Maybe someone somehow interpreted your statement as a slight against pinkfreud. I don’t see it either…it seems pretty obvious that you were talking about the…I’m trying to restrain myself…the scum that dumped pinkfreud.
Ooft. I misinterpreted, per above. My apologies.
Stranger
This sort of fits with the thread title, but it’s not like the other stories shared. I went on a few dates with a guy who made me feel ridiculous.
Okay, so it was a Yahoo personals thing. We talked on the phone and agreed to meet up. Our schedules were hard to coordinate, but we finally did. One of the reasons this was so was that he worked until 7pm and I needed to be up at 5am. So if we met up after his work, I couldn’t stay out too late unless I wanted to be sleep deprived.
Here’s the thing. The reason I needed to be up at 5am was so that I could go for a run. At the time I was training for a marathon, so I’d get up in the mornings (before work) or early on Saturdays to meet my training partners. He thought that was absolutely batshit insane.
I don’t care that he didn’t share my passion for running, but he kept giving me grief about how early I went to bed and how early I got up. And how it was just crazy that I did this kind of thing. He made me feel (almost) like I was a child for going to bed so early.
Well, I saw him a total of twice in person. I decided I didn’t need that kind of grief. If I was going to date someone, he needed to respect me and my hobbies, even if he didn’t share in my love of them.
fin.
I was just pointing out this particular sentence… “I don’t understand the guys that asked her out,” which could be interpreted as “What were they thinking, asking her out?” It was attempted levity that wasn’t at all well-delivered, and I apologize.
I had a guy dump me because my job wasn’t “glamourous” enough for him
Interestingly, he was an accountant, and I actually made more $$ than he did, so I’m not sure how his logic worked.
I went to a small college and really liked a football player. He started asking me out, always late at night because of his “schedule”. I noticed that he spent a lot of time with a girl who played on the softball team. He said there was nothing to worry about, she was just his neighbor and friend and a lesbian. Well fast forward to spring break. He went home and she and I stayed on campus. I confronted her. She was shocked about me because she was sleeping with him. We had this huge fight and decided that when he came back to campus, we were going to make him choose between us. Well, lo and behold, he comes back to campus with his new wife. The one that he had just married. Over spring break. He “dated” me so I’d help him pass his physics class. But he was very careful that no one saw him with the fat geeky girl. Softball girl and I get roaring drunk and proceed to fill out ever magazing subscription card and “Time/Life” book request card we can find in his name. We also made a pact to always, whenever we came across a request for an address, to use his. I did this for *years * and still have trouble just throwing those cards away. Not that I’m bitter.
Well, this is something that happens to me a lot in real life. I’ll say something that I think is perfectly appropriate, and everybody just looks at me. So I wouldn’t have been surprised; I just wanted to know what it was! Accepted.
For the record, I have complete sympathy for pinkfreud.
Oh, that wasn’t nearly strong enough.
There’s another one I’m tempted to post, but it would definitely be in violation of Board rules.
Some people deserve to be tied down and forced to endure Vogon poetry. Others deserve to be Crazy Glue’d to the ass-end of a Vogon. And then…well, just use your imagination.
Okay, no Pitting. But it’s so hard not to in some cases.
Stranger
In Junior High we had to do a section in gym called “Social Dance”. (Why, I’ll never know. What is the goal of having seventh graders slow dance in the dark during gym class??) Which, I must say, was set up to be as absolutely mortifying as possible. All the girls would have to line up against the bleachers and the boys would ask you to dance. It’s one thing to be picked last for kickball, but another thing entirely to be picked last to slow dance.
Anyway, I think we had something like a frickin’ week of social dance. It just wouldn’t stop. And eventually we come to the day where all the “cool” boys are asking me and my friend to dance.
This, of course, sets off red flags. (Mind you, I didn’t much care what these boys did. I thought they were idiots. But it ticked me off that they were obviously being mean and my best friend was involved.)
So, come to be asked to dance by one of the less socially powerful of the clique. There we are, swaying back and forth to “Open Arms” by Journey, and I confront him (emboldened by the fact that I knew he couldn’t get away and if he was going to lie, he’d have to do it to my face).
“Why are you guys asking my friend to dance?”, I said, confrontationally.
Man, was he busted!
"Uh… er… ehm… "
So now I come to yoouuuuuuuuuuu
with ooooooooopen ar-harms!
