Dating -- Things people have done to make you feel small

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Oh, right. Forgot to add this little gem:

In my freshman year of high school, when I was very unhappy and very acne-prone, with big glasses and very dorky clothing, I met this guy named Aaron. I met him at the birthday party of a girl in my high school who I hoped would become my friend.

In any case, Aaron and I exchanged phone numbers because we enjoyed talking at the party. So we called each other back and forth for a couple of months. Over that time, I came to really like him. And I knew he had to at least kind of, sort of like me personally. Maybe–just maybe–I had a prayer this time, if I asked him out. There’s no way someone else can call, “psych!” on you if you’re the one doing the set-up, right?

I put off doing this for a while. I’d call, fully intending to ask him out, only to chicken out at the last moment. After several calls that must have seemed pretty pointless, I think Aaron was starting to wonder what was wrong with me.

So, finally, I decided that I was going to make ONE LAST PHONE CALL. If I didn’t ask him out THEN, I was NEVER GOING TO CALL AGAIN. No point in calling someone repeatedly if you’re not going to say what you want to. Especially if it’s making the other person think that you’re a nutcase.

So I picked up the phone. With trembling fingers, I dialed Aaron’s number. I waited through the longest series of rings ("Well, at least the line’s not busy! Oh, but maybe no-one’s home? Or maybe his parents are home, but he’s not! Or maybe he won’t want to talk to me! Oh, God, what am I thinking!? Hang up now, hang up now, hangupnowhangupnowHANG UP NOW!! This is soooo stupid!! Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod…) until Aaron picked up the phone. The dialogue went as follows:

Aaron: Hi.

Scribble: (palms sweating, shaking slightly, heart in throat, OH MY GOD I’M ASKING OUT AARON WHAT AM I THINKING!?) Um…hi.

Aaron: How are you?

Scribble: Uh…um…fine…

(uncomfortable pause.)

Scribble: Well…uh…I know I just talked to you a little while ago…and…uh…

Aaron: Yes?

Scribble: well…uh…and I know that I’ve seemed kinda ditzy the last several times we’ve talked…and…uh…

Aaron: Uh, yeah.

Scribble: So…anyway…what I wanted to say but didn’t was…(big gulp of air OH MY GOD WHAT AM I THINKING SAY IT SAY IT SAY IT AND GET IT OVER WITH OH MY GOD) …Would you go out with me?

Aaron: (Makes a sound like someone having a heart attack. Hangs up phone, is never heard from again.)

And thus it was learned by the otherwise obviously completely uneducable Scribble that, yes, you can indeed be completely humiliated, even if you’re the one doing the asking out.

Man, I wouldn’t go through junior high or high school again, ever. Not for all the tea in China or for all the chocolate in Switzerland.

42

damn…
these are sad stories. You know. I wasn’t a cool guy in highschool, but your stories seem like something from a terrible teenage highschool movie. I never knew thesee types of things happened in real life. I mean in our highschool the “cool” people were never too good to talk to the nerds for whatever reason. This is reallly awful though. I’m sorry that these things happened.

I never remember my highschool being like that. Again, I wasn’t the nerdiest kid, nor was I the most popular eiter, but I could always go to parties of the cool people and nobody really messed with anyone.

in my highschool there were the cowboys, the preppies, the nerds, and the stoners. I guess everyone respected each other enough.

This stuff sounds really mean though

43

Well I don’t know about being a “young lady” but I like Susan tend to prefer “geeks” as dating material. My former boyfriend of 7 years and still best friend has spoiled me for any other type of man.

Intelligent men are way more fun, and better in bed, imho. So, geek guys, take heart, not all women are shallow little princesses expecting to bag the quarterback.

44

Hear, hear!

–Scribble, geek fan since…oh…adolescence.

45

Well, Merkwurdigliebe, I think most people have at least one story of cruelty from high school. My guess is that having a lousy experience there is the norm, not the exception.

46

I was an ‘ugly duckling’ in grade school.

My parents sent me and my 8 siblings to a small private school which was a huge drain on their finances so they couldn’t afford the fancy designer clothes, new cars, and exotic vacations like the other kid’s parents. Add to that my mom’s horrible fashion sense topped with the ugliest hair cut alive and I was the least popular kid in school for most of my grade school experience.

It wasn’t until I went college that people started calling me beautiful. And at first, I had trouble believing them and I broke some guys hearts just because I didn’t think they were really into me. Sorry, Chris.

47

My brother had a bad teen movie moment. He was a sophomore in high school and just coming out of his really awkward (he looked like an ambulatory Stephen Hawking) stages and starting to grow taller and get really handsome.

