…..so he wouldn’t have to sit next to me.
There I am, on my first ever real date, in a crumb covered booth, in a doomed cheesesteak restaurant. Thankfully it would go out of business a year later, allowing me to stop reliving the following mozzarella stick consumption scene.
Both boys face inward along side of Frelly. I sit alone on the other side of the booth. Silent. They are laughing. Frelly tosses her hair back, her hair is blowing luxuriously in some impossible indoor wind. The boys are hanging on her every word. I will myself to interject, to say something clever or simply verbal…I don’t even know what they are talking about. I need attention so bad my face is burning. I mention that my dad is a psychologist and that I started using a biofeedback machine when I was five to control my heart rate. A nod in my direction and a return to Frelly’s infectious giggle. I know I am trying too hard, but I can’t help it. I talk about how I grew up without a toaster, how I can stick marbles in my belly button and forget about them for days. Smosh looks at me and winces…he winces. I realize I am socially awkward beyond measure. I diagnose myself with Aspergers syndrome, before it is evening a thing, just because I feel like such an ass burger.
Everyone orders Mozzarella sticks and I watch as they eat them, laughing at the stringiness of the cheese. Mozzarella sticks are Hilarious, and Frelly knows how to eat them, like sexy eat them. I hear simultaneous teenage hard ons bang against the bottom of the booth when she licks sauce off her fingers.
I don’t eat. I think I’m fat….that must be why he doesn’t like me, fat and ugly. I sip diet soda. Somehow, I get sauce on me anyway. Seriously?
On the way home after both boys linger their Frelly Goodbyes and barely nod in my direction. We run into “HIM”. He is a greek god, a sculptured beautiful muscular grown up man. We know him from around town, he is the cousin of a friend of a friends cousin, he remembers us. He offers us a ride. He is 23 with a cool car and his own house.
Somehow we end up sitting on his steps, Frelly disappears and I am alone with Him. He tells me I look pretty tonight. ME!!! I LOOK pretty tonight, covered in undeserved tomato sauce in a wild west prostitutes dress that doesn’t fit. He tells me I look pretty. When I tell him that My date Smosh didn’t think so, he leans over, nudging me with his shoulder, and you know what he says…You do! you actually already know what he says, we all know, we have all seen an after school special, he holds my gaze and says ” Well he is an idiot, I would have been all over you”
I have been addicted to the warm blush of bullshit man words ever since.
Now I know that what “Him” and I would do in the coming months was illegal. I know that even as I beg you to believe, I am the one who made the first moves from flirty to taboo, you could argue, “you were a minor, you couldn’t make a responsible decision” you could admonish him..” what kind of 23 year old has any interest in a 14 year old.” You could call him an abuser, a rapist, a pervert. But I will tell you this. That man saved me. He was more loving and kind to me than any boy had ever been. We planned to run away together on my 18th birthday, he wrote me poems, told me he loved me. That mans attention lifted me straight up from the rubble of rejected despair, he made me believe I was beautiful…back when I thought beautiful was contingent on someone telling you you are.
What I learned from my first horrible date.
1) Not everyone is going to like you, and that has to be ok. Hearts do not make sense. Trying to force someone to like you…will.. not … work, no matter what you stick in your belly button.
2) Things are not black and white. Not even wrong and right.
3) Time makes everything look different
I tracked “HIM” down a few years ago, to see if there was still a spark. Uhh no. What a total tool. What was I thinking. I am so incredibly thankful for the confidence he gave me , My 14 year old self thought he was the bees knees…..My grown self….how can I say this. I have had better conversations with my curtains.
