Hey dopers of a certain age! Talk to me about dating in high school!

In My Humble Opinion
21

High school was awkward for me. I was pretty clueless about anything social so I had no idea had to go about it.

I had absolutely no idea of how to tell if a girl was interested in you or not so I asked the wrong girls (by phone! Yikes!) and didn’t ask the right ones.

Looking back, there were a number of potentials, but they weren’t issued 2”X4”s so none of them could hit me over the head, which it would have taken to clue me in.

Much later in life, I finally got a clue and it worked out much better.

22

The less said the better.

23

Sorry, had to throw this at you… (as a joke). Just the way you phrased that…

Deeper In -** Drive-By Truckers** Thems our boys!

24

You tickle me, dude. :wink:

25

Late 70’s. I ( we ) didn’t realize it as such then, but we had friends do more or less “reconnaissance” for each other. I would enlist someone who had some sort of contact ( in some classes with her, or had friends in common ) with an unfamiliar girl I had interest in, to try to gauge her persona, if she was aware of me etc. I’d do the same for my friends when I could. Me and my friends weren’t reviled misfits, but there was not a single football player among us. We knew we faced an uphill battle, but no one said so.

Contrary to the plot of the teen movies of the late 70s/early 80s, most of the people I hung around with were scared to death of the direct approach “cold-calling” method of picking up girls. It’s like we had to know there was some, if even slight, mutual interest first. Barring that, there were lots of times of trying to put ourselves into situations where we could interact with prospective love interests. The older we got…and the more freedom we had, the more this was possible.

Today’s social media is a real wild card IMO: Hard to say if it makes things easier in HS dating, or just makes people smaller fish in a bigger pond.

26

I was pretty good looking and semi-popular back in the day, so I dated a lot of girls (generally going out on one date, making out, then never doing it again). Only 1 girl I asked out turned me down. I had no interest in being exclusive with anyone til my early 20’s. Not bragging, that’s just the way it went down.

I’ve been married for 24 years. I can’t imagine dating now, looks atrocious from what I’ve seen. I might opt to stay single than go through that.

27

High school in the 80’s… there was a girl I wanted to go out with, so I befriended her next door neighbor. They had grown up next door to each other and were friends. He was also in our class and okay guy, so it’s not like I totally used him.

Anyway, it worked. I was no longer just a guy at school, I was the guy hanging out with John next door. Before long we were all hanging out. And then slowly, but not too slowly, I boxed out John. :stuck_out_tongue:

Oh man, that sounds so bad… the shit we’d do for chicks back when.

28

I was in high school from '79 to '83. One word for my experiences: ugh. :stuck_out_tongue:

To be fair, there were several extenuating circumstances:

  • I attended an all-boys Catholic high school, so opportunities to meet and interact with girls on an informal basis were rare.
  • I was short, skinny, nerdy, and suffered from bad acne. I was definitely not prime crush material. :smiley:
  • Because I was such a huge nerd, I really didn’t fit into the social scene in my school. I was too self-conscious to go dances and the other organized events where girls from the all-girls school would be present, and I was never invited to any of the informal parties.
  • When I was in 8th grade (the year before high school), I developed a massive, unrequited crush on “Beth” (all names changed), a girl in my class – our grade school, unlike the high school, was co-ed. I carried a torch for Beth all through high school, but for most of our high school years, she was dating one of my classmates. He treated Beth like crap (and that’s not just my sour grapes – everyone agreed that he was a jerk to her), but for some reason, she stuck by him.

So, as a result of all of that, I didn’t have a single date up through my junior year. I did invite a girl to go to our Junior Prom, but she turned me down, telling me that she was going to be out of town with her family that weekend. The Monday after the prom, I learned that she had, in fact, gone to the prom (which wasn’t even her prom!) stag.

During my senior year, two friends of mine were dating a couple of girls, and the girls had a friend, “Cathy,” who wasn’t seeing anyone. The two couples wanted to go to a movie, and as the girls wanted to bring Cathy along, I got recruited to act as Cathy’s date. We had fun, and our Homecoming dance was coming up. I was told, through channels, that Cathy was interested in going with me to the dance (it would wind up being the three couples, all going together). Again, it seemed like we had a good time, but in the days afterwards, I was informed, again through channels, that Cathy didn’t want to see me any more. Felt a little used, did I.

Near the end of high school, I started dating the younger sister of a friend of mine from my D&D group (he was a few years older than me; she was my age). That lasted a couple of months, but it was never serious at all, and it ended, amicably, just after high school graduation, as we were both going to different colleges.

Gads, I was such a goober in high school!

29

I graduated in 1974.

I was hardly Don Juan, but I dated reasonably steadily throughout high school. I only asked a girl out by phone once, and she shot me down. The rest of the time, I just asked them out whenever I got a chance - if she was in class with me, after class, if she was in the same social group, during a time when we were relatively alone together, at work, at parties, whatever.

By memory (names have been changed, to protect the innocent) - B I knew thru school, M was in my German class, N and D were both in my church youth group, LB I met at a party, N2 was in history class with me, H was in math class with me (she was the one that shot me down), S was a blind date set up by my neighbor, and S2 was a friend of a friend.

Regards,
Shodan