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| Angela's got a new hair cut. My hair was to my bottom ribs for most of high school, so my classmates are sure to be shocked at the reunion. Except for all the ones who are my friends on facebook... which rules out nearly everyone. |
I saw a few guys on my trip to Chicago whom at one point in my life I used to, as the Brits would say, "fancy." (Using the British term makes me feel like I've reminded you that I still have a boyfriend, and therefore it is not improper to discuss the guys in my past. Is that strange?) And with the exception of the 1st-ex-boyfriend whom I met with that first night for drinks (we did not once mention the fact that we had dated or reminisce about old times), it seemed strangely okay to talk about the past with them. It's no longer weird to say things like, "Man, I had such a crush on you."
Not skirting issues is actually really nice. It almost made me feel like a confident adult. (Nah, I couldn't be.) I got something great out of it. I wouldn't say it was closure... But maybe it was closure.
I have a boyfriend now, of whom I'm a big fan. My past is my past, and the things that didn't work out weren't meant to. But just as I'm still bitter about the way I was cast in my second year of grad school (which I hope to get over any minute now), I have residual emotions from some of my past (completely unsuccessful) romantic whims.
And I've had a lot of them. I like having crushes. As I wrote back in 2007 (in Almost-Perfect Strangers):
"...the thrill of the chase. It's such a sexy little game. Not that I'm really a game-playing type of girl, I just mean the act of circling the table, wondering who will pounce first... or if either of you ever will. That will-we/won't-we tension is beautiful. It's intriguing. It's fascinating. (It's the reason people watched the first two seasons of The Office.) And it's so much fun to be involved in. In fact, there's part of me that prefers it to an actual relationship. I love the stage of fancying. The special place in which you're interested, but not infatuated or crushed. Where you'll gladly flirt, but you won't be completely heart-broken if nothing ever moves forward."
What if I saw these fellows again, and no longer felt shy? Why was I under the impression, for the first, oh, 25 years of my life that crushes had to be secret? Why couldn't I have just said, "Hey, I think you're swell," instead of going into mad sleuth/borderline stalker behavior, while attempting to pretend that I had no interest in the other person whatsoever? [In my head, this is pretty typical teenage girl behavior (or it was amongst my friend-group), although I cannot for the life of me ascertain why.]
So perhaps, if I see any of these gentlemen at my high school reunion, I will shake off that need for secrecy, and will just be blunt. (After this many years, why not?)
- "Hello, Patrick. I had a crush on you in kindergarten. And 1st grade. And I think part of 3rd grade. And one time I slipped from hiding it and announced, "Patrick, you're my hero," in the middle of class and everyone laughed. (And you asked me in 6th grade if I remembered it, and I lied and said I didn't. But I totally do, and was mortified. It was, in fact, my earliest memory of an embarrassing moment.) In retrospect, totally hilarious. You were the only person I knew in 1st grade who was part Jewish, and I remember insisting that my mom bring me to your house so that I could deliver some drawings I'd made of menorahs. I hope you enjoyed them. (On an unrelated note, in third grade, putting up the 'No Fishing' sign with our class' drawings of fish was totally your idea, and you whispered it to me, and I said it out loud, and then people credited me for it. And then I felt uncomfortable, and I didn't correct them. Super sorry about that. I was 8 and stupid. It was a great idea, and it was all yours.)"
- "Hi Richard. I had a crush on you in first grade. You used to talk about neat things you'd made with Legos. I thought you were the coolest. (Your sister reads my blog, so you'll probably find out about this without me having to approach you at the reunion. Awesome.)"
- "Hi Owen. I had a crush on you in 4th and 5th grades. We used to hang out whenever the soccer team that our little brothers were on had games. In those times when we were alone, you treated me like an equal or a friend, instead of like the awkward geek that I was. My massive crush was why when we had to make up a song to remember directions in Mr. Paul's class I said that you should be West and that we should rhyme West with "is the best," because I mentally venerated you, and then you made fun of me like three days later because I wanted to read during recess like the nerdy child that I was, and I never really got over that, but it's good to see you."
