a big swing and a miss…thank god!

“everything happens for a reason”

we’ve all heard that shit. sometimes when things go good, but mainly when things go bad. i never understood it on the bad end. but some recent events in my world brought to light a way i feel, in negative circumstances, i feel it should be BETTER phrased.

somethings DON’T happen for a reason

flash back to 1989. it was my senior year in high school and i had no friends. okay, so that wasn’t totally true – but bret had graduated and my crew of skater buddies had decided that in a small town small minded high school all the (pseudo) cowboys got the girls not the kids with skateboards and odd hair so, over the course of xmas break, they all decided they would go that route with their appearance in order to score some tail and did…

…i didn’t. always been me. deal with it or fuck off.

sadly, for the tail end of my high school years they decided to do the latter.

i still had lance, but for the most part high school was dead to me at that point. just as well – i was out of there in just five months, so this guaranteed i wouldn’t miss the place or look back like these were the peak of my existence (as it was for far too many of my classmates). but for the most part i found solace in going to clubs in austin – wednesday night at planetarium, thursday at home (as in my house, not some club called “home”) and then friday and saturday nights at curfew…and there were some GORGEOUS women there, that put the girls i was in school with to shame – and some of them actually paid attention to me. some more than others.

yep, i was in love.

when the prom came around that spring i asked a girl i had a crush on in high school but she thought i was just joking (or so she claimed) and went with somebody else. rather than ask one of the club girls i just went to the club…saw some of my classmates on sixth street later in their tuxes and formals trying (unsuccessfully) to get into some of the clubs on the strip. as no door man had any clue i was under eighteen i just kept my head down and ignored them as i glided in sans cover while they were denied entry.

“redemption” i think this would