We have a record playing in the background because we are either hipsters or we're 75 years old (we are 75 years old. The record is Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which is the only record collection Matt actually has in the house).
And suddenly Matt offered, without even looking up, "my first girlfriend broke up with me because of Beethoven."
Matt occasionally emits these whiffs of intrigue into the air without any further detail or any hint that he hopes anyone will ask him for any further detail. But he's learned with me by this point that I'm going to be relentless until he gives the detail. So I only had to pester for a moment.
The story was basically this: Matt's girlfriend wanted him to meet her and all of her friends at the movie theater to see Beethoven. I just looked it up. This was 1992.
Matt's dad drove him and when they got there they found out the movie was sold out. Because Beethoven was apparently a very popular movie in 1992 Clinton Mississippi.
So they drove home. And the girlfriend thought that Matt had stood her up. So she dumped him.
They were 11.
I felt for him.
I started receiving secret admirer notes when I was 11 years old. They were left in my tote tray in elementary school.
They said things like, "you are super neat," and "I think you are super cute" and "you are super." The point is, they way overused the word "super."
My childhood best friend Sam and I would spend hours trying to discover the admirer's identity. Sam would help me steal papers from girls in the class to compare handwriting. We had a list of some sort where we wrote down the names of everyone in the class and when we felt confident enough we would cross names off of the list.
The notes continued even after we finished elementary school. They were left in my middle school locker. They became more and more elaborate, eventually including treats and full paragraphs.
We nearly went crazy trying to discover who was doing this. I had every note carefully saved in a big manila envelope I had fished out of Cathie's sewing room. (I had dumped whatever was previously in the envelope into a drawer full of thimbles. Sorry, Cathie.)
The diagrams of our theories looked like something out of A Beautiful Mind.
And then, upon finishing middle school, the notes abruptly stopped.
I was left to wonder if my secret admirer had moved away or died or lost interest because of something I said or did.
A few years went by. We graduated high school. We went away to college for a year. Sam and I both applied to serve Mormon missions at the same time. He was assigned to Bulgaria. I was assigned to Ukraine. In what was probably the strangest coincidence of my life, Sam and I were briefly assigned as "companions" while in the Missionary Training Center in Provo where we were learning Ukrainian and Bulgarian.
We were 19 now, and we would lie in these bunk beds at night. I was on the bottom bunk and Sam was on the top. And we would stay up half the night laughing and sharing memories from our childhood.
And from time to time, we would revisit the mystery of the secret admirer. Sam offered some new theories. I offered some new theories. But both of us were completely stumped. And both of us knew that there was a pretty good chance we would never discover the identity of this faithful secret admirer who had devoted three or four years to writing anthems to my wonder.
We finished our two-year missions. We both finished college. Sam moved away to dental school and then his orthodontic residency. I went to law school and then got trapped in the equatorial Pacific.
Eventually we both found ourselves a couple of years into our careers.
I was living in Salt Lake City. Sam was living in Colorado.
And so I went to visit him. And we began laughing and sharing childhood memories, like we do. And naturally this caused me to think about the mystery of the secret admirer. So I broached the subject again. And before I could even get a full sentence out, Sam interrupted with an almost bored, "yeah that was me the whole time. I was just messing with you."
So, yeah. Twenty years. He held onto that one for twenty years.
I would like to think he did it to boost my self esteem. But I'm not naive. Sam's commitment to a joke has always been impressive.
The point is, Matt got dumped in sixth grade because Beethoven was popular and I got duped in sixth grade because I was unpopular.
Now it's your turn. Tell me your best angsty romance story.
~It Just Gets Stranger
My girlfriend waited for me while I served a mission. We semi-dated for a few months after I got home. We broke up. She turned in mission papers. The same week her brother brought a friend home to hang out. This friend and my ex hit it off bigly. They got engaged three weeks later. She cancelled her mission call. They got married.
ReplyDeleteMy mom paid for her reception.
Wait - YOUR MOM PAID FOR HER RECEPTION????
DeletePlease explain that!
Yes. What Nicole said.
DeleteEx's parents wouldn't pay for the fanciest venue in town, and my mom was always on ex's side anyway. She still is. It's been like 7 years.
DeleteI have no words . . . . .
DeleteWhoa, your mother's ability to hold a grudge is impressive. And not a little bit scary.
DeleteI once liked a guy for five years...FIVE YEARS OF MY LIFE Y'ALL (and I don't even say y'all) anyways through that time he never showed any interest in me and proceeded to "baptist date" the majority of my friends throughout that time...Sorry Eli that's as angsty as my love life gets. I'm still single and thankfully way over him��
ReplyDeleteCan you explain "baptist date"? Sounds intriguing!
Delete"Baptist date" ...crying laughing
DeleteI had a deeply felt crush on my friend's older brother from the age of 13-17. I thought I was subtle and reserved about it. He thought I was a stalker. We never dated and I got married (many years later) to my other friend's older brother, who I argued and fought with all the time growing up. Because my life is a romcom cliche.
ReplyDeleteI think I love Sam.
