Jogging my memory

Listening to Nolan talk about his crush has brought me back to another time.

See, I wasn't much older than he is when I started to date his Dad.  (A fact my childhood best friend points out with glee everytime I am ranting about whatever it is I am banning from the house in an effort to protect the boy from the world.)

I told him the story, about how I'd really been interested in this boy my age.   A boy who was interested in me too, but only talked to me and certainly never asked me out.  No, his way of letting me know he liked me was to stare at me the entire time we were in Science (he sat across from me).  I could feel him, willing our eyes to meet, as he burned a hole in the top of my head.

I was in eighth grade, and desperately was hoping he'd ask me to our little eighth grade graduation soiree, and he did not.  I was really bummed out about it, but not so much that it prevented me from going stag to the thing anyway.  At this same time, I'd  made Mr. W's acquaintance at an event at the high school.  He, on the other hand, made his interest known.

His attention, which might be viewed as stalking these days (he just happened to show up everywhere I went, and drove by my house so many times I could recognize his passing by without going to the window) was certainly getting my attention.  He gave me his number, and kept telling/asking me to call him.  "I don't call boys,"  I protested, a half-truth, but one I maintained until he wore me down.

I called him.

And the rest is history.

The other boy stayed interested, for a long time, enough so that even to this day, Mr W is not too happy if I mention his name. 

I was hoping the story might help illustrate to Nolan that if you are interested, you should say something, or someone else might beat you to the punch.

Sometimes you just need to get over yourself and open your mouth.

I will spare him all the tales of when you open your mouth and insert your own foot.  While it is true that I am something of an authority on that, he has been becoming more familiar with those all on his own.

Even my overprotective self knows some rites of passage are best experienced firsthand.