Originally written: January 18, 2005
Remember the good old days when you would have a crush on a girl? I’m speaking mainly to the guys and the lesbians out there, I guess. Straight ladies, I guess if you want to participate in this conversation, you can copy and paste this post into Notepad and do a find and replace on “girls” with “guys”. Gay dudes, feel free to do the same.
With that said, let’s go on. Now that I’m bordering on 30, I can’t say that I really have crushes anymore. It’s quite possible that I could still physically have a crush, but on weekends most of my emotional neurons have been dulled by beer, and I tend to spend my weekdays alone. And well, the back of my hands are hairy, and there’s nothing lovable about that. But really, I think that once you’re out of college, the idea of an actual crush just seems, well, inefficient.
Now that I think about it, do most dudes actually ever even have a crush? They sure as hell never refer to it as a crush. But I know a number of dudes who’d tag along with a girl for months, waiting patiently – and desperatley – for her to say ANYTHING other than, “You’re such a good friend.” I’m going to call that a crush. If you’re too much of a man to call it a crush, well fine, that’s a real cool Letter Jacket you’re still wearing. I was in drama club in high school, and I’m not afraid to say crush, so let’s not bust my balls about it, ok?
Anyway, a while back I was thinking about the various girls I had a crush on throughout the years and how each of these various crushes panned out, and I thought it’d be fun to sit back and analyze it for a minute. Join me on my trip down loser lane, won’t you?
Elementary School: The Red Head
I attended elementary school in Boulder Colorado. And I guess I was in, say, 3rd grade at the time when I spotted the darling little red head on the playground. I imagine this was the first time I ever really had the hots for a girl. Not the same way I have the hots for a girl these days, of course. I wasn’t drinking back in the 3rd grade. I didn’t know her name, and I didn’t know who’s class she was in, and I never really saw her up close, for that matter. But from afar, I was taken aback, man. I wanted to know this girl. I wanted to play with her, show her my kick-ass G.I. Joe collection, draw her a picture of a tree or a ghost or shitty car. Maybe she’d see me playing football at recess. Hopefully, I’d be playing against the dorky 3rd graders in my class who always played at a skill level relative to their popularity level. If I recall, that’s how sports worked in 5th grade, so I assume it was the same way in the 3rd grade.
Anyway, we had a zip line on the playground. Yeah, a zip line – a tall wooden structure with a metal cord stretching from the top and diagonaling down to the ground. You’d crawl up the structure and zip down that son of a bitch, all without being under the watchful eye of a supervisor. Those were the 80s, my friends, when you didn’t have to wear a helmet to ride a bike, and it was possible that you might break your arm at recess, and if you forgot your jacket, well, you were still going outside in the snow anyway. Back when kids were men. If any of you youngsters of today’s generation ever go back in time to check out the 80s, me and my young friends of the past are gonna kick your asses.
I was standing about 300 yards from the zip line when the red head crawled up the structure, grabbed hold of the handle (or whatever the hell it was), and took a brave leap to enjoy the wonders of gravity. She zipped all the way down, until the handle was stopped abrubtly by the hanging tire, and the little red head continued to enjoy gravity as she flew though the air and landed on her back on the hard sandy ground. She laid there, crying, as a huge crowd ran over to see if she was ok. I felt terrible for my first True Love. I watched from afar as a bunch of old folks bent over the crying girl, checking her for serious injuries. I so badly wanted to run over to her and tell her that everything would be ok – that little kids were resilient mother fuckers, and within a few minutes she’d be back up and happy and ready to hit the zip line again. Hell, maybe we could even zip down it together one day. I wanted to tell her these things.
Instead, I turned around and walked in the other direction. Love lost.
Middle School: Lisa
I moved to Georgia in the 6th grade, and I drew comic books as a lame attempt to get cool. It worked. I shit you not. Well, and I was fortunate enough to sit next to the most popular kid in “Pod A.” So that probably helped, too. Actually, I probably was semi-cool, not because of the comic books, but in spite of them.