ReplyDeleteThis is sort of amazing and scary at the same time! (I'm talking about the popularity of Beethoven in 1992, of course.)
ReplyDeleteProbably my most angsty story: in high school a group of kids from my history class went on a trip to Europe. I was a junior and most of the other students were seniors. I had a big crush on one of the senior boys and he seemed to like me back. One night after some friends pushing us we ended up in his hotel room alone. I wanted to kiss him so badly but I had never kissed anyone and I was so scared that I started having a panic attack and ended up literally running out of the room. He was totally confused and I was so embarrassed that I avoided him for the rest of the trip AND THE REST OF HIGH SCHOOL. I literally hid any time I saw him coming. Poor guy, I have no idea what he thought about the whole thing. Luckily he graduated at the end of that year since he was a senior. That was 2001 and I have never seen him since then. Young love, amiright??
Awesomesauciness here - your page seems to think I don't exist today..so I'm anonymous, but not really.
ReplyDeleteAnyway....up to the moment Sam outed himself I was going with Cathie. You sure it wasn't her idea?
Angsty - shoot, son, I'm too old to have "angsty" anything. I'm more boot-strappy, as in pull yourself up by, so I never have been the pining away type. Doesn't hurt that I got married at the age of before-birth and have been married for 41 years (yes to the same man, why does everyone ask me that question as if marriage years were cumulative when spread over a population?), so I've been too busy being adult-y to ever be angsty.
I'm told that I'd be very hipster-y if I put a little less effort into..everything, though, so there's that.
Awesomesauciness, will you please do me a favor and write a book? Just one very long book with only one chapter. No plot. No structure. I just want 900 pages of stream-of-conscious writing. And then I want a signed copy.
DeleteI'd buy that book.
DeleteWe would all buy that book. Signed copy for me too please.
DeleteGuys, I did write a book...only by "book" I mean, blog. And by blog I mean..blog.
DeleteClick on my name and you'll find lots of stuff there. Not a single chapter, or plot, or structure.
Once you're done, if you'll send me your monitors I'll happily sign them. Just be sure to include a self-addressed stamped box for its return. I ain't payin' postage.
I love your blog!
DeleteI had a huge crush on a boy in elementary. Maybe about 4th grade (I went to school with this kid all my life, so I don't remember exactly, but young.) We were at the pool and he made some kind of overture, I don't remember what. I only vividly recall what happened next. I knew from my intense television viewing that I should turn and walk away. At that point he would chase me down and pull me into his arms, convincing me of his true love and we would be in love forever. I knew this was how it worked because it was on tv! So I turned and flounced away, as best you can in a pool. But apparently he didn't get his copy of the script because he didn't follow. When I turned around, expecting him to be right here, he and his friend were staring at me, then started to splash me and make fun of me and promptly forget I existed. My one true love!! It was crushing.
ReplyDeleteI have a story. It's not angsty but it is about Beethoven. My husband and I dated for a few months, then broke up, then reconciled when he invited me over to listen to Beethoven's Fifth.
ReplyDeleteThat's the whole story. Come pay money to hear me tell more gems like this, everyone!
Nu fone hu dis.
DeleteFirst - I suspected it was Sam - and then I didn't - and then it was . . . . Good job Sam. Also - I love the name Sam.
ReplyDeleteAngsty romance . . . . . hahahahahaha - that I could write a book on! I'll give you one of the more tame and tragic examples:
When I was 15 I liked a boy who was 13. He liked me too but I didn't know it. We went to Cedar Point with church. We rode the corkscrew together and the thought he would impress me be spitting when we were upside down so it would land on the people walking under us (he was 13 okay???). He clearly didn't understand physics at the time and it landed on me.
Regardless of this about 9 months later we started dating. I know - I dated the boy that spit on me . . . . It took him that long to ask me to be his girlfriend because of the spitting incident. He was certain there was NO way I would every say yes. By the time he asked me I was 16 and could drive and he was 14.
I was his first kiss. He was my first love. His mom did NOT like the fact that he was "going with" a girl 2 years older than him who could drive. He got home late one night (we were kissing and lost track of time) and was grounded for two weeks. We had NO contact for those two weeks. When it was done I was going to give him my class ring and he broke up with me.
The next morning (after crying all night) I woke up all puffy with a 105 temperature. My mom took me to the doctor (which rarely happened) and we found out I had mono. I had to call the boy that just broke my heart and tell him I had the kissing disease . . . .
Once I was really good friends with this guy. I thought he liked me because one day, out of the blue, he called and asked me to do a podcast with him. And I was like, "this is it! I can finally prove my mother wrong and show her that someone really can love me!" Turns out, he just wanted me to do a podcast with him and that wasn't a euphemism for anything.
ReplyDeleteREAD THE SIGNS, JO. I'M NOT GETTING ANY YOUNGER.
Delete❤️🤗 Shucks, you two.
DeleteI read Stranger for the posts AND the comments. Today is a perfect example why.
ReplyDeleteDitto, Anonymous. Strangers are the best commenters. It's just a great big ball of weird around here.