Shuffle, shuffle, sway, sway…
“Because we had a bet, and whoever danced with the most ugly girls wins.”
Years later one of his cohort shows up at my office because he worked with one of our vendors. I told the President of my company that story, and I didn’t see that guy again after that…
Holy crap, these have been some of the most depressing examples of human cruelty, especially since most were doing it to be funny. Sick.
Mine is nowhere near as bad, but I felt I should post something, since I kind of asked for this thread.
When I was a very geeky tenth grader, bad hair, bad skin, all big frame glasses and awkwardness, I met a girl who had just moved to my high school. She was pretty, but not drop dead gorgeous or anything. Being new and all, she had a hard time fitting in at first, but we became friends. Pretty soon we were hanging out a lot, and we even started dating! Imagine my surprise. I was actually dating somebody. So we date for about, and during this time she’s becoming steadily more popular. So at this time, I also had a really, really close friend, D, who I really should contact and see how he’s doing. My girlfriend, M, and my friend, D, were also pretty good friends, and so they’d hang out together all the time, no worries. Valentine’s day comes around, and I get it into my head that I’m going to try and sweep her off her feet. Her favorite song in the world is “Lady In Red” (now I’m old enough to see this as a big fat strike against her, but at the time, I didn’t know any better!), so I get in my dad’s car, go buy a dozen roses, and have this plan to take her down to the beach at sunset and play the song while we danced. Wow… I’m glad you all can’t see me right now. Just thinking about it makes me uncomfortably embarrassed. I get to her house, she’s not there, so I ask her mom to leave the flowers on her bed for her. Then she calls me later and says, “Umm… I don’t think I want to date anymore.” I ask her, “Why? Is there someone else?” She says, “No, of course not.” So I’m crushed, but at least it was a “fair” break up. Then a couple of days later, we talk, and she tells me that she might have lied to me about something. And that something might have been that she does like somebody else, and on top of that, that somebody else is my best friend D. I’m a bit shocked. I’ve been crying myself to sleep these past few nights, and I hear this? Then she really drops the bomb. “I know you and D are really good friends and all, so I was wondering if you’d maybe ask him if he’d go out with me?” What? What? What? In my pathetic pit of zero self esteem, I agree. I ask D when I get home if he’d ever consider dating M. D, knowing that I just broke up with her (rather, she squeezed my tiny heart in her fingers till it burst, then danced upon the remains with 3" stilletos), says no way. Good friend D. He never did date her. And I went home and cried and cried and cried. It was the last time I ever cried over a girl.
I was the subject of a pretty ugly bet in high school. I don’t know if the instigators ever realized I had found out about it before it came to fruition.
It’s not in any way, shape, or form the same situation, but I’ve found some scenes from “She’s All That” rather difficult to watch and not just because Freddy Prinze, Jr., is in them.
Ok, here are two. This will take a while.
The first one was partly my fault. This was in high school. I went to a small 4 year Catholic HS. There were a little than 300 kids in total spread over the four grades. My senior year was in many ways one of the better ones for me as the biggest bully, my brother that was only one grade ahead of me, was now off to college. Add to that a friend that went to grade school with me, but had gone elsewhere, was now back at the school. He and I became pretty good friends.
The Prom.
At my school you had to have a date to attend the prom. I didn’t go my Junior year. I was class president and though a ton of hard work I paid for the prom but I did not attend. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I did ask over a dozen girls but got turned down each time. My friend and I were discussing this and he knew I was probably not going to ask any girls this year so, in a friendly way, challenged me. We made a bet. He bet against me getting a date. This was to get me into ‘the game’ so to speak.
Now I did like this girl in my typing class and I had already been flirting with her the best I was able. So I pour all of my efforts into her. I should have known better but somehow everyone in the school knew about the bet. BUT I didn’t know, that they knew about the bet. In the school there was this one teacher who thought he was really hip and could relate to the kids. Every Friday, instead of his regular lecture the class could have a ‘rap session’. Yes he actually called it a ‘rap session’. You could discuss anything you wanted to discuss. Several of the classes were discussing ‘the bet’ and how far my intended was going to string me along. She was part of these discussions. This went on for a few weeks. I was passing by his classroom going to the bathroom when I overheard the discussion and I stood out there in the hall wondering how I could kill myself with the hall pass. I realized that the hall pass was non-lethal and proceeded to well… You can probably guess how my day went from there. Needless to say, I lost the bet.