- "Hi Matt. I had a crush on you because you and I were the only two people in Accelerated Honors Math in 6th grade, and you had such pretty blue eyes. I'm pretty sure I was mostly turned on because you were the only boy in class who could keep up with me (I don't know if you remember this, but I was selected to represent the school at a state-wide math and science honors conference that year AND represented our class in the middle school spelling bee, so I was kind of a catch). But then Susanna guessed that I had a crush on you, which I vehemently denied, and then she told you I had a crush on you anyway, and then you started acting all arrogant around me, which I think you thought was somehow attractive, but it was not, and then I pretty much never spoke to you again. Hilarious! Also, I was totally jealous like junior year of high school when you won an academic award of some sort, and I realized that I had traded in my accelerated honors math classes for a chance at a (somewhat lacking but still totally existant) social life. And orchestra, choir, and the drama club. I hope you're working in theoretical physics now, and have a super-model girlfriend. (Okay, I just looked you up on Facebook, and it says you have a PhD. And your eyes are still mesmerizing. And now my crush on you is flickering a little again. Drat. This whole post is back-firing.)"
- "Hi Charles. You were the first person to whom I actually admitted my crush. And it was weird, because you were dating my best friend Amy at the time (if you can call anything that happens between 12-year-olds "dating"), but I HAD A CRUSH ON YOU FIRST, for like a YEAR before that, and kept telling Amy how great I thought you were, which is the whole reason she noticed you and asked you out in the first place, so I was strangely possessive over you. Sorry that I made your life awkward like that. But you're married now, so that's nice. And surprising, actually, since I totally suspected for awhile that might be gay. Apparently, you're not?"
(Side note: It seems I use an abundance of run-on sentences when writing about my young life. Man, I'm going all-in to the controversial grammar and punctuation today. Please forget and forgive.)
- "Hi Andy. I thought you were cute. I never actually spoke to you (not even once), so the crush never went very far. In later years, you totally reminded me of Bean Bunny from Muppet Babies for some reason. You are married now, to a girl I idolized in 2nd grade. The wedding pictures that your wife put on facebook are my favorite wedding pictures of anyone I know who has gotten married. I hope you two have a perfect little House Beautiful life. (And I swear I'm not saying that in a sarcastic way.)"
- "Hi Dan. Is this Dan? Or are you Matt? I think you're Dan. You have an identical twin, but I used to insist to people that I could totally tell the two of you apart. Even though we never spoke, I had a huge crush on you, and maintained that you are more attractive than your brother. I can't tell you apart on Facebook now, which makes me doubt I ever could. (Except for that time when you broke your arm and had a cast on. That made it easy.)"
- "Hi Dana. I had a crush on you for like 5 minutes of freshman year. I never told a soul, and I HATED that I had a crush on you, because about 70% of the girls in our freshman class were right there with me. But I had 5 (FIVE!) classes with you, so clearly I had the best shot (I'm pretty sure it was Accelerated German 2+3, Health/Gym, Orchestra, higher level Lit/Comp 9, and Geometry Honors). I used to wonder -- in one particular class where we both excelled -- if the teacher had ever mentally tried to match-make us (she was that kind of teacher). My Hotmail password was briefly "MeNDana", but then one day my friend Katie needed my password for something, so I changed it to anaDNeM, thinking she wouldn't notice (if she did, she never said a word...). You made fun of my platform sneakers (which I wore because I was 4'11" at the time) and giant sweatshirts (which I wore because I weighed 80 pounds at the time). You nick-named me "Skyrise", and I once obtained a caricature that you had drawn of me. I saved it for awhile as some sort of souvenir, but then I realized that it meant you were never going to be interested in me. (The platform sneakers and oversized sweatshirts didn't turn you on? Madness!) I probably still have it somewhere..."
- "Hi Kyle. I totally had a crush on you sophomore year, and you bought me a rose after a performance of some show I was in (because Laura told you that I had a crush on you), which made me melt (but I couldn't tell anyone, as I was trying to play it cool and deny the whole crush thing). And I baked you cupcakes for your birthday, but my mother wouldn't let me go to your party because this was back before I was medicated for ADHD and I used to do things like forget I had homework and/or lose the homework that I had done, and our German teacher called my house (yes, that actually happened) saying that I hadn't turned in a project (did I?) and I was grounded for, like, ever. But then we went on that class trip and I was roommates with Beth, and Beth appeared to have a WAY bigger crush on you than I did, so I decided to let it go. Also, there was a guy from another school on the trip who was from Alabama and had a really, really hot accent (I have a weakness for guys with accents), and that helped me get over you in a hurry. You visited me in Chicago with your wife, but I saw on Facebook that you have since divorced. You said you were going to come see me in Tony 'n Tina's Wedding (post-divorce), and I started to suspect that maybe you had some sort of lingering feelings for me. Did you need closure, too?"