ReplyDeleteMy first "romance" was when I was in 6th grade. All my friends were talking about boys they liked so I decided I should like one too. I looked over the options and picked one, and told my friends in the strictest confidence. He, of course, found out mere hours later, and started flirting with me, which scared me to death, haha. I ran to my friends and told them to tell him I didn't really like him at all. I was super savvy in the dating world at twelve years old. Lol. Ironically, I developed a real crush on him in high school, but I had apparently burned that bridge bc he avoided me like the plague. Oh the joys of the teen years.
I was home schooled, and hadn't dated much. I ended up dating my first boyfriend for awhile when I was 18 after graduating. When Valentine's Day rolled around, a few months into our dating, I was unenthusiastically handed a bucket of popcorn and told his mother had bought it so I would have at least SOMETHING. I was dumped not long after that, for a Jehovah's Witness who didn't celebrate expensive silly holidays or birthdays, and, who raised goats in her house.
ReplyDeleteAlso: My mother was DEVISTATED. She had apparently been planning on grand babies that would have his green eyes. Not even kidding, the first words out of her mouth were "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT HE DUMPED YOU???????" and, "IS HE OKAY???? I will call him now, and make sure."
One time in elementary school, this boy gave me a note saying that he loved me and just stood there waiting for an answer. I wrote back to meet me on the playground at recess to talk. He said okay. At recess, I gave him a lecture about how hard women's lives are? Something like that. I basically told him that because I'm a girl, and I have to deal with childbirth which is really hard, that I shouldn't have to deal with his crap. I don't think he loved me anymore after that.
ReplyDeleteThat is AWESOME!
DeleteI was always the dumper and never the dumpee. My senior year in college I dated this guy that was out of school and living the dream of being a financial planner I'll wait while you collectively oooo and ahhhh, and he thought he was fancy because Acura and personalized license plate and loafers. I wasn't as impressed as he thought I should be. But that didn't matter for long because one night I found a bottle of cuticle oil in his nightstand and I realized I couldn't go another day dating someone who had less hangnails than me. I dumped him and left him crying in my dorm room one random Thursday night because my friends were outside waiting for me to go to the bar. My homebody roommate consoled him while I threw back shots of Rumpleminze in celebration. Cold. I am a nicer person now, with just as many hangnails.
ReplyDelete"he thought he was fancy because Acura and personalized license plate and loafers." Hahahaha. I swear I have dated this same person.
DeleteIt wasn't for his cuticles...
DeleteIn 5th grade I had a huge crush on one of my best friends, he knew. My other friends knew, literally all of 5th grade knew which was kinda awkward but didnt really affect our friendship,at first, however a couple months before the end of the year another girl asked me if I would date him if I would date him if he asked which duh yes, anyways she decided that meant he and I were dating and told everyone who then asked me about it, I was really confused, but hopeful, until I heard him angrily deny we were dating... I didnt talk to him again until well into 6th grade, but now at 21 were still friends
ReplyDeleteIn 4th grade, a boy who used to chase me around all the time and call me "moose" had his friends come tell me that he liked me (silly me for not recognizing the signs, right?). I told them to relay the message "find a cliff and jump" (so eloquent and kind), and they came back with the news that he thought I was a "slut." This was very emotionally damaging to my young heart and we ended up in the counselor's office. He said that his friends had it wrong, that he called me a klutz, and I was the one who got in trouble.
ReplyDeleteThis is not romance related (OR IS IT?!?!), but I love that before I even read a sentence of your post I thought to myself "Oh look! He's hanging out at Matt's house. Because I know what Matt's house looks like. Even though I live in Alaska. Even though I've never met Matt. I know what Matt's house looks like and I know that that is his new rug that he bought because the last one wasn't masculine enough. WHO AM I?!?!
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry Matt. I'm really not a creeper, but I do have a really big crush on your house.
Ditto, exactly.
DeleteI just sent this comment to Matt and he told me to tell you to stop stalking him. But he kind of said it the way you say "oh stop" when someone is complimenting you and you actually want them never to stop. So you should probably go visit him at home really late at night, unannounced.
DeleteHashtag Instagram famous.
DeleteHashtag I want to visit him late at night, unannounced, but I'm not sure if Mr Pants will get along with Gatsby the Catsby and that would destroy all my dreams.
Bethany - I thought the same thing about the rug. What's more - for the last three weeks we've been working on renovating my kitchen. My husband just got done pulling up the floor and there are linoleum stick on tiles on the bottom (under the vinyl floor that was under the floating floor). The tile guy said we could leave them and all I could think was "Matt would get those up").
DeleteJust wanted to let you know that I showed Matt your comment, Nicole, and he confirmed that he would, in fact, make sure the linoleum stick-on tiles were removed.
DeleteI'm going to Imzy to post a picture just so he can get the full effect of what I'm talking about . . . make sure he sees it please!
DeleteDumped on Valentines day for wanting to go to my senior prom. (He was graduated and was really annoyed I always wanted to do "high school" things. You know. What senior in high school wants to have fun.)
