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A Highschool Memory
Here's a story from my days in high school. Most of my old friends have heard it before, but I've never written it down and I'm sure some of my newer friends have never heard it.
To start with I should point out that I was a majorly socially inept nerd in high school (and through cegep (Quebec's equivalent to college) and on into University for that matter). I was sufficiently clueless about women and dating that when Colleen LeMay made a blatant pass at me in class, it took a full two years for the penny to drop (by which time it was a little late), but that's another story.
Anyway, in my senior year I had the luck of being seated next to a very pretty blonde in English class. I suppose that it was the constant proximity and daily repetition of greetings and idle chat that finally let it penetrate my skull that she was interested in me. I have to admit that my self-esteem was sufficiently low at the time I would have likely fallen for ANY female that seemed to like me. As it was, she was sweet and kind and charming and pretty and I couldn't believe my luck.
We started spending more and more time together at school, meeting for lunch or going to McDonald's with mutual friends after class. One day, a week or two after we had started seeing each other I was in the school library and noticed her helping out at the main desk. I started to wave and call her name when I made a startling discovery: I didn't know her name! We had always just said 'Hi there' or 'Hello' when we met, and we bumped into each other often enough that I had never had need to know her name.
I now found myself in a bit of a pickle. I didn't know what her reaction would be if I went up to her and asked her name, but on the other hand I couldn't see myself sneaking around trying to find out what it was without one of her friends discovering what I was doing. (I've always been abysmally bad at sneaking and lying.) I was afraid of doing anything to make her think less of me, since my last girlfriend had been 7 grades and two cities before. Anyway, I decided to grit my teeth and go over and tell her, in as charming a way as I could muster, that I had never learned her name.
By the time I got to her, she had been joined by two of her friends. I almost didn't go through with it, but I summoned my courage and blurted something to the extent that I didn't know her name. The exact words I used are lost due to the stress of the moment. I couldn't have told you five minutes later what I had said, never mind now. I do remember her answer quite clearly though: she giggled and said "guess!"
NOW I was really nervous. What if I couldn't guess? What if her name was something hideous like Deirdre or Myrtle? What if I guessed some name she hated? I could just imagine her getting upset and crying "Oh, how could you imagine I was an Agatha?!?!". I decided my best bet would be to only guess names that were melodious or were positive adjectives. So I started guessing:
"Gloria?", "Nope"
"Belle?", "Nope"
At this point I was already running out of 'safe' names, but I tried one more:
"Angelica", "Close enough, its Angela!"
WHEW. So thats how I found out my girlfriend's name was Angela Lee.
In a fairy tale we would have gone on to live happily ever after. But the reality was very different. As I said earlier I didn't know much about women or dating and Angela was not someone who always simply stated what was on her mind. As the senior prom approached, I had simply been assuming that we would go together. One day when I mentioned the prom to her, Angela said that she didn't think she wanted to go. I was devastated but if she didn't want to go it didn't make any sense for me to try and change her mind. If my company wasn't enough, I'd just have to go alone. Little did I realize that what she wanted was for me to formally ASK her to the prom. So, I resolved to go alone. Anyway, as time passed and the prom neared I started seeing signs that maybe she wasn't as sure as she had seemed about not going. In the end I got up the nerve and phoned her up and DID ask her, only to find out that someone else had already asked and, despairing of my ever asking her, she had agreed to go with them.
The next day when I saw her in the hallway at school I was suddenly overcome by rage. I couldn't believe how angry and jealous I felt. We could have been a happy couple at the prom if she hadn't tried to manipulate me! I just stood there staring at her with clenched fists, and she wheeled around and ran into some classroom or other. I've never really forgiven myself for that fit of jealous rage and I worked hard for many years to rid myself of that particular demon (and so far I seem to have succeeded).
In the end I went to the prom alone and did my best to celebrate and be happy anyway. I even got up the nerve to ask a number of my female classmates to dance. Sometime around midnight I came upon Angela and discovered that her date had dumped her. We spent the rest of the evening together and watched the sun come up over Montreal from the lookout near the cross on the mountain.
It was a nice ending to the prom, but things were never the same between us after that. We went on to different Cegeps and soon lost track of each other. Years later I passed someone on the street in Montreal that looked familiar. I had gone another half block before I realized that it had looked like Angela. By the time I retraced my steps there was no sign of her or the lady she had been talking to. Oh well, I'm not sure what I would have said to her anyway. I was a much different person by then and in retrospect we never had as much in common as I might have liked. Still, I do wonder what ever became of her.