The second one was still in HS and after the prom I started dating a different girl. I found out later that several people approached her and chided her for leading me along again. That it was funny the first time but a second time was too cruel. They just couldn’t fathom the idea that someone would date me.
What, you in no way resembled this alluring creature yet? Or were the guys at your school freaking morons?
BTW as a former shy guy I assure you, yes, some of them were too shy to ask you.
Wait a sec… Kimera is a hottie. I’m missing something here.
Does The Reader still run Pathetic Geek Stories?
This thread reminds me of that, somewhat. No offense to any posters, I didn’t make up the name…
High school days: I have a crush on one of the prettier, more popular girls. Never told a soul about it, so imagine my feelings when she stops and talks to me one day, then another and another, and actually starts flirting with me.
One day, she invites me over to her house after school, implying that she will be all alone and desiring me. I turn the corner on her street and see a couple of cars in front of her house, but I don’t think anything about it. I knock on the door, she opens it, invites me in and SURPRIZE!! There are a dozen or so of the “popular” crowd laughing their asses off at me.
Turns out she had been stringing me along, then reporting back to them so everyone could have a good laugh at my expense. I showed remarkable restraint, I must say. I simply turned around, walked out and drove off. I have no idea who keyed their cars over the course of the next two weeks, though.
And as a followup, I clicked on the link the OP provided for Susan Sto Helit . Susan, if you read this, please allow me to say that you are a very lovely woman.
Okay, since I started this thread, I suppose I should put my story in. I’ve a pint of Newcastle down and another on the way, and a nearly full bottle of Black Bush close at hand for fortification. My apologies to what this may do to my normally questionable copyediting skills, but as they say in the proctologist’s office, you have to take the good with the bad. It’s an epic tale, but I’ll reduce it down to Reader’s Digest Condensed Book proportions. I also tried to add in some humor, as I did with my Valentine’s Day story, but I found that even given so much time and distance (specifically, about 17 years and 2,200 miles) that it’s still a little to tender to laugh about.
It’s a three act play, and the first starts in 10th grade, when I participated in debate. Although debate is one of the most geekiest extracurricular activities one can participate in, there are levels of mookishness even within, from the future Franklin Delano Roosevelts to the latent Ted Kaczynskis. I was somewhat on the more nebbish end of the spectrum, though I was quite good at constructing arguments and writing plans and oratories. It didn’t help that I was the kid who came to school wearing the same shirt and jeans for three days in a row because the washer broke down in the middle of cleaning the only other pair of jeans and shirt I owned, and that I did my own haircuts with a pair of sewing shears and the beard trimmer on my razor, but I did my best to be clean and as well presented as possible under the circumstances.
There was a girl–we’ll call her S–whom was in the forensics club and about whom I had a certain infatuation. She wasn’t all that splendid, really–in retrospect I can’t imagine why I was all that googoo about her–but she was the key that turned my clock at the time. (From first grade on, there was always a particular girl about which I would deny having any interest whatsoever, only to do everything I could do to impress upon her that I really didn’t want her attention and would she please go away but not too far away.)
So we were in the same algebra class, but I lived way, way, way far in the boonies, about 20 miles from school and further from actual civilization, in some ass-end town where the most popular activity was perforating road signs and running down small furry things in the road. As I’d been well-drilled in gun safety and had learned, somehow, to be compassionate toward animals I wasn’t actually intending to eat, I didn’t have much in common with the denizens. But the distance from people with whom I might actually have something to converse made normal social discourse a strained proposition at best. Nonetheless, I did what I could; in this case, it consisted of calling S two or three times a week to enquire about the specifics of the maths assignment.
Apparently, she was not pleased about these attentions and felt that my presence, even on the phone, was manifestly unwelcome. One can understand, given the tender nature of her years, why she would decline to explain this directly too me. Less explicable was the fact that her mother, to whom she did address the issue, felt it insufficient to communicate the problem to me, or even to my parents, but instead to the principal of the school. The principal, for his part, felt it necessary not only to ring up my mother and tell her, but instead address what was presumably a major transgression of polite society and call a “conference” with all concerned parties. The end result of this meeting was that not only was I suitably chastised after my vain (and dubious) protests of innocence with regard to intent were dismissed, but I was required to write a letter of apology and avowal that I would never be so buttheaded as to do such a thing again, as if the embarrassment and shame that I already felt were insufficient to ensure that I would never speak to, look at, talk of, or indeed, even encounter in my most private dreams, the young lady in question. This didn’t stop S, however, from not only talking to other students but showing copies of the letter around the school. It was a short-lived pleasure–there were many other things occupy the cruel natures of teenagers–but for a few weeks great enjoyment was had by many in reminding me of my social ineptitude. End of Act 1.
