Recently I was reminded of a strange time in my life, via a conversation with my good friend Jen.
The summer of 1998 was a strange one for me -- I was at home instead of traveling and working with all my dance friends. I had reluctantly elected to take a couple of classes at the local community college, and ran into an old friend who was also attending. We'll call him Random Roger.
Roger was a longtime friend of mine through the church that I grew up in - a friend for which I had harbored a very large crush basically my entire childhood. I can't tell you why I did, as he was one of those angry, bird-flipping, bowl-haircut and Van shoe wearing, skateboarding idiots. I guess deep down I thought there was a larger reason that he continued to attend meetings and classes about faith and youth fellowship. Not one to be overwhelmed by my hormones, I put my crush aside for several years and while it lay dormant, Roger and I became pretty close, platonic friends.
Back to summer school (oh my God, how cliche does THAT sound?!)...
I ran into him during a break between classes, and noticed that his time at Larger-than-life-Midwestern-U had put some weight on his lanky frame, and he had gotten rid of the awful hair. SCORE. The crush was back and in full effect.
Turns out that while I was attempting to avoid him/but really run into him anyway, he was busy asking mutual friends whether they thought I would say yes to a date. He asked, I said yes. But we only went out on dates on Mondays, due to our class schedules, and the fact that he worked nights. Whatever, I wasn't expecting marriage, so I went along with it.
Several dates (and awkward goodbyes) later, we made plans to attend a "talk" downtown with Kevin Costner, who remains one of my FAVORITE actors in the entire world. RR knew this and very sneakily got tickets. By the end of the night, I had met Kevin Costner (swoon) and we were on our way back to the 'burbs.
It turns out this was to be our grand finale - our very last date. As we pulled into the driveway of my parent's house, I sort of looked at him impatiently and said something stupid like, "Well...err...thanks for a great night..." and responded with something equally erudite like, "Ummm..." and then it all came pouring out. He started babbling about how he was afraid to kiss me, because we'd been friends for so long and he'd put so much pressure on the relationship. He actually used the phrase, "I'm scared to make the first move." I think I responded with some awfully nervous humor involving a joke on brushing and flossing.
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
So I got out of the car, thanked him again, and that was the end of it. I took my polyester-sundress-and-chunky-platform-heel-wearing self back into the house, and he pulled away. Years later, I think back on that and have to just shrug my shoulders. He was AFRAID to kiss me?! I wasn't really Mary material, but I certainly wasn't Rhoda either.
And therein lies the story of the summer of '98 - all talk, and no action.
The summer of 1998 was a strange one for me -- I was at home instead of traveling and working with all my dance friends. I had reluctantly elected to take a couple of classes at the local community college, and ran into an old friend who was also attending. We'll call him Random Roger.
Roger was a longtime friend of mine through the church that I grew up in - a friend for which I had harbored a very large crush basically my entire childhood. I can't tell you why I did, as he was one of those angry, bird-flipping, bowl-haircut and Van shoe wearing, skateboarding idiots. I guess deep down I thought there was a larger reason that he continued to attend meetings and classes about faith and youth fellowship. Not one to be overwhelmed by my hormones, I put my crush aside for several years and while it lay dormant, Roger and I became pretty close, platonic friends.
Back to summer school (oh my God, how cliche does THAT sound?!)...
I ran into him during a break between classes, and noticed that his time at Larger-than-life-Midwestern-U had put some weight on his lanky frame, and he had gotten rid of the awful hair. SCORE. The crush was back and in full effect.
Turns out that while I was attempting to avoid him/but really run into him anyway, he was busy asking mutual friends whether they thought I would say yes to a date. He asked, I said yes. But we only went out on dates on Mondays, due to our class schedules, and the fact that he worked nights. Whatever, I wasn't expecting marriage, so I went along with it.
Several dates (and awkward goodbyes) later, we made plans to attend a "talk" downtown with Kevin Costner, who remains one of my FAVORITE actors in the entire world. RR knew this and very sneakily got tickets. By the end of the night, I had met Kevin Costner (swoon) and we were on our way back to the 'burbs.
It turns out this was to be our grand finale - our very last date. As we pulled into the driveway of my parent's house, I sort of looked at him impatiently and said something stupid like, "Well...err...thanks for a great night..." and responded with something equally erudite like, "Ummm..." and then it all came pouring out. He started babbling about how he was afraid to kiss me, because we'd been friends for so long and he'd put so much pressure on the relationship. He actually used the phrase, "I'm scared to make the first move." I think I responded with some awfully nervous humor involving a joke on brushing and flossing.
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
So I got out of the car, thanked him again, and that was the end of it. I took my polyester-sundress-and-chunky-platform-heel-wearing self back into the house, and he pulled away. Years later, I think back on that and have to just shrug my shoulders. He was AFRAID to kiss me?! I wasn't really Mary material, but I certainly wasn't Rhoda either.
And therein lies the story of the summer of '98 - all talk, and no action.
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