CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
Profile continued . . .

ARCHIVES!
Leslie and the Unicorn Broach

Saturday, June 28, 2008

this entry brought to you by hot chip, "hold on"


There was a girl I had a crush on in high school named Leslie. It wasn't a huge crush, but I did like her. We sat next to one another in biology class, and I'd known her my whole life-- I remember popping her bra in the third grade. We were never very close growing up, but she and I were inseparable in biology class. Specifically in biology class. She was one of those friends that wasn't quite in the most popular group of kids in high school, but she was one tier down. Star track runner. And outside of class she never would say hi to me. She'd smile and say hi if I said hi first, but would never initiate any kind of contact outside of class. Inside class she was rather affectionate towards me, giggling at my jokes, writing down the notes on the chalkboard at the beginning of class once I broke my glasses and couldn't see, doodling on me-- constantly doodling on me. It always sort of irritated me that she acted like we were brother and sister inside class, but in the hallway I could barely get eye contact from her.

Anyway, that's not the point of the story. The point is, one day I was helping Tim, my best friend at the time, pack for a big move. His older sister Myra once occupied his room, and now that we were moving furniture and things around, we were deep cleaning it for the first time in years. And I found a broach with a unicorn on it. It was pretty; obviously it was fake gold, but it probably cost 15 dollars. Very sparkly. We asked his older sister if it was hers, because obviously it must've been, since she was in there before him. She said she'd never seen it before. We asked his younger sister as well and got the same reaction. We had this pretty broach in our possession, couldn't find the owner. We pondered for a bit what we should do with it. Obviously neither of us was going to keep it, because we were boys. It was too cheap to give to our moms. Tim said he didn't really know any girls to give it to, which didn't surprise me, because Tim was a nerd. I, on the other hand, immediately thought of Leslie, who I was sure would like it.

I handed it to her the next Monday in class. I'd been thinking about it all weekend. Keep in mind, I did have a crush on Leslie, but it was more like a little sister crush, or maybe your best friend's little sister. I was actually excited to give it to her because I thought, this is my good deed for the day. I am about to make someone's day better.

In retrospect, I understand why what happened next happened the way it did, because having grown up and understand girls a lot more, and specifically the art of courtship, I know why her initial reaction would be negative. Still, I didn't expect what happened. I expected to hand it to her and she would look at it and give me a blank, confused look, and I would then happily explain it to her, and she would say Oh! Well thank you! And that would be that. I handed it to her with a smile and said "Here Leslie, this is for you." Before I could actually explain how I found it and why I decided to give it to her, she took one look at it, and made this horrified look on her face as if I'd gingerly handed her a turd. "God, what the hell is wrong with you?" she said, startled, tossing it back at me. "I don't want that!! Creep!"

I can't describe the pang that I felt. It was if I was being rejected as a person, not as someone who was making a romantic advance. Again, I'd sat next to Leslie every single day, she leaned on me, doodled all up and down me, she jabbed me in the ribs when I said something dorky, I thought this was a perfectly reasonable gift you could give to a girl that you sat next to. I hadn't even considered that she might take it as some sort of advance, and that she did really hurt my feelings.

"Jesus, Leslie," I scowled defensively. "It's just a fucking shitty broach I found on the fucking floor of my friend's room when we were moving. I thought you'd like it. It doesn't mean we're fucking married or anything."

Now, here's the weird part. Her entire demeanor changed. And I mean completely changed. The disgust had completely evaporated, her eyes lit up, her face started glowing. She looked down at it again. "Oh... my... god.... Chris, you are the sweetest guy. You found this and you thought of me?" My cheeks were still red as I nodded yes. I almost couldn't care anymore. "You are so sweet! Oh my gosh, this is the sweetest thing. I promise I'm going to wear it!" She hugged me, then put it in her purse and said "I'm not going to wear it now, it doesn't go with this shirt. But I promise I'll wear it!" And sure enough, I remember three distinct times she wore it through the year, and she might've worn it even more than that.

I think what struck me about this whole experience was how this one person whose relationship with me didn't change at all during the five seconds between her throwing it back at me in disgust and her calling me the sweetest guy ever, yet it was as if they were two entirely different people, and the only difference between the two responses was that right before the second response, I basically told her I didn't give a fuck. Which made me the super sweetest guy of all time. It's not that I don't understand the difference between a guy you don't have any romantic interest in coming on too strong and giving you romantic gifts when you don't want them. But I think it's funny that, when she thought I was a hopelessly romantic nerd who was trying desperately to impress her and get any kind of affection I could get, I was the most disgusting, horrid creature she could imagine. But when I explained that I was in fact a lackadasial, whatever kind of guy who found something that was basically trash and thought, enh, whatever, I know this chick who might like it I guess, shrug, suddenly I was the sweetest, most thoughtful guy in the whole world. I find that distinction ironic.
------

Completely incidentally, Leslie is the same girl in the Myspace emails I'd like to write entry that could've turned out to be a born-again with a large family or a total whore. She turned out to be the latter.
-----



with love from CRS @ 10:42 AM 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment