My Glory Days
I was sitting across from a friend the other night, enjoying a drink. Sitting next to us, facing a surprisingly busy Wednesday night in Modesto, was a woman who was madly in love with my friend. He did not feel the same. She paid little attention to me during our four-hour stay at this dimly lit bar, only turning to face me after I asked her a question or provided an anecdote involving my friend. He did not want her there, as we indulged in man-talk -- sports, music, booze, etc. -- but he invited her anyway because he wanted to be seen with a woman.
It presents the idea to the other women in the bar that we’re not total losers, he said.
No matter what he did or said to her, she’d occasionally lean her petite frame into the right side of his body (after scooting her chair closer to his), the infatuation underscored by a little-girl giggle. It was an impressive display. When I let slip I can call him with minimal notice and he’ll commit to a spontaneous trip to the bar, just like tonight, it struck a nerve in the woman, who had a history of sending a collection of “u want to catch a flick 2nite?” and “u want to come ovr?” digital love notes.
She put his fairness on the hot seat, this time bringing me into the discussion: “He never does that for me.”
He took a few more sips of his beer and, in my mind, he rolled up his sleeves before going into kick-ass mode. “Look, woman,” he began. He laid down rules and policies like a dictator. “I keep telling you that I can’t go but you keep buggin’ me incessantly. I’m just letting you know, all right?” I didn’t feel bad at all for the woman, who had a bubbly personality on most nights. But just then, I turned nostalgic and traveled back to a time when I was a boy with no shortage of girlfriends, remembering how I used to treat them.
This was junior high.
My days of landing girls the same way air-traffic control lands planes took off too early, too suddenly, not long after I reached puberty and way before I knew how to treat girls correctly -- which is not to say that I’ve gotten much practice since. I haven’t boasted a serious girlfriend in seven years, never once admitting publicly that I’m stuck in a sort of love-shyness phase. I’ve gone on a handful of dates during this drought, all of them leading nowhere and destroying my self-esteem, plunging it lower than the necklines of the shirts worn by today’s teenage girls. I scavenged the Internet for dating prospects … with minor success. And it has taken me several years to share this, but I used to bug an ex-girlfriend for a second shot about once every year since our breakup, facing rejection each time. And since that serious relationship, the most action I received from a woman was purely accidental: At a 49ers game two years ago, a drunken woman sitting in the above row crashed into me, giving me a reverse motorboating.
I often find myself thinking about my junior high days, when I was 13 and 14 and never going a month without a girlfriend. I don’t know how I attracted so many cuties, but I did. I was always around girls, my basketball teammates used to remind me, the team’s top benchwarmer.
One girl wanted to spend time with me before her summer trip to Thailand (I never obliged, since I dated her sister). Another girl fought for me, resulting in a bloody nose and a parting finalized through a note, saying I “wasn‘t man enough“ for her. One girl, who happened to be a year older, sent a replacement girlfriend to the final dance of my seventh-grade year because she cared enough to not have me go stag; subsequently, I touched my first pair of boobs during the last slow dance, while a guy nearby slapped my hand as if I were taking a victory lap. Another girl stood outside of my bedroom window late one night, only to serenade me with her rendition of Shanice’s “I Love Your Smile,” an oldie now, but a goodie at the time. And every other day, I would get hand-written letters, some of them folded into the shape of a heart. They weren’t always from the same girl.
My championship moment didn’t happen at my junior high campus, nor did it take place in my hometown. It magically occurred in Fresno, where I was attending a housewarming with my family right as summer began. Among the attendees were my parents, my little sister and I. My brother didn’t make the trip, which was unfortunate, as he had assisted on a couple of my romantic partnerships by taking me to skating rinks and house parties to unite with my girlfriends. My sister spent much of her time playing with the other little girls and my parents were busy kicking stories around with their friends.
I was alone, for the most part.
A guy a couple years older than me invited me to play video games with him in one of the rooms. I left him after he never shared the game controller. I walked to the living room and bumped into my mom. I begged for some change so I could run to the corner convenience store to purchase sweets. She said no, doling out two reasons: She didn’t want me to cross the street alone, and she didn’t want to contribute to any more holes in my already cavity-ridden teeth. She didn’t do this in a gentle, motherly way, either. She mocked me and shouted, all in front of the most radiant girl I’d ever seen, who was just getting out of the bathroom. I suspected the gal to be in high school, evident by her long legs stretching from underneath a short skirt. I didn’t see much of that at the junior high level. Her smile was unstoppable, like a sky diver with no parachute, complementing her light complexion. My face turned into a splash of red, unable to accept the fact that this would be her first impression of me.
Something strange happened, though: She giggled, the sort of giggle reserved for watching a friend sing karaoke for the first time.
I went to the kitchen, snatched a couple of egg rolls into both hands and reintroduced myself to that older, greedy gaming addict. I mentioned my encounter with the beautiful kind and he shifted into friend mode. With the video game stalled, he instructed me to go for it and never look back, as if to steal a car. “Don’t be so fuckin’ nervous because of how much older and how stunning she may be,” he deadpanned, “even if you don’t qualify to be in her league.”