- "Hi Nick. You made me laugh every day in higher level Lit/Comp 10. You were the first person who ever implied that I was in any way, shape, or form attractive. You did it when you pointed out that my new pea-coat made me look like I actually had curves (there was a flattering "hourglass figure" hand gesture involved). Oh, how I adored you after that. Being told that I looked like a girl was pretty much the highlight of my high school career. Considering that I had no boobs and didn't discover make-up until I was a senior, it was a very big deal in my life. So thanks for that. I heard that you dropped out of school, got engaged, and became a mechanic, but I can't find any evidence of any of that on Facebook. I hope you've had a nice life."
- "Hi Brian. I know technically we dated, but it wasn't until long after high school. And we just talked on the phone the other night about how we both totally had crushes on each other in high school, but neither of us said or did anything about it. Even though that's all out in the open already, I thought I'd take a moment to just let you know that you're great. And even though we had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad break-up (yeah, that sucked), in my head you've pretty much reverted to being "my cool friend Brian from high school", and I think that's great.
(Side note: I know that I put that comma outside of that quotation mark set. And I know that's controversial. But it is not, in fact, wrong, as I was not quoting something. You're allowed to put the punctuation outside of the quotation mark if you're using the quotation marks around a word or phrase as opposed to around a quotation. I had a whole argument with my editor about this a couple of months ago and ended up giving in and changing my sentence structure to circumvent the problem... But I just wanted to say that, because this is my blog and I needed to vent. And also because I'm sure SOMEONE out there is reading this and thought, "Angela has totally just misplaced that comma." But I did not. So there.)
And to the two boys in my class who will be watching over the reunion from heaven...
- "Hi Kevin. You died in 1998. You were in my Contact (homeroom) in eighth grade, so I was among the first to find out about your passing. An 'accidental death' that no one seemed to want to explain, surrounded by a variety of strange rumors (one of which included autoerotic asphyxiation in the shower, which I've always secretly believed was the truth). Everyone was shocked. In 2nd grade, you handed me a note that said, 'do you like me?' I checked the box next to 'yes', although I'd never thought about it before that moment. I was just so excited by the idea that someone might 'like' me. I made you a response note, and you checked that you 'liked' me, too. I believe subsequent notes used wilder phrases, like, 'Are you crazy about me?' All those notes got the 'yes' check marks. But by the next week at school, our little note-passing crush adventure must have fallen apart. I don't remember it ever going further than that. But thank you, for being the first person to ever show any sort of interest in me whatsoever. It was an experience that I didn't have again for many, many years."
- "Hi TJ. You died in 2007. I had bravely sent you a friend request on facebook about 24 hours before I heard of your death, which stayed 'pending' for a very long time (I had debated about sending that friend request for years, as I don't think I had a single class with you in middle or high school). I had a crush on you in 3rd grade. I remember once hanging out at your neighbor's house, and they insisted that we go to your house for some reason, and I was SO TERRIFIED that I would see you, because I was certain that I would accidentally do something completely mortifying in your house (break a vase? I don't know what I was imagining) and you would never speak to me again. Not that you spoke to me much to begin with. I remember you talking about your uncle who was a body builder. You called him your hero. I wonder if he had anything to do with you developing the eating disorder that led to your heart attack... It sounds so trivial to say this now, but I wish we could've been facebook friends."
(Side note: Maybe while I'm telling all these guys that I had crushes on them, I should also WARN THEM, as I had crushes on both of the guys in our class who have died, and THEY COULD BE NEXT... On second thought, I probably won't mention that.)
Okay, I don't know if I will actually go up to any of those guys at the reunion... But even just writing everything down was a nice act. (Also, I saw on facebook that Owen isn't even coming, and he's one of the ones to whom I most definitely would have declared my previous affections.) We'll see. In any case, I'll try to let you know how it goes.
May you find the voice to say the things you couldn't say before,
~A~
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