ReplyDeleteOuch! I didn't date in high school, I was a HUGE nerd with coke bottle glasses, braces, and total lack of style. I didn't go to prom either, big surprise, I know.
DeleteI am trying to think of what to share... I was not kind to boys growing up, so while I went on many dates, none were romantic, and I did not have my first kiss until I was 22. (Is this a Mormon thing, to go on dates as friends? I only became mean if they actually began to "like" me). Anyway, here's one. The first time a guy asked me on a date and I knew it was because he liked me special, I hesitantly said yes. We to a movie, and just before it started he asked if he could hold my hand. I had never held hands with anyone before. I thought I was going to die from nervousness. (I was 19, ya'll. Ridiculous) I told him he could, so he shyly reached over to take my hand. The very second, nay the instant our hands touched, I burst out laughing and pulled my hand back to my side. Cruel, and awkward, and why was I so strange? Phew. Let me never have to date again I pray.
ReplyDeleteI relate to this comment SO MUCH.
DeleteI just remembered this is not the story I meant to share. Seriously, I am a mess. I really meant to share about how in high school my best friend and I made up a fake boyfriend for her that she met and started dating named "Ryan Zillo" and we convinced everyone he was real, going so far as to have the front office deliver a card and Valentine's Day present to her in class that he had "dropped off". Seriously, even the Spanish teacher was swooning when it came. That was my real story!! The other one is true, sadly.
DeleteOMG I did this! Well - not the Valentine thing but the fake boyfriend thing when I was 14!
DeleteBethany and Nicole, thank you for the validation! Life is crazy.
DeleteIf it's not too painful, Amy, please share the hiding in the closet one!!
DeleteDo I dare share any??
I am desperately wracking my brain trying to think what the closet story is, but it is not comic to mind. Maybe I should ask you to remind me in a text... and then probably share it here. I have nothing to hide from my stranger family. L
DeleteIn college I dated a guy for about 4 months. We had been friends and then decided to date (that whole process was angst-y enough. The do we or don't we, don't want to ruin the friendship conversations, etc.). He was very sweet and asked me out by serenading me at my window singing "Unchained Melody." Like, I said, sweet (although he definitely was never going to have musical artist as a career to fall back on). Anyway, at the end of the semester, I went home with him to visit for 10 days before I flew home. And his family were not fans of mine. At all. I'm not sure why exactly, but I think I was not at all what they had envisioned for him. 10 days is a LONG time when the parents don't like you and you can tell. Anyway, I happily flew home to Hawaii to face a long summer of long distance from him, just sure that he and I would be together forever. Now, this was in the days before email/texts/cellphones were the prevalent forms of communication, so we relied on the occasional (very expensive) phone call via landline and many written letters. Checking the mailbox was a highlight of my day. One day, I found not one, but two letters from him. So, I opened the one postmarked earliest and proceeded to read a long epistle about how much he loved me and missed me, etc. Then, in the next letter, POSTMARKED THE VERY NEXT DAY, he broke up with me. Yes, via a LETTER. And he wrote it the day before he went on family vacation so I couldn't even call him to tell him what I thought about that until about a week after I got the letter. I still have no idea what happened between one day and the next to have him change his mind so quickly, although it definitely had to do with his family's feelings about me. We did manage to get to be friends again in the following 2 years at college. But I was evermore a "do not break up with people via letter! At least have the decency to pick up the phone" evangelist.
ReplyDeleteWow - that was a longer story than I thought. Sorry.
Oh dear Jen, I'm afraid I'll have to be the one to tell you that the reason his family didn't warm up to you...actually, the reason for every family not warming to every girl/boyfriend...is because......sigh........your socks didn't match.
DeleteThere, I said it.
Sorry.
HA! Yes, my socks could be it. It also may (and I'm just guessing here) have had something to do with the fact that they envisioned a much more meek, sweet, obey-the-husband sort of person for their son. Not my sarcastic jokes, strong personality sort.
DeleteThe funny thing is, my family loved him. Loved! My mom will still say, if his name comes up, "I loved him" in a wistful tone of voice. So, clearly, his socks matched.
DeleteMy Sophomore year of high school, this guy who was a year behind me, and the brother of my friends boyfriend, begged me all year to go out with him. I refused. He was NOT my type at all. He was always getting into trouble, getting into fights, etc. Pretty bad. So, the summer cane & went. We started back to school and he walks in a completely different person (so I thought.) No more fighting, no more cutting class, etc. I started to develop a crush, we start dating and not even a month into the relationship, he made out with my BEST FRIEND. They hid it from me for a while, when I found out he had cheated on me with another girl who was a Freshman that year. That's OK. Karma bit him in the butt. She cheated on him with HIS best friend...and got pregnant (it was quite the scandal.)
ReplyDeleteMy sophomore year of college I went on one date with a boy before he told me we should elope to Vegas. I turned him down for subsequent dates, but that didn't stop him from planning an elaborate valentines dinner for me (4 months after our first date) and I had to tell him I wasn't interested and he cried on the phone. I felt so bad.