This housewarming attracted a collection of active kids, some of them from the surrounding houses of this relatively new neighborhood, and most of them were outside playing on the lawn or riding around on bicycles. The luminous Paula was out playing, too. And her smile was incapable of ending, even while she was participating in a game of tag with the smaller kids. This was my shot. I offered to be “it,” negating the “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” countdown. I didn’t reach out for Paula at first, going straight for the other half-dozen or so children. But fate couldn’t be rolled over. Eventually, Paula and I were at center stage. The spectators gushed. Somehow, this small universe of neighborhood kids found out about my afternoon crush on a girl who we all believed was at least a year ahead of me. I pretty much toyed around with her, allowing her to run around for almost a half-minute before I turned on the jukes. When it was her turn to chase, I became the final out. She giggled the entire 30 seconds before she caught me by the shoulders, causing me to fall back. She landed on top of me. Staring me in the face, she grabbed my cheeks and whispered loudly my two favorite words of the day: “You’re it!”
She learned my name from the other kids, the same way I learned hers. I also discovered that we weren’t related, information that welcomed a self-inflicted high-five in the bathroom. Other things I learned: She was also transitioning into eighth grade, and she had just moved into the neighborhood. She loved boys with dimples. She loved boys with a sense of humor. The last piece of information got me determined to make a fool of myself. I even went as far as wrapping the cord of a headphone around my neck, thinking -- in some strange way, perhaps to grab her attention -- this was funny. Instead, my faced turned blue. Paula, taking a break from watching TV, helped me unwrap the cord, her body hovering over mine, her breath blowing over me.
“I’m sorry, I just embarrassed myself,” I said.
“No, no,” she offered. “That was silly, in a cute way.”
We spent hours together, even went around the block for a walk and I never thought I wasn’t good enough. A girl I liked felt the same way.
When my mom told me that we were leaving, I just walked away -- too shy to ask for a phone number. I turned around and saw her watching from the doorsteps, her eyes squinting a little because of the jewelry in the sky. But then, my mom got caught up in another story with one of her friends. This was my shot. I walked toward Paula and shyly asked if I could talk to her again, though we lived miles apart ... and though I had a girlfriend waiting back at school.
“But I don’t have a pen,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” she said. She handed me a piece of paper, her phone number already written on it.
By the end of that summer, while both of our households were sleeping, I asked her to be my girlfriend. In a soft whisper, she replied with my favorite word of the night: Yes. I assume she smiled in her room about 100 miles away.
Back at the bar, the woman still wasn’t shy about her interest in my friend. She even bought us a round of drinks, perhaps in an attempt to put him at ease. And we talked more about booze, music and sports, with the woman sharing a dirty little story that arguably changed the course of the evening.
I knew how the night would end.
They would leave together and I’d go home alone.
It presents the idea to the other women in the bar that we’re not total losers, he said.
No matter what he did or said to her, she’d occasionally lean her petite frame into the right side of his body (after scooting her chair closer to his), the infatuation underscored by a little-girl giggle. It was an impressive display. When I let slip I can call him with minimal notice and he’ll commit to a spontaneous trip to the bar, just like tonight, it struck a nerve in the woman, who had a history of sending a collection of “u want to catch a flick 2nite?” and “u want to come ovr?” digital love notes.
She put his fairness on the hot seat, this time bringing me into the discussion: “He never does that for me.”
He took a few more sips of his beer and, in my mind, he rolled up his sleeves before going into kick-ass mode. “Look, woman,” he began. He laid down rules and policies like a dictator. “I keep telling you that I can’t go but you keep buggin’ me incessantly. I’m just letting you know, all right?” I didn’t feel bad at all for the woman, who had a bubbly personality on most nights. But just then, I turned nostalgic and traveled back to a time when I was a boy with no shortage of girlfriends, remembering how I used to treat them.
This was junior high.
My days of landing girls the same way air-traffic control lands planes took off too early, too suddenly, not long after I reached puberty and way before I knew how to treat girls correctly -- which is not to say that I’ve gotten much practice since. I haven’t boasted a serious girlfriend in seven years, never once admitting publicly that I’m stuck in a sort of love-shyness phase. I’ve gone on a handful of dates during this drought, all of them leading nowhere and destroying my self-esteem, plunging it lower than the necklines of the shirts worn by today’s teenage girls. I scavenged the Internet for dating prospects … with minor success. And it has taken me several years to share this, but I used to bug an ex-girlfriend for a second shot about once every year since our breakup, facing rejection each time. And since that serious relationship, the most action I received from a woman was purely accidental: At a 49ers game two years ago, a drunken woman sitting in the above row crashed into me, giving me a reverse motorboating.
I often find myself thinking about my junior high days, when I was 13 and 14 and never going a month without a girlfriend. I don’t know how I attracted so many cuties, but I did. I was always around girls, my basketball teammates used to remind me, the team’s top benchwarmer.