So we move on to the following summer, during which I worked at a Lamar Hunt amusement park operation for slightly less than the going rate for peanuts. The summer was actually pretty good to me, as I got a few friendly kisses, but there was one girl in particular with whom it was my great misfortune to be associated. We shall call her J, and J decided that she was rather fond of me right after she broke up with her boyfriend because his family was going on vacation for a couple of weeks. Now I’m sure, dear reader, that in your wisdom and experience you have already discerned the punchline to this particular joke, but needless to say when said boyfriend returned she was back in his arms. More hurtful, though, was her refusal to even speak to me, at all, whatsoever, at any time. I grasped, in the fullness of time, that this was not a personal affront, as she dumped him for another chap, and then another, and so forth, more succinctly stated by another coworker in his statement, “She’s the kind of girl that has to run in the halls in school.” Indeed. But at the time, I wished only to cast myself into the trash compactor and let the inexorable pressure of hydraulic rams crush what little life remained out of me. End Act 2.
Intermission. background music
The next year–that would be my “junior” year–I had plans to make things all better. For once, I was going to take charge, be a man, let it be known in no uncertain terms that Mr. Stranger was a sexual dynamo, a force of nature, a veritable stud in the pasture. I had a car; an ugly Subaru hatchback, but a car nonetheless. I had a job. I watched a lot of John Cusack movies. I studied Val Kilmer, whom a coworker had told me I more than slightly resembled. In particular, I got a real haircut (from Clip & Snip, nonetheless!) and invested in a wardrobe that may not have impressed GQ, but was at the cutting edge of squarish-hippness; button-fly Levis, some nice button-collar shirts and narrow ties to match, one of those poofy pirate blouses that were all the rage of the day, some nice clean white leather sneakers, a trenchcoat, and the prize of my toggery, a rather expensive dark sportcoat. I wasn’t Tom Cruise, but I figured I’d give the pre-Grifters Cusack a run for his money. I practiced lines, too; I first learned of the brilliance of David Mamet and the class of Cary Grant during this juncture.
So appareled and prepared, I made my way into the school year with aplomb. Things weren’t easy, but I used my talents–specifically, my grasp of mathematics and literature–to win the affections of the fairer sex. The idea was to tutor in math and help understand the literature–no great feat as I was tops with the algebra and trig, and had read every assigned novel years before ever being required to do so–although the result was more along the lines of helping prepare crib notes and writing comparison papers for the ladies. In exchange, though, I asked only for a date. Understand, there was no pressure to “put out” or even offer up the softness of a kiss, and the expense was all on me. This had predictable results, to wit, that I had several first dates, and a few seconds (depending on how desperate the ladies were to get a good grade), but never a third, and certainly not a steady thing. But there were a few possibilities, or so I thought anyway.
Then it happened. It was bound to happen. On reflection, I should have known it was going to happen. They don’t like it when you defy the established order by climbing out of the social gutter. The Beautiful People had had enough, and their appointed guardian, a jock and friend of the principal’s son, who we’ll call M, decided to put me in my place. This involved a can of pink spray paint, and I became aware of it as I was walking down the hall one day. The hissing, the strange coolness on the back of my neck, the snickering behind me; it all spoke to something untoward, and my precognition was well rewarded when I turned to find a dispersed stream of pink pigment laying claim to my shirt and the aforementioned sport jacket.
Needless to say, I was distressed, not only in the vandalism at hand, but the smirking attitude of the wielder. I resolved to address the situation, and that resolution manifested itself in the form of a knife-edge kick to the knee of the individual in question. This was followed by a waterfall of blood emerging from his proboscis, as I removed the can from his possession and effected to break his nose with it. He should have considered himself lucky, as I was intending to actually insert it up his nostril, but the result was impressive nonetheless, to the tune of my being suspended for five days. I also had to pay his medical expenses out-of-pocket, wiping out my bank balance, but I was not entitled to reparations for the damaged ensemble, nor the hair that had to be shorn to eliminate the salmon hue. It was explained to me very carefully and no doubt accurately that I was of great fortune not to be attending one of our state’s finest institutions of correctional learning for my efforts. But I did then and do now consider my actions to be nothing short of acceptible.