ReplyDeleteIn other dating news, after my first boyfriend kissed me I gave him a high five. (It was my first kiss, how was I supposed to react?) Also, I was 25 years old. And I married him last summer. If that's not a happy ending to the most awkward thing ever, I don't know what is.
After my first kiss, which I had actually asked for (that's another truly awkward story) I punched him, just right in the gut. Reflex. Case in point, when my husband proposed, I said yes, he kissed me, I punched him right in the gut. Old habits die so hard.
DeleteRemind me never to sit next to Amy at a Strangerville Live. I promise not to try and kiss you if you promise not to punch me.
DeleteDone and done. You will know me by the red rose I will be holding. And that I will look exhausted, having driven from
DeleteNebraska.
I'm exhausted just thinking about the drive from Nebraska. I'll have the caffeinated beverage of your choice waiting for you.
DeleteAmy - you tell me when you're going and I'll pick you up on my way from Michigan!
DeleteBut I won't kiss you . . . I bruise easily.
DeleteI think this plan could work for me!!
DeleteA few years ago one of my clients wouldn't stop begging me to go out with her nephew's friend who was "Perfect for you!". My client's name is Sue, keep in mind that my name is Suzanne. I had be on several tragically bad blind dates and it took her months of wearing me down before I caved. I braced myself for another terrible date, but it was pretty awesome. He was pretty awesome.
ReplyDeleteThis guy was extremely attractive (like a solid 9.5), funny, attentive, and very smart. He'd gone to a very nice school and came from a country club background. On a very good day I clean up to 7.5, maybe 8 if I had help with my hair and makeup, on an average day I'm more like a 6, in short he was WAY out of my league. So after a movie and a nice late dinner I did not expect to hear from him again. I was very shocked when he called me a week later and invited me to a concert in SLC for the following week. I agreed, we went, he was incredibly charming and flirtatious and I began thinking "What's wrong with him, why is he interested in ME?", because that looked and acted like him definitely were NOT lining up to date me.
After the second date my ego had been significantly boosted and I thought maybe I had a shot. Then a week went by and I didn't hear anything. I had managed to get 2 tickets to a great concert in Salt Lake for the end of that month and I thought I'd call him since he'd mentioned he liked the band I was going to see. I called and he didn't pick up. I left a rambling voicemail blabbering on about how I'd enjoyed the first 2 dates and since he'd been so nice to take me out twice I wanted to return the favor and take him out and would he maybe kind of sort of be interested in going to this concert with me at the end of the month ok thanks have a great day talk to you later thanks bye.
And then I waited, hopeful. Later that night I get a text from him. Only as I read it I realized it wasn't for me at all. It was meant for my client Sue. It went along the lines of: "Hey Sue, so question for you. I went out with your weird friend and I even asked her out a second time like you asked me to, but she just asked me out and I really don't want to go out with her again. How can I tell her I'm not interested."
I'll admit, I was crushed and embarassed. My first reaction was to send a really nasty reply but then I realized he thought he was communicating with someone else. So I called my client and explained what happened, I asked her to call him and tell him to just call or text me and say "Thanks but no thanks." and that I would get the picture. She was really mad at him and wanted to give him a piece of her mind but I begged her to not say anything about the mix up and to just do what I asked. She did and I got a text from him basically saying that while he thought I was "cute as a button" but that he was dating other people and wasn't interested in going to the show.
Neither of us had smart phones at the time so there was no ongoing conversation displayed on the screen. I don't know if he scrolled back through his texts and saw he had texted the wrong person, or even if he had done it on purpose, but if he knew what he did I never found out. The moral of the story kids is: If it seems to good to be true, you're probably the weird friend.
The Suzzzzzzzzz, I just love you and all of your Zs. The fact that you handled it the way you did speaks volumes about you.
DeleteThis year for Lent I'm giving up dating. Which is easy since no one is asking me out. I'm thinking of pitching the whole nun thing to the quorum of the 12. Let's face it there are more Mormon women than men so they've got to consider the nun thing, or allowing gay marriage for women, or bringing back polygamy. Given the church's track record I'm guessing the nun thing is probably the most appealing of the three for them.
DeleteYou handled that so well, the Suzzzzzzz. You are as classy as all your z's lead us to believe.
DeleteAs far as unrequited love goes there's a much older story that I was reminded of lately. When I was going to school about 17 years ago I briefly dated a guy who I was really into. He was really pushy about getting more physical than I was comfortable with so I backed off. Around that same time I ended up moving back to Logan and this guy wanted to continue dating and have a long distance relationship (he lived about an hour away from me). A month after I moved he calls me out of the blue. Since I hadn't heard from him in a couple weeks I thought he was wanting to plan a date. NOPE. He was calling to invite me to his wedding. What?!? Turns out he'd been sleeping with another girl from school for the last 2 months and she was pregnant so they were getting married. I did NOT attend the ceremony. I did think about sending a card that said "Roses are red, violets are blue, condoms are cheaper than making a mini you!" But I didn't, cause I'm SUPER classy. NOT THAT I KNOW WHAT CONDOMS ARE CATHY!
