Disclaimer: I don't even remember when I wrote this; I found it on my old hard drive. And I'm not mad at anyone who may or may not have been in this story in real life....
I became jaded in 7th
grade when I realized the boy I liked was an asshole. I mean, it was about time
I just sucked it all up and grew a shield anyway. I cried all the time in
elementary school; my name was practically Crybaby. I am pretty sure I
responded to that title; by responding I mean I looked at the person who spoke
it and cried even more. So following that elementary turmoil and also mom’s
marriage (with the addition of two step sibling) I was
bound to turn out this way. My step siblings had their good qualities. And they really did know how to insult people. I
learned from the best. And after being punched in the boob about a million
times by my step-sister, which she seemed to find hilarious, I figured it was time to
stop whining and fight back.
Back to the part about the boy I
liked being an asshole.
When going into seventh grade,
there is only one thing to look forward to. That “thing” would be dances. I couldn’t
imagine anything more wonderful than “Truly, Madly, Deeply” blasting over
speakers and slow dancing with a hottie. So when the fateful day came around I
had my best friends over and we got ready in the bathroom for like an hour. I’m
not sure how that’s even possible considering I didn’t even have a hair
straightener at the time, let alone any mascara. We were probably blasting
Nsync through the house--gettin’ pumped. When it came time to drive down the
road towards the dance hall we were nervous and afraid our butterfly clips
would fall out of our hair or something. We walked in and went immediately into
the bathroom to make sure we still looked okay (because it had been a whole ten
minutes since we last saw ourselves). It was pretty awkward to be honest; all
the 8th graders knew the drill and were already getting cozy on the
dance floor, but all the 7th graders stood there in a daze. The ones
who did get the courage to dance went out onto the dance floor with their
partner as soon as Kci and Jojo came on, but they danced like 2 feet apart from
each other with their arms straight out and stiff as sticks. The 8th
graders definitely knew what was going on; they were all up ons and grabbing
each other’s butts. Anyway, I knew that wasn’t about to be me, but I figured I
could find someone and ask him to dance and it would be cool enough to just
dance a tree-branch-arm’s-length away. I don’t think I had ever even touched a
guy’s shoulder anyway.
Naturally I decided I would ask
John because we had liked each other for basically our whole lives. Yes, I
consider 4th, 5th and 6th grade my whole life
at this point. Seriously, there was no point to my life before I first saw John
on my first day of full time GATE class. He was also the only guy that didn’t
ever call me a name and he liked Hanson because I liked Hanson. He had blue
eyes and blonde hair. The perfect boy, I know! So, I walked up to John after I
saw his mom at the table that was selling cookies; she totally encouraged me
and told me that she hoped me and John would get married some day. I saw him
standing near the dance floor and I was talking myself into asking him and
getting kind of nervous but “of course he will say ‘yes’ because we are meant
to be an everyone knows it!” plus “he told me in 5th grade that he
would ask me out in 7th grade because that is when he’d be allowed
to have a girlfriend. And now we are in 7th grade!!!!!!!” Well I was wrong. I walked right up to him
and asked “hey John, do you want to dance with me?” (And you have to know that
something amazing like Savage Garden was on, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked
him.) And you know what he said?
NO!
He said NO!
He was the love of my life and he
said no to dancing with me. He wouldn’t even dance with me with our arms
straight out like sticks two feet apart from one another, after all the time I
spent on my hair and my nonexistent make up and putting body glitter on! Are
you freakin’ kidding me!?!?! How is this possible? I mean, I know he had been a
jerk in the past, like when he went out with Kay at outdoor school even though
she knew I liked him and I thought she was my friend. But she didn’t go to our
jr. high, he had no girlfriend and he liked me for nearly 3 years in elementary
school. HOW COULD HE DENY ME OF THIS!?!?
Then, since I was a 7th
grade girl at her first dance, I grabbed a couple friends, told them the
horrible news and spent the remainder of the dance crying in the bathroom.
That’s right, back to being a Crybaby after a whole summer with a dry face.
After this incident, John was my
worst enemy and I don’t think he even knew it. I can really hold a grudge. Being
denied this simple dance at age 12 with the guy I adored was enough to callous
me for life. Dances after this one were much better to say the least. I just
avoided him like the plague. I danced with as many random guys as possible and
sometimes they were very unattractive and then there were the occasional stinky
ones, but it was just important to me to dance with people and not be denied. I
don’t think I was ever denied a dance again after that incident. And if someone
did deny me, I’m sure I would call him an asshole to their face.
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