Anyway, I heard that a girl named Lisa liked me, and my confused prepubscent mind interpreted a girl liking me to me liking a girl. And all was well. I had a friend ask her to go out with me, and she wrote me a note saying, “I want to, but I’m spending the night in my friend’s parents’ camper this weekend, and a couple of boys are sneaking over, and I don’t want to do anything to complicate matters.” I doubt she used the word “complicate,” but never the less, that’s a rather adult note for a 6th grader, don’t you think? No matter, I was patient. I figured I could wait till next Monday and then we could start our wonderous adventure in young love.
Well Monday came and went, and I didn’t have the balls to ask her out again. Then another Monday came and went. Then another. Then I heard a rumor that one of the cool kids at school “went up her shirt.”
And I wanted nothing to do with the dirty whore. Love lost.
Middle School 2: Wendy
Wendy was a lifeguard at my friend Scrammy’s neighborhood pool. Scrammy and I were in 7th grade, and Wendy was in 9th or 10th. High school. An older woman. Wow. She was a beauty. We’d hang out at the pool every single day during the summer talking to Wendy and trying to impress her by.. uh… drawing comic books. SHIT, WHAT’S UP WITH ME AND THE COMICS??? Anyway, Wendy was really nice to Scrammy and me. The objective word here being “nice.” Of course, to Scrammy and me it meant, “Holy shit, this hot older girl likes us! Well, likes me. She’s just being ‘nice’ to the other guy.” I’m sure that’s what we were both thinking. It’s what I was thinking.
Scrammy had a pair of lucky pennies that he’d carry with him. One day Wendy told us she would take us bowling after she got off work. For real? Wow! And she had a driver’s license, too! She could actually DRIVE us to the bowling alley. Oh man, the stars aligned on that day. The world was a wonderful place. Until that bastard Scrammy decided to throw his lucky pennies down a gutter as we were wandering the neighborhood streets. An hour or so later Wendy called Scrammy’s house to tell us that, sorry, but she had forgotten about a prior committment and couldn’t take us bowling. And I learned that the world is an evil place.
Oh, what joys we could have experienced together. An older woman and her young lover – an awkward zitty version of the Graduate. “Come here Benjamin… Do you want me to seduce you?”
If it wasn’t for those pennies. Those fucking pennies. Love lost.
High School: The Rock Twins
Ahh, the Rock Twins. The beautiful blond duo who was nice to the jocks and the dorks alike. Their last name wasn’t really “Rock,” but “Rock” doesn’t sound too much like “Ruch,” and this way no one will know who I’m talking about. Better to keep these more recent crushes confidential. Either way, this one isn’t too much of a suprise. Every guy in High School had a crush on these girls. The Rocks were identical twins, and it was actually quite difficult to tell the two of them apart. That, of course, didn’t stop us from claiming that one was hotter than the other, an assertion based purely on whomever was nicer to us at the time. The Rocks used to lifeguard at one of our pal’s neighborhood pools. We’d hang out at that pool every day – every day they were lifeguarding, that is. We’d try to impress them with our comedic stylings by inventing games such as “Torpedo,” where one guy would “torpedo” off of the pool wall, and once he glided to the middle of the pool, we’d beat him with fists and feet until he was withering and whimpering and curled up on the bottom of the pool. Or games like “Urine Trouble,” where we’d, well, we’d piss in the pool while standing next to an unknowing pal. Courtship is a curious thing, is it not? Once I ate dog food in front of this girl in a desperate attempt for attention…
Uh… Love lost.
College: Karen(?)