DeletePeople keep telling me to write a book about my bad dates and bad relationships...and they act like this is a compliment.
Delete"You're so GREAT at being a magnet for jerks, sleazeballs, weirdos, desperate guys, and married men. You should write about your awkward and embarrassing experiences so we can be amused and grateful we aren't you."
If I had spare time maybe I would write that book. It would have a big read A+ on the cover and the title would be A Is For Awkward. I would of course change the names to protect the guilty. And then I would never get another date every again.
I would buy this book, too. Requesting a signed copy, something like, "Stay classy, fellow Stranger. The Suzzzzzzz". I would keep it on my nightstand next to awesomesauciness' book. Which I will have as soon as I print her book and have it bound.
DeleteI would buy that book in a heartbeat--as long as it didn't turn into advice. I hate it when people try to turn their awful dating stories into things I should learn from. Let me just laugh and sympathize with the misery that is dating.
DeleteAdvice, don't date me.
DeleteI am so impressed with how you handled that! I don't know that I would be that nice and classy. Way to be :)
DeleteFirst ever boyfriend, in fifth grade, was first just a major crush. Like many others, I thought I was being slick, but he and everybody else knew I had a thing for him. One day he asked me on a date, and I was obviously stoked. It was one of the most bizarre dates I've been on, still to this day. Anyway, his mom drove him to me up and we went to Furr's Cafeteria for an early dinner. I was trying to look cool, and picked a bottled drink out of the ice bin, which turned out to be diet root beer. She grilled me about being on a diet because of it, and the fact that I was only picking at the chicken I had gotten. I made an excuse that I wasn't hungry (lie) and that I must have picked up the wrong kind of root beer. She took me home, and he was supposed to come back around 7 with his dad to take me to a movie. About 15 minutes before he's supposed to get there I get a gushing bloody nose. I ruined the shirt that I was wearing and started crying. I got cleaned up and dressed as he was coming to the door. We went to the theater and saw (I just had to google Tom Selleck baseball movie) Mr. Baseball. I was not a baseball fan, but the movie was fine. I want to say he kissed my cheek, but I honestly can't remember. We dated for about a month, then he said his dad didn't like me, and we broke up. He was still incredibly good looking, and got even hotter as he got older, until we graduated high school. Then he turned into one of those douchey guys that drives a jacked up truck, wears white Oakleys and puka shell necklaces, and starts fights at the bar for fun. Not my jam. -- Almost missed this bit...didn't want to go back and try to integrate it. Anyway, when his mom came to pick me up, I was way more interested in the fact that she was in a wheelchair and had to use special handles and things to push the pedals in her car since she was paraplegic. She was very cool, and I talked to her way more than I talked to him the entire ride to the restaurant and dinner.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time I had a crush on a boy when I was 10.. I quickly found out he was a year younger than me and got over him, for I was looking for an older man. Fast forward a few years, I move back in the area after being gone 9 months. I'm now 15. And he had hit puberty/grown 20 inches taller. I proceed to be in love with him for the next 2.5 years. I make some new friends. One of them also falls in love with this guy, but we're such good friends that we would be like "oh you can have him, he obviously is into to you," As if he was ours to give away?? I eventually move away, and so does my friend. (She literally moved to South America)
ReplyDeleteNearly 2 years later, he's engaged to our close friend. And get this, she's older than him.
My 2nd grade girlfriend broke up with me because I liked blueberry pie and she didn't... Because, priorities...
ReplyDeleteAlso, my high school girlfriend and I started dating when I was a junior and she was a sophomore. We dated through the rest of high school and my first year of college and, kind of lost touch over that last summer and broke up a few weeks into my sophomore year of college. We honestly hadn't spoken in about 2-3 MONTHS and the conversation went something like this-
Her: Hey!
Me: Hey you!
Her: So... We should probably break up...
Me: Yeah, you're probably right... So, how've you been?!
And we proceeded to have a normal 2hr catch up conversation. Not a bad way to end a significant 3 year relationship!
So we're all waiting to know. Did you find Mrs. Blueberry Pie and live happily ever after?
DeleteHahaha not quite... My high school girlfriend was actually my last girlfriend ever. However, I DID find MR. Pie and we've settled on French Silk Pie vs blueberry 😋
DeleteP.S.
I feel so honored to have earned a response from the amazing Suzzzz!!!! I love reading your comments as much as I love Eli's hair!!!
Awwww congratulations! And I approve of French Silk.
DeleteFrench silk is an excellent compromise.
DeleteMy toddler's been watching "Trolls" every night, and every time it gets to the part where Branch sings the "and that's why I love you" section of True Colors to Princess Poppy and she looks surprised, I get that angsty feeling in my chest of remembering how the one long-standing crush of a lifetime lets you know how he feels but you're oceans apart so many factors away and it nothing will ever come of it. Sigh!!!