One girl wanted to spend time with me before her summer trip to Thailand (I never obliged, since I dated her sister). Another girl fought for me, resulting in a bloody nose and a parting finalized through a note, saying I “wasn‘t man enough“ for her. One girl, who happened to be a year older, sent a replacement girlfriend to the final dance of my seventh-grade year because she cared enough to not have me go stag; subsequently, I touched my first pair of boobs during the last slow dance, while a guy nearby slapped my hand as if I were taking a victory lap. Another girl stood outside of my bedroom window late one night, only to serenade me with her rendition of Shanice’s “I Love Your Smile,” an oldie now, but a goodie at the time. And every other day, I would get hand-written letters, some of them folded into the shape of a heart. They weren’t always from the same girl.
My championship moment didn’t happen at my junior high campus, nor did it take place in my hometown. It magically occurred in Fresno, where I was attending a housewarming with my family right as summer began. Among the attendees were my parents, my little sister and I. My brother didn’t make the trip, which was unfortunate, as he had assisted on a couple of my romantic partnerships by taking me to skating rinks and house parties to unite with my girlfriends. My sister spent much of her time playing with the other little girls and my parents were busy kicking stories around with their friends.
I was alone, for the most part.
A guy a couple years older than me invited me to play video games with him in one of the rooms. I left him after he never shared the game controller. I walked to the living room and bumped into my mom. I begged for some change so I could run to the corner convenience store to purchase sweets. She said no, doling out two reasons: She didn’t want me to cross the street alone, and she didn’t want to contribute to any more holes in my already cavity-ridden teeth. She didn’t do this in a gentle, motherly way, either. She mocked me and shouted, all in front of the most radiant girl I’d ever seen, who was just getting out of the bathroom. I suspected the gal to be in high school, evident by her long legs stretching from underneath a short skirt. I didn’t see much of that at the junior high level. Her smile was unstoppable, like a sky diver with no parachute, complementing her light complexion. My face turned into a splash of red, unable to accept the fact that this would be her first impression of me.
Something strange happened, though: She giggled, the sort of giggle reserved for watching a friend sing karaoke for the first time.
I went to the kitchen, snatched a couple of egg rolls into both hands and reintroduced myself to that older, greedy gaming addict. I mentioned my encounter with the beautiful kind and he shifted into friend mode. With the video game stalled, he instructed me to go for it and never look back, as if to steal a car. “Don’t be so fuckin’ nervous because of how much older and how stunning she may be,” he deadpanned, “even if you don’t qualify to be in her league.”
This housewarming attracted a collection of active kids, some of them from the surrounding houses of this relatively new neighborhood, and most of them were outside playing on the lawn or riding around on bicycles. The luminous Paula was out playing, too. And her smile was incapable of ending, even while she was participating in a game of tag with the smaller kids. This was my shot. I offered to be “it,” negating the “eeny, meeny, miny, moe” countdown. I didn’t reach out for Paula at first, going straight for the other half-dozen or so children. But fate couldn’t be rolled over. Eventually, Paula and I were at center stage. The spectators gushed. Somehow, this small universe of neighborhood kids found out about my afternoon crush on a girl who we all believed was at least a year ahead of me. I pretty much toyed around with her, allowing her to run around for almost a half-minute before I turned on the jukes. When it was her turn to chase, I became the final out. She giggled the entire 30 seconds before she caught me by the shoulders, causing me to fall back. She landed on top of me. Staring me in the face, she grabbed my cheeks and whispered loudly my two favorite words of the day: “You’re it!”
She learned my name from the other kids, the same way I learned hers. I also discovered that we weren’t related, information that welcomed a self-inflicted high-five in the bathroom. Other things I learned: She was also transitioning into eighth grade, and she had just moved into the neighborhood. She loved boys with dimples. She loved boys with a sense of humor. The last piece of information got me determined to make a fool of myself. I even went as far as wrapping the cord of a headphone around my neck, thinking -- in some strange way, perhaps to grab her attention -- this was funny. Instead, my faced turned blue. Paula, taking a break from watching TV, helped me unwrap the cord, her body hovering over mine, her breath blowing over me.
“I’m sorry, I just embarrassed myself,” I said.
“No, no,” she offered. “That was silly, in a cute way.”
We spent hours together, even went around the block for a walk and I never thought I wasn’t good enough. A girl I liked felt the same way.
When my mom told me that we were leaving, I just walked away -- too shy to ask for a phone number. I turned around and saw her watching from the doorsteps, her eyes squinting a little because of the jewelry in the sky. But then, my mom got caught up in another story with one of her friends. This was my shot. I walked toward Paula and shyly asked if I could talk to her again, though we lived miles apart ... and though I had a girlfriend waiting back at school.
“But I don’t have a pen,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” she said. She handed me a piece of paper, her phone number already written on it.
By the end of that summer, while both of our households were sleeping, I asked her to be my girlfriend. In a soft whisper, she replied with my favorite word of the night: Yes. I assume she smiled in her room about 100 miles away.
Back at the bar, the woman still wasn’t shy about her interest in my friend. She even bought us a round of drinks, perhaps in an attempt to put him at ease. And we talked more about booze, music and sports, with the woman sharing a dirty little story that arguably changed the course of the evening.
I knew how the night would end.
They would leave together and I’d go home alone.