A senior girl from one of his classes asked him if he’d like to go to the prom with her. He’s excited, of course, and gets his tux, etc. Prom night around 4 pm, he gets a phone call from this girl saying “I just asked you out to make my boyfriend jealous, but he came around so I’m going with him”.

This led to years of therapy.

So, I guess it does happen.

48

Actually, this may be one of the few reasons to be glad I spent high school as a maximum-security-closeted, completely sexless geek in an all boys’ school: nothing resembling a romantic entanglement of any sort.

One of the boys jokingly hit on me, but I knew damn well he was straight and that to reciprocate or even acknowledge this attention would be approximately as sensible as trying to have tea with a speeding train

49

True. For the most part, I actually look back on high school and middle school with some fondness. Of course, I didn’t have anywhere near the psychologically traumatizing experiences that some have had. Those people who do these horrible things probably like to play football with puppies and bake kitten pies. I’d be surprised, though, if there was a single person who didn’t have something that happened to them during this time period that isn’t at least a little tender.

50

If some woman my age had told me this, oh, 25 years ago, when I was in high school, it would have made a hell of a lot of difference. Thank you for saying it now. :slight_smile:

51

Thankfully, 30+ years and ethanol-based beverages have done a tidy job of deleting the majority of files marked c:\my documents\personal eenage dating horror. One appears to be protected and immune to efforts at removal or overwriting with pleasant data.

Barbara was a senior, one year ahead of me, and had moved to town during the summer. Our only shared class was choir, and we both volunteered to go caroling during the week prior to Christmas. Not yet of age to drive, she offered to be my means of conveyance, and in the course thereof introduced me to the custom of single headlight cars=kissing session. A willing study, the joys of warm lips and curvy bits were the focus of all waking moments thought. I knew she’d be heading off to college come spring, but reveled in the heady joy of the moment, replete with hormonal excess.

When prom season rolled around, the dealer laughed in my face. Fool that I was and sometimes am, still sitting at the table, pushing the few remaining chips forward. A week before the prom, Barbara requested that I “do her a favor” which involved asking her friend to be my date, said friend to be known as MC. To state that MC had issues is on par with alleging that GM turned out a car or two. Rather than the torturous full version, Barbara went to the prom with another guy, MC worked herself into a fit because nobody ever asked her out and could not attend the prom owing to her “nerves”, and I was left with a rented tux which would be returned, unworn.

No date for the prom, too far from an urban center to go underground and grab the third rail, and too young to purchase mind-numbing libations.

52

Remember that part of The Breakfast Club when the kids are reliving the horrors visited upon them by their parents, and Ally Sheedy’s only contribution is; “They ignore me.” And then there is a silent acknowledgement that hers is the worst of all?
I was ignored in high school. It was like I didn’t exist to the opposite sex.

There was a boy named Luke. He had long, sandy hair. He wore black turtlenecks. He had a soft, gentle face, like Jesus. He was academic and incisive and he had masculine hands. At first, in my American History class, he sat beside me. I was so happy just to have him there to bask in.
Then a few people dropped the class, seats opened up elsewhere, and he moved across the room, far far away. The worst part is, he didn’t even have friends over there, he just moved just because. I felt so worthless, like I wasn’t even allowed to have him near me.
I would never have asked him out, I knew my place. I just wanted to be able to sit next to him.

53

Everyone else’s stories make me feel like a whiney little baby. There are some very depressing ones here and my story is pretty lame by comparison.

54

I had been dating this guy I really liked during my senior year. He was from a different school (of course, because I was too much of a “freak” for any of the losers in my own school). We started dating around January.

Anyway, on Valentine’s Day I was really excited because I had never had a boyfriend on Vday before. So I cooked him this dinner and I planned to have sex with him that night, which would have been my first time. He came over, brought me these beautiful flowers, but I got my period, so my plan was ruined. STill, I thought we had a fun time.

Two weeks later, on my BIRTHDAY, he broke up with me. Turns out he had been dating this girl in his own school who was giving him the sex.

What a jackass. Like he couldn’t wait until the next day?

But, I suppose mother nature knew what she was doing because I’m certainly glad I didn’t give it up to that jerk.

55

Oh god. I was just thinking about this the other day for the first time in years. Fortuitous.

Through an uninteresting background story, I met a guy who went to the other high school in my town. I liked him. He was also a geek, and cute, and musical. We called each other a bunch of time. Neither of us could drive, so we only saw each other once between the time we met and the…okay, I’m getting ahead of myself. Anyway, liking this guy. He liked me. He told me he was doing the lighting for a musical that a bunch of people he knew at his school were putting on over the summer, and I should try out. I demur, saying I’m not a singer, I don’t know from singing, blah blah. He convinced me, and…I liked the guy, so I gave in. I got a friend of mine who actually was a singer to try out with me. We couldn’t get to the auditions ourselves, but he arranged for someone to come pick us up. Because he liked me, remember?