The result of this, as you no doubt have already imagined, is that whatever popular credibility I might have built up was immediately lost once the paint started flying and the blood started flowing. I would guess that other students suspected me of being a disciple of Travis Bickle, and in that they were not far removed from the truth. And, again, despite my willingness to prostitute my intellectual abilities, I was a pariah with the ladies, in exactly the way that Cybil Shepherd avoided Robert DeNiro. All I needed was an Iris and a .44 Magnum and I’d have been tempted to engage in a bloody rampage. But the year passed, the loneliness, well, didn’t end, but went on to develop into new and equally unpleasant, but different, forms. I attended a different school my senior year (having failed to convince either of my parents to allow me to move onto college), but spent as much time as possible at the local university absorbing the basic coursework and wooing girls who were at least marginally mature enough to see some value in my perspicacity.
There was an unfortunate liaison with a rather wonderful Japanese girl that was incomprehensibly (at the time) destroyed by her conservative family, and a few other mildly injurious emotional catastrophes of the absolutely normal sort, but by that time I’d been so ravaged by the previous events than any slight, however slightly slight the slight my be, was yet another icepick through the metaphorical eye of romance. I’d like to say that I’ve worked through these things and am over them, but the truth is that I find any woman who claims to be interested in me for my own say highly suspect, and am only slightly less critical of a lass who alleges to find my ability to recall entire passages of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or obscure Monty Python scripts attractive. I am woed, because there are so many things I would really like to share with an enticing and intelligent young elle, like the next Charlie Kaufman film or the joy of sea kayaking with sea otters about, climbing on the weatherdeck for treats. I once had such a thing in spades, but three years ago she tossed me over for no particular reason at all for what I can discern, and I’ve been unable to move on ever since. (Not that this reflects in any way badly on her. I continue to think of her in only the most wonderful, if despairing, of terms, and can almost watch Casablanca now without wanting to leap from the Arroyo Seco Bridge.)
And we now draw the curtain over my particular romantic cataclysms. It’s not the end of the world–many people have had lives much, much worse–but I find myself unable to be terribly comfortable in the presence of lobsters, much less higher vertebrates and especially primates. For a woman to come up to me? Well, you’ve already seen how I respond to bald-faced interest in my V-Day story. Anything more complex is bound to failure, like a Russian submarine in a sea of icebergs.
I’m gonna go walk out to the 35er now, and watch people play shitty pool while depleting the bar stock of Irish whisky.
Stranger
wipes tear from eye
Bravo, Stranger on a Train, Bravo! One of the most magnificent operas I’ve read on the Dope in a long time. It is for posts like this, of such caliber, that I proudly put forth $5 to become a member of this great board. Very well written.
I was “asked out” in Junior High. Like the moron that I was, I accepted, only to have the guy turn to me and say, “Psych! Like anyone would want to go out with you!” Of course, much unhappiness (but no penis, as far as I know) ensued. After having this happen to me a few times, I came to the conclusion that anyone who showed any interest in me was merely setting me up for public humiliation.
A couple of guys asked me out in high school. I’d learned by then that my best strategy in these situations was to fend off the insult before it happened. So I said, “Up yours. I may be ugly, but I’m not stupid. Go make fun of someone else.” I hope neither of these guys took a serious hit to the ol’ self-esteem because of me. Joe and John–if you’re out there–I’m sorry.
It took me until the second half of my senior year of high school to accept that someone might–gasp!–actually find me attractive. The guy I went out with in my senior year told me, in his usual “no bullcrap” fashion, “Well, you’re 5th on a list of 6 girls I’d go out with, but the others probably wouldn’t even talk to me.” Like the stupe that I was, I accepted this as no more than basic fact. I was even somewhat thankful to him for being honest with me. After all, the other 5 girls he named were an awful lot more attractive than I was, so I knew that at least he wasn’t setting me up for “Psych! Why the hell else would I be dating an ugly loser like you?”