To start with I should point out that I was a majorly socially inept nerd in high school (and through cegep (Quebec's equivalent to college) and on into University for that matter). I was sufficiently clueless about women and dating that when Colleen LeMay made a blatant pass at me in class, it took a full two years for the penny to drop (by which time it was a little late), but that's another story.
Anyway, in my senior year I had the luck of being seated next to a very pretty blonde in English class. I suppose that it was the constant proximity and daily repetition of greetings and idle chat that finally let it penetrate my skull that she was interested in me. I have to admit that my self-esteem was sufficiently low at the time I would have likely fallen for ANY female that seemed to like me. As it was, she was sweet and kind and charming and pretty and I couldn't believe my luck.
We started spending more and more time together at school, meeting for lunch or going to McDonald's with mutual friends after class. One day, a week or two after we had started seeing each other I was in the school library and noticed her helping out at the main desk. I started to wave and call her name when I made a startling discovery: I didn't know her name! We had always just said 'Hi there' or 'Hello' when we met, and we bumped into each other often enough that I had never had need to know her name.
I now found myself in a bit of a pickle. I didn't know what her reaction would be if I went up to her and asked her name, but on the other hand I couldn't see myself sneaking around trying to find out what it was without one of her friends discovering what I was doing. (I've always been abysmally bad at sneaking and lying.) I was afraid of doing anything to make her think less of me, since my last girlfriend had been 7 grades and two cities before. Anyway, I decided to grit my teeth and go over and tell her, in as charming a way as I could muster, that I had never learned her name.
By the time I got to her, she had been joined by two of her friends. I almost didn't go through with it, but I summoned my courage and blurted something to the extent that I didn't know her name. The exact words I used are lost due to the stress of the moment. I couldn't have told you five minutes later what I had said, never mind now. I do remember her answer quite clearly though: she giggled and said "guess!"
NOW I was really nervous. What if I couldn't guess? What if her name was something hideous like Deirdre or Myrtle? What if I guessed some name she hated? I could just imagine her getting upset and crying "Oh, how could you imagine I was an Agatha?!?!". I decided my best bet would be to only guess names that were melodious or were positive adjectives. So I started guessing:
"Gloria?", "Nope"
"Belle?", "Nope"
At this point I was already running out of 'safe' names, but I tried one more:
"Angelica", "Close enough, its Angela!"
WHEW. So thats how I found out my girlfriend's name was Angela Lee.
In a fairy tale we would have gone on to live happily ever after. But the reality was very different. As I said earlier I didn't know much about women or dating and Angela was not someone who always simply stated what was on her mind. As the senior prom approached, I had simply been assuming that we would go together. One day when I mentioned the prom to her, Angela said that she didn't think she wanted to go. I was devastated but if she didn't want to go it didn't make any sense for me to try and change her mind. If my company wasn't enough, I'd just have to go alone. Little did I realize that what she wanted was for me to formally ASK her to the prom. So, I resolved to go alone. Anyway, as time passed and the prom neared I started seeing signs that maybe she wasn't as sure as she had seemed about not going. In the end I got up the nerve and phoned her up and DID ask her, only to find out that someone else had already asked and, despairing of my ever asking her, she had agreed to go with them.
The next day when I saw her in the hallway at school I was suddenly overcome by rage. I couldn't believe how angry and jealous I felt. We could have been a happy couple at the prom if she hadn't tried to manipulate me! I just stood there staring at her with clenched fists, and she wheeled around and ran into some classroom or other. I've never really forgiven myself for that fit of jealous rage and I worked hard for many years to rid myself of that particular demon (and so far I seem to have succeeded).
In the end I went to the prom alone and did my best to celebrate and be happy anyway. I even got up the nerve to ask a number of my female classmates to dance. Sometime around midnight I came upon Angela and discovered that her date had dumped her. We spent the rest of the evening together and watched the sun come up over Montreal from the lookout near the cross on the mountain.
It was a nice ending to the prom, but things were never the same between us after that. We went on to different Cegeps and soon lost track of each other. Years later I passed someone on the street in Montreal that looked familiar. I had gone another half block before I realized that it had looked like Angela. By the time I retraced my steps there was no sign of her or the lady she had been talking to. Oh well, I'm not sure what I would have said to her anyway. I was a much different person by then and in retrospect we never had as much in common as I might have liked. Still, I do wonder what ever became of her.