Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 15

Learning the Social Graces

Dating was a murky morass for me all through high school. There were girls I liked who could care less about me and girls who liked me that I wanted nothing to do with. I had friends who were girls and we got along fine, it’s just when the relationship got more serious, things got weird. In retrospect, I should have just let things happen and not stressed about it. I would have had more fun. I figured out much later that girls are like cats, they want what they can’t have and therefore are more curious about you if you hold something back. I did pass this hard won knowledge on to my son when he was starting out dating and he was far more successful than me. It didn’t hurt that he was charming and good looking where I was still in pizza face mode at the same age.

The first girl I kissed was named Becky. She was quite good at it, being a year older than me. I had a great deal of fun figuring out where noses and mouths went in the spring of my sophomore year. There was another Becky in our circle that also was a very good teacher, though she was more interested in my friend Jon. Perhaps she was trying to make him jealous or take out her frustrations (as it were) on me. In any case, she was a good friend and we had some laughs together as well. The Beckys as we call them now, were both juniors as well as two other girls who sort of took me under their wing. They were cheerleaders, though and there was no kissy face with them, they had jock boyfriends. What they were to me was friendly. They seemed to genuinely like me as a person which was very good for my self esteem and gave me some status with the rest of our group. I am still grateful to them for their attention and kindness, it was a validation I needed.

My very first date was with a girl named Cindy who I had known since childhood. She was one of seven sisters several of whom had babysat me years before. I must say that she was very cute, she became head cheerleader in our senior year. Dancing that close to a girl was quite disconcerting. I didn’t expect her to dance so close and was forced to back away a bit otherwise I would have fainted on the spot from the sensory overload. We went to the Cottage, a local ice cream parlor, after the dance because it was within walking distance of the school. I walked her home because I didn’t want my mother to be waiting in the car at the end of the date. I mean, would you?

There were other memorable dates. Going to the Mikado and my friend Roger embarrassing himself by dripping his sukiyaki all over the table. His date just kept looking at me and rolling her eyes. Going to my friend Jon’s house and spilling cheese fondue at dinner. The girl I went with was actually taller than me when you factored in her heels and her teased up hair. Very forceful that girl. She eventually married a football player who played for the Dallas Cowboys. I think that the most memorable was when I doubled with my younger brother and his friend on their first date.

At the time, Carnaby Street was the style of the time. Nehru jackets, fancy turtlenecks and bright colors, french cuffs and studs or necklaces were all the rage. I wore a white double-brested dinner jacket, a blue turtleneck shirt that had silver threads woven into it so it shone and blue jeweled cufflinks for the french cuffs. I was stylin’ I tell you. We went to dinner at a very fancy Italian restaurant downtown. My date was nice enough, but not much of a conversationalist. My brother and his friend acted scared spitless, saying NOTHING all through dinner. I carried on a one sided conversation for an hour to keep the date from becoming a funeral. It was stressful. The food was quite good, I had chicken cacciatore which the waiter, when he cleared the table managed to wipe across my white jacket. I still had to go to the dance! I played Napoleon the entire evening with my hand across my marinara smeared jacket. I danced REAL close that night and damned the consequences to hide the desecration of my jacket. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.