I can’t remember this girl’s name, but it might have been Karen. It might have been Ethyl for all I can remember, but let’s go with Karen. I was a junior and we were in Drama 301: Intro To Acting together. She was a couple years older…
Wait a minute. If I was a junior, it seems quite unlikely that she was a couple years older, doesn’t it? It’s possible of course, but I wouldn’t imagine she’d be in an Intro course. Well, she seemed older anyway. She also seemed like one of those rich Sorority girls. I mean, not your stereotypical rich southern sorority girl – she was a brunette. She was probably in one of those rich legacy sororities that hung out with one of those rich legacy fraternities that smoked a lot of weed. Those fraternities always pissed me off. The dudes were lazy and unkempt and never studied and just sat around and smoked grass and listen to Widespread Panic, yet they were rich and hung out with hot Southern girls. Sons a bitches. They did have good bands playing at their house parties, though.
Anyway, we got along pretty good in the class. I was a better actor than most of the folks in class. You know, ex-High School Thespian and all that. And she was pretty good as well. And for her, it was probably the first time she had done any acting, and she probably started having those dreams of doing it professionally. Hope she didn’t. I’d hate to think my college crush is a prostitute out in L.A. now. So, since we were both pretty good, we’d hang out and chat and smoke cigarettes after class. There were other classmates who’d smoke out there with us, but they weren’t ex-Thespians or nothing, so I had an “in”. Hell yeah, I did.
One of our assignments was to do a stage performance to a song of our choice – a live rock video, if you will. My performance was of a college student waking up on the couch with a hangover and trying to find a cigarette, and then realizing he was late for a test. I did it all to the powerful orchestrations of Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries. It was astonishing. She told a musical tale of a girl breaking up with her boyfriend over the phone, then throwing on some nice clothes, and heading out onto the town alone to be the proud and independent woman that she was. The song she chose was that one that goes, “Now go, go out the door. Don’t come around, cause you’re not welcome anymore. I’ve got all my life to live, I’ve got all my love to give…” etc etc. And man, was she beautiful. Yowza. I was smitten. I could have watched her perfomance a million times. If video camera phones had been invented at the time, I probably WOULD have watched it a million times, if you know what I’m saying. Creep.
I ran into Karen at a bar the next semester. We were talking and smoking cigarettes and I was hammered. As hell. And for some reason my stupid drunken brain thought it would be a good idea to focus on the subject of how much younger I was. I don’t remember what I said, other than, “I’m so young.” More than once. Fucking a.
I woke up that next morning alone in my house, reflected on the conversation, and thought, “Shit.” Love lost.
Post College…
I can’t say I had any crushes in my post-college days. I spent a good part of it in a relationship. And, if you have crushes while you’re in a serious relationship, you’re not a romantic, you’re an asshole.
And, well, I guess that brings us to the end of crushes for this young fellow. From here on out, for the rest of my days, it’s all logic and reason and booze.
So here I sit, a life full of loves come and gone. And why do I bring it all up, you ask? Well, because I think it’s important to keep these kind of things in mind. For each one of these crushes, I had all kinds of young hopes and dreams of what could happen. And in each case, I never had the guts to tell the beautiful object of my affection how I felt about her.
And thus, nothing.
Had I told just one of these girls the truth, my whole world, everything, would be different.
And you know what?
Get this. Had I wiped my ass with Charmin instead of Angel Soft back in, say, I don’t know, August of 1998, my whole world be different, as well. And that, my friends, is the real point. This “Now”, this present tense, is the outcome of a very specific set of occurances – a set of proababilities, each with infinite possibilities, each leading to another probability with infinite possibilities and so on and so on. A grand line of cause and effect, all leading to this one very specific point in this particular present dimension.
I guess what it comes down to in the grand cosmic scheme of things, is that one’s brave confession of true love to his crush has the exact same importance as a deft wipe of the ass. They both lead to the same thing – a future outcome. Based on everything.
Yes yes, I know. I’m a hopeless romantic.
So, to all you kids out there who are experiencing a crush for the first time, heed the advice from a weathered old man who’s been there… Life is short. Don’t be afraid to tell her how you feel. Acknowlege this strange wonderful feeling you have, celebrate this crush, and GO WITH IT.
Or don’t.
You could just wipe your ass.
Same thing.
Man, that was a stupid conclusion to this post. Heh.
