Posted by Just_in
on Wed 25 Mar 09, 10:49 PM to Just_in's blog.
stumbled across this little story I wrote for an article about "a test" (it was some Icelandic magazine that my friend at the time wrote for, not sure if it ever got used) as it goes, my test was asking a girl out, and the below is a true account of the first time I ever did...
To set the scene as it were, It happened in my 3rd year of high school which would have made me 14 years old or thereabouts, nothing unusual about that really except she was a relative stranger and I went to an all boys school a religious Jewish boys school to be exact.
I was a pretty normal kid by all accounts, I wasn't without my bad habits and had certain quirks like most kids my age, it wouldn't be unfair if I described myself as socially awkward but when your that age and in that kind of environment its easy to see why, especially as having relationships with girls is frowned upon at that age.
I was a bright kid although didn't excel in school or at least in that school, not wanting to be a rabbi, doctor or solicitor kind of made me separate from the rest of my peers as well not being naughty enough to be considered cool, I rebelled in my own way by keeping myself to myself by trying not to stick my head above the parapet.
There had been a few girls in my life, by that I mean girls I liked, really liked even, but id never thought to do anything about it, maybe through fear of rejection or just because I was too immature to think and act beyond the “liking phase”. Obviously as you get older and your body starts to develop you start thinking ahead and see girls in a new light, I was already clued up on “the birds and the bees” thanks to finding my older brothers collection of porn but apart from the titillation of watching sweaty Germans go at it, id had noting more serious than the odd game of doctors and nurses with a next door neighbour.
I used to get the same route home from school everyday which involved 2 buses and it was at the bus stop that she first caught my attention. She went to a local girls school that had a rather fetching brown uniform (I was in maroon). The bus being unreliable usually meant a long wait with nothing more than twiddling ones thumbs for company at least on the days I was unlucky enough not to share the bus stop with this girl.
I guess my test came in three stages, the first was striking up a conversation which luckily wasn't all that hard as it turned out she knew some boys from my school whom I knew and I joined in to there conversation always keeping myself in check to make sure I didn't come across as being a twat. The second stage was the dreaded getting her number, this was a lot more of a test as I didn't know her well enough to ask her direct but on the other hand if I got it through some other means it may a little weird that this boy whom she didn't know from Adam was calling her up out of blue asking her out, I remember taking about 2 weeks to decide and this was after about three months of seeing her at the bus stop and exchanging the odd glance. In the end I decided for option b regardless of how weird it may come across as at least having gained the number I could still back out and safe myself and her from any unnecessary awkwardness and embarrassment. In amongst the entire farrago surrounding the phone number id already committed a grave error… I didn't know her name; after 3 months I still had no idea what her bloody name was, so yeah I wasn't exactly off to an encouraging start.
So step one of my foolproof plan was to find out her name, get her number, call her up, ask her out, take her out and then live happily ever after.
My best friend at the time happened to be cousins with one of the boys she knew at my school so getting her name wasn't that hard, It was Ruth and I should point out that she was in my mind the embodiment of loveliness! Attractive, clever, funny and warm. (I got all this from hanging around the peripheries of her conversations with other people).
Id managed to convince my friend to get her number on the sly off his cousin so I was 1/3 of the way through my plan, now came the difficult bit.
After wrestling with myself for another week with her number burning a hole in my pocket (the days before mobile phones) I finally thought to myself “fuck it! its now or never” and now turned into now, turned into now, turned into now, for a good few hours clutching the phone, picking it up and putting it down, starting to dial then hanging up, it was bloody murder and what made matters worse was no sooner had I decided that tonight was the night, my bladder decided it wasn't having any of it. And throughout the evening I must have gone to the toilet twenty times while the nerves took control and dashed what little self-confidence I had left.
I was so frustrated with the situation that I started on a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle to take my mind off things and try to regain some composure. An hour into that I swallowed the hard lump in the back of my throat, picked up the phone, dialled her number and by then it was too late to turn back.
Id thought things through in my calmer moments in terms of what I was going to say at the start. Obviously I hadn't managed to resolve the issue of me being a shadow, a minor shadow in her life relatively speaking. So first off I needed to make sure she knew who the hell I was and then take it from there.
On the 5th ring someone answered the phone and it wasn't her, “can I speak to Ruth please” I said in the most pronounced and proper way I could manage “sure” came the voice of who I can only suspect was her mother “who's calling?” were words hadn't really expected or taken into account, seeing as this girl has no idea of who I am giving her mum my name isn't going to make any difference. I felt my heart sink and I mumbled out my name stuttering with the last syllable, “Ill just get her, hold on” and with that I heard the phone get laid on the table, the sound of her mothers footsteps and then the sound of her informing her daughter that Justin? Was on the phone… “Justin? Who? Are you sure he said Justin? I don't know anyone called Justin!”
I was about ready to hang up and forget the whole sorry experience but Ruth did come to the phone and after about half an hour of me going through various times we'd met and about ten different features that could only relate to me, she finally twigged who I was.
In all I think we spent about an hour and half on the telephone chatting about all kinds of rubbish and it came across like she was genuinely interested in what I had to say, things seemed to be going really well, my nerve and self confidence were growing so I thought that I should strike while the iron is hot. I did it! After a long pause preceded by an “I wanted to ask you something” I asked Ruth out!
She said no, well she didn't exactly say no… she fumbled about with the various excuses of having too much school work etc but stopped short of saying “I'm washing my hair” I felt bad at the time as no one likes rejection but looking back I'm glad she did it gently leaving me with some dignity.
-Fin-