Anyway, we get to the audition place and he’s there and he totally ignored me. My friend and I get into the play, and I ended up seeing him every day for the whole freaking summer and he never acknowledged my existence again. The one time I called him, he made an excuse to get off the phone after a couple minutes.

It was so bizarre. He’d insisted I be in this play so we could spend time together! I didn’t know whether to be hurt or concerned that his other personality had taken over his body.

About a year later, I shared this story with a friend I’d met in the play, who went to school with him. Turns out that at the time he was dating another girl - a girl who was in the play with us! He couldn’t say anything to me in front of his girlfriend.

What an asshole. I was more confused than hurt by the whole thing, but seriously, what an asshole.

56

Stranger, your post made me cry a little. Your pain came through even the tech-manual style you tried to give your writing, and it helps to explain why I have to convince “my” geeks that I’m actually interested in them (and not just their GPA).

[[Stranger]]

I don’t have any story of people being quite so… evil. More just the everyday selfish thoughtlessness of kids. Although I now have no problem getting men (hi Mangetout and Clothahump!), I was a very ugly child. Smart, but ugly. This wasn’t helped by the fact that my family was poor, and all of my clothes were either hand-me-downs 5 years out of style or ones I made myself. And at 13 I was a horrible seamstress, with worse taste.

Anyway, I had plenty of boys and girls befriend or “date” me, only to shun me once the test or project was over. The worst of these actually told me “get away from me, you freak.” At a dance. That I had spent 3 hours getting ready for. For him.

Y’all are right. 10 years does nothing for that kind of pain.

57

Hey** kung fu lola**,

I’d sit next to you, and I’d even talk to you.
See what you started SusanStoHelit.

I knew a girl that in the looks department she reminded me of you. She was very pretty, had the most amazing eyes that really reminded me of a cat. I meet her when she was a sophmore in college. She had lost about 150 pounds since HS. The cool thing was, she really didn’t judge people by their looks.

She threw herself at me. And I, like an IDIOT, didn’t even realize it.

58

One night at a residence hall party in college I chatted up this very lovely (and somewhat fast) young thang who was a friend of a friend. I made the expected proposition and she said “hey, that sounds nice.” I got back to my room later to find a very nice note from her, on purple stationery I knew she liked to use. Great!

Weeelll…obviously I didn’t pass muster with her circle of friends, because next day there was a second note under the door, written in a masculine hand, claiming the note was a forgery and to lay the hell off the lady in question. Signed, Unsigned.

I knew this gal for another year or so, and during that time she had 4 or 5 guys wrapped around various fingers/toes. I never did get the privilege. Not a class person obviously, but man was she hot. Call me nuts, but I still daydream about her.

During all this intrigue, I occasionally hung out with a sweet blonde from small-town Michigan who I never quite got the message had feelings for me. By the time I was thru with Miss Popularity, she’d given up and gotten herself a Real Man. (I assume. All I knew was that by this time, I’d pretty much decided I wasn’t one, and subsequent ladyfriends have generally concurred with me in that.)

59

Another time in HS. I think it was the Pep Club (which in my school was about 90% of the girls) that was holding a fund raising by having a V-Day basket ball note thing. You paid a buck and they would deliver a note written on a bit of paper that looked like a basketball. They thing is you wrote your note down and someone from the Pep Club wrote out the note on the ball.

I only got one note.

It read. IIRC “Zebra”, I love you so much. We have so much in common like Hitler* and stuff. Signed Your secret admirer.
*I’m not sure where the idea that I loved Hitler came from as I was a communist, well Marxist really but try explaining the difference between Marxism and Stalinism to a bunch of HS kids.

60

Aw, I didn’t mean to make you cry. It was bad, but not nearly as bad as many had it. I didn’t suffer regular physical abuse or (any) sexual abuse at home like some of the kids I grew up with and frankly, I did some of it to myself by my insistance in actively trying not to conform. The worst of it was just that nobody really cared about the harassment, especially the people who should have been responsible for putting a halt to such behavior. If you want a real sob story, try Steven King’s quasi-biography, On Writing, in which he describes one of the schoolmates who was the inspiration for the eponymous character in Carrie. But I warn you; it does not have a happy ending.

It’s hard enough to be an egghead when jocks and preps are revered. It’s even harder being a poor geek. It’s interesting, though, how many people were unattractive, shunned, taunted, et cetera in adolescence but have grown up into being very desirable and personable individuals. I’m sure it’s a hard time for everyone, even the kids with the “Members Only” jackets and the athletic letters, but it seems espeically hard for those who don’t fit into some kind of approved category. At any rate, there’s no doubt at this point that you turned out all right. :wink:

Stranger