ReplyDeleteI don't really do angst, but I can share an awkward tinder date experience from last year. We met at this little beverage place, and ordered drinks. We were the only people there. We sat down and chatted a bit, but the conversation kept stalling. His answers were not long enough for me to ask good questions, and he showed very little interest in anything I had to say. I was entertained by the amount of awkwardness he was clearly feeling, and wondered when he would give up and leve. He asked about what classes I was taking, and I mentioned ASL. He latched right on to that and regaled me with a solid 10 minute speech on the merits of melding all signed languages into a single language to simplify communication. I asked if he thought we should do the same with hearing people and he looked at me like I was crazy. I then explained to him that ASL is its own separate language, with its own culture and all that jazz. We talked about it for a minute, and he was having trouble grasping the whole 'languages are very complex and have a ton of rules and are not easily melded' idea, so I gave up and stopped talking. By this point, we'd been there for maybe 20 minutes (generous), and it was clear that we weren't a good fit. I was trying to come up with a new topic. He broke the silence with this gem, "Do you have somewhere you need to be?" I said no, because I didn't have somewhere I needed to be, and sometimes forget to pay attention to subtext. Also, I was mildly entertained and had nowhere better to be at that moment. (You know when you are single, and people think you need to date, and will let you out of all sorts of unpleasant obligations if you tell them you are going on a date, so you want to maybe extend the bad, but harmless, date just a little bit longer to avoid going back to the task without the guilt of lying about when the date actually ended.) So,we chatted for another couple of minutes before he asked again if I needed to be somewhere. This confused me, because he had literally just asked two minutes before. I said no again, and we sat in awkward silence for about 30 seconds. Then, he asked again. I said yes, and left. (It took me that long to realize that he didn't actually care if I had anywhere else I needed to go, he just wanted the date to end, and didn't want to be the one to end it.) I got in my car, watched him pull out of the lot, and laughed until I cried.
ReplyDeleteSome people just don't understand the entertainment value of awkwardness. It be a personal adaptation of mine because all of my real-life encounters are at least a little awkward, so it's probably for the best that I enjoy them. One of us should.
DeleteFirst crush happened in preschool, but we didn't go to the same elementary school. When I got reacquainted with him in Junior High, I was even more attractive, but I pretty much avoided him as much as possible to avoid any sort of embarrassment/awkward encounter. And nothing ever came of it. Basically my childhood love life is summed up by endless crushes and this quote, "You don't want to fall in love. You want to fall in love in a movie."
ReplyDeleteBest line ever - (literally) sleepless and in Seattle
DeleteI liked a boy in high school. It took all the courage I had, but I asked him to a dance, which was a big deal to me. 20 years later I had convinced myself that I wasn't as unnoticed in high school as I had believed I was back then. I went to my high school reunion a new woman, full of confidence...until he sat at my table and went on and on about how much he liked my friend, who was also sitting with us, in high school. I confessed my old crush and he didn't remember me or the dance at all, even though there was a group picture of us at the dance on display there.
ReplyDeleteWorked at a summer camp the summer I was 17. One of the other staff members was this GORGEOUS mk
ReplyDeleteI had an enormous crush on him, as did about half he girls here (including my 15 year old sister, which was also awkward). I tried to be subtle about it, but i probably was not. Subtlety has never been a strong point with me (insert reference to the year I got my aforementioned sister a DVD of "Seven brides for Seven Brothers" for her birthday and then gave her like 500 hints about what it was and then was SHOCKED when she guessed correctly). Anyhow. He never let on that he knew, but he definitely didn't reciprocate my feelings, as evidenced by the fact that he called me "the human embodiment of a squirrel" and said I had "lego eyebrows" whatever that means. Anyhow. So the summer ended, I still had STRONG feelings for him, but I knew I would never see him again. Fast forward two years--I'm in a small college, several states away, and strolling through the student center when whom do I see but this guy (still attractive as ever). His girlfriend's sister when to school with me, and the two of them had come for a weekend visit. He remembered me and we chatted for a minute. Several days later when talking to the girl they had come to visit I awkwardly blurted out, "I used to have a HUGE crush on your sister's boyfriend!" We were never very close after that.
I also had a LOT of angst over the man that is now my husband. It was pretty close to love at first sight for me, but it took him a year and 14 pans of homemade brownies to come around. Thankfully he did and we just celebrated our first anniversary. ❤️
When I was in first grade, I was best friends with this boy and every day he would bring an extra string cheese so that he could give one to me. We would play at recess together and sit by each other at lunch. It makes sense that my best friend was a boy because I only have brothers and found I got along with boys a lot better than girls. Anyway, some girls in our class started making fun of me by telling me that he had cooties and we were obviously boyfriend/girlfriend and were going to get married. I was so scared by the idea of cooties and marriage (over 20 years later and I'm still scared of both of those things haha) that the girls convinced me to “break up” with him. The next day when he went to give me string cheese I told him we couldn’t be friends anymore because he was a boy and had cooties. I remember walking away and looking back at him feeling so sad to be losing my friend.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, I felt so guilty about this incident I avoided him like the plague through the rest of our school years. I have no idea if he remembers that or not, but I still wish I could go back and tell my 6-year-old self to stand up to those girls and stay friends with that boy.
I had the biggest crush on a guy in 6th grade. I got brave 3 days before summer and wrote him a letter asking him to check yes or no if he liked me. It was a letter that had WAY too many words and WAY too many hearts over the i's.
ReplyDeleteBut then he checked 'yes'!!!
Then I got really shy and quiet and stuttered every time he spoke to talk to me over those 3 days until summer break. Since this was the 90s and we didn't know each other's addresses or phone numbers I didn't see or hear from him all summer. He tried to talk to me at the start of the next year - I literally turned around and walked away while blushing a horrible shade of red. I still don't know why I did that, since I liked him.
Then when I got the courage to actually talk to him again, it was 2 years later and he had moved away. I still don't know if words would have come out of my mouth if I tried then. I like to think they would have, so we would have fallen in love and adopted 10 cats together before the end of high school. If only he hadn't moved away.
I had a crush on a guy from 8th grade through high school. When I was 15, I told one of my best friends I had a crush on him and she volunteered to ask him out on a date for me (it's high school and I had never been on a date before). I nervously waited for my best friend to call me with his response. She called me back to tell me that he wasn't ready for that kind of commitment. I was pretty crushed by the rejection. We did eventually go out a few times, but we grew apart as we got older.
ReplyDeleteI randomly ran into him a twenty years later 3,000 miles from where we grew up. He was engaged and caught me up on his life. I kept on mentally congratulating my 13 year old self for picking the guy that still had his hair and looked super cute in his late thirties.
So, so many fun stories ...
ReplyDelete1. 4th grade ... We're making Christmas cards in class and most kids are making them for their mom or dad, grandma/grandpa, maybe a sibling. The usual. The next day I get to school and there's a huge card on my desk with a single red glitter heart on the front. On the inside, I see, "I don't know how to tell you this, but I love you. Love, Daniel" (Daniel was the resident WK, or weird kid). I start crying, tear the card into little pieces, and throw it away in the bathroom so nobody will see it. Then I tell my teacher how uncomfortable it made me and she pulled him out in the hallway later and talked to him about how inappropriate it was.
2. I dated this guy in my ward at BYU for 10 days. He breaks up with me because "he just didn't feel like I was the right person for him" (meaning, he couldn't see himself marrying me ...after 10 days). A few months later, we date again and last 7 days. Again, he "prayed about it" and didn't feel like it was right. He broke up with me on a Sunday, Wednesday night he MEETS another girl in our apartment complex, by Friday they're dating, a week and a half later on Monday, they're engaged. To make it even better, she had a missionary out that she then had to Dear John ... turns out, her missionary was this guy's cousin. So, her missionary gets home and 2 weeks later has to go see his cousin marry his ex-girlfriend. Poor guy!
3. I went on a date with this guy one time and we were supposed to go to dinner and then go roller skating. Apparently his roommates misunderstood the date part and just invited a bunch of people from the apartment complex to go, so we're skipping dinner and just doing root beer floats at their apt. before we go skating. He chooses to tell me this as we're walking out my door, and I'm STARVING! I felt so sick after skating awhile, I just sat and watched the rest of the time and my date never came to see what was going on or if I was ok. He was just having a grand ol' time with everyone else! Fast forward a month or two ... another guy in the ward comes and tells me, "A bunch of us are going to the basketball game on Friday and then skating afterwards, would you like to go?" I interpreted this to be a group thing, not a date (because of how he worded it), and tell him that last time I went skating, I really didn't have that good of a time and was going to have to say no. He then goes to the guy from the first date and tells him I said no and why I said no. Guy #1 then calls me out and wants to know why I didn't have a good time with him. So, I lied (duh!) and told him I had been another time since then, didn't realize guy #2 was asking me out on a date. Luckily he believed me, I repented and fixed things with guy #2, and went on the date and had a good time.
My entire life is one giant angst-filled love story. Or rather, lack of love story.
ReplyDeleteI met an internet date at a restaurant, where as he pulled up, my thoughts were "please don't let that be him, please don't let that be him". Suzzzz mentioned being a magnet for the weird, creepy, and dysfunctional. Sista we must share a chromosome. It was my date, a redhead who had dyed his hair jet black. How did I know he was a redhead? Other than the freckled skin, he'd missed a huge patch of hair at the back of his head. When I asked if he was a natural redhead, struggling for conversation, he explained that yes he was and that trying to date in the Mormon church as a redhead was just as bad as having a physical disability. Appalled by this claim, since I come from a family of redheads and will likely have redheaded babies, that was my first 'red' flag.
ReplyDeleteThe best I can remember, the other conversational highlights included his justification of how 'heavy petting' or Levi loving was completely acceptable behavior and his bishop had basically agreed with him.
Oh oh oh, I forgot, he also raised and trained carrier pigeons. Because, didn't you know, President Monson does the same thing?!?!
I called my cousin when I finally extricated myself out of there and demanded that she go to a movie with me, just to try and reclaim the evening and wash off the creepiness.