Fell down that hole myself. Don’t understand what the people who got away clean are complaining about.
“Hey Happy, why did you pay your friend $150 for his $50 Aerosmith ticket?”
There was this girl who really wanted to go to Aerosmith…
“Hey Happy, why did you switch from Spanish to German in college, even though you were already half-way through your foreign language requirement?”
There was this girl who tutored German…
My college years are full of 'em.
If you love somebody enough, you’ll follow wherever they go.
That’s How I Got to Memphis
Except, you know, Nashville.
My own stories don’t compare with Richard Feynman’s. As a young professor, he could take courses from the university, so he decided to study Spanish. On the way to class on the first day, he spotted a very attractive woman walking into the Portuguese class across the hall. He nearly followed her in, but decided that was a ridiculous reason to choose a language. Some years later he got a job as a visiting professor in Brazil. After that he vowed never to doubt his instincts again. 
That’s how you get slapped with a restraining order.
Restraining order? Never had one, but it reminded me of one I hadn’t thought of for years. It doesn’t really qualify for this thread, but also doesn’t show me in the best light. Y’see, there was this girl, the first from my Flautist Period that I have mentioned. She was 14 and the daughter of a Cook County judge. I was 17 and would walk two miles of a Friday night to bask in the lights of her house. Once or twice I got up the nerve to knock, but she was out. Not on a date, mind you, she was one of those virginal Catholic girls Billy Joel accused of starting much too late, but out with friends. Five years later, I saw her and found she had peaked at 14, her father officiated at my wedding, and the three of us–she, her dad, and I–were greatly relieved.
I suppose my lowest moment was a brief flirtation with Christianity. Or, rather, faking one. And just to make it clear: I’m not knocking religion here, at all. That’s not the point. The girl was hot, and if she had been a staunch communist, I would have been waving the red banner instead.
I wasn’t very convincing. It turns out that in order to pass for a proper Christian, you have to have knowledge about and at least some interest in the subject. At that point, I didn’t have much of either. Probably a lot less than you average Yanks have just by default, as I’ve grown up in a very secular country surrounded by godless Scandiwegians.
It was embarrassing, more than anything else. And, no, I didn’t even get in the girl’s pants. Needless to say, I went back to my heathen ways the moment that she was off the radar. And yes, I’m sure that there is a special corner of Hell for people who fake piety to get laid. So I’m a bit worried about that.
The worst part? She wasn’t even single. And I wasn’t trying to convince her to drop her current boyfriend. I was trying to convince her to cheat on him with me. Which was the kind of thing that she had a bit of a history of doing, by her own admittance.
She sure was hot, though. And I was young, and a stupid asshole.
If I recall correctly from one of Feynman’s books, he had to refresh himself on the language before he went. So he found a person of Brazillian heritage, and spent some days getting back up to speed. Later he found out (the hard way) that the person in question was Jewish, and what he had learned was Ladino, which bears much the same resemblance to Portuguese as Yiddish does to German. But, he got by.
Not to derail this thread, but it seems that men are more willing than women to make huge sacrifices, on short notice, to try to be with someone they are attracted to. Maybe women are simply a lot more rational than men in this regard, or women are less likely to fall for someone so hard that they let emotions cloud perspective?
Men are more willing than women to take risks. And they are more stalker-y and predatory. News at 11, I guess.
That’s all that matters, isn’t it?
There’s a thread in IMHO started by an exception to that. :eek:
Well, it isn’t now. By a long shot. It was when I was 20.
Hey, I’m not proud of it or anything.
Well, as this thread is all about us anonymously airing our fuckups, as far as this thread is concerned, yes, that she was hot is all that matters. 
You feeling bad about it, or embarrassed by it, shows you have matured over the years. I feel few of those pangs because I’m not as developed as you, though I’m probably older. I hit 16 and stopped growing mentally. Oh, well, mea culpa.
You know, in that particular case I was behaving in a particularly cynical way, but it does illustrate a pattern in my life. Mostly it’s more subconscious and less nefarious. Instead of being myself, I pretend to be a person that I think that someone else will like. Usually someone who is hot.
And, yeah, I have matured over the years. Besides, that tactic has mostly backfired. Although, to be fair, not every time. I did once convince someone that I was Kevin Costner. And it worked because I believed it. (No, wait. That wasn’t me.)
These days, I mostly just can’t be arsed anymore. My attitude is more: “OK, ladies, I’m sorry, but this is as good as it gets. Take it or leave it.” And when you find someone who *does *take it, it’s so much more awesome.
I should add: It’s not that I don’t try to improve myself. Just that now I improve myself by my own standards, rather than what I interpret/believe/imagine to be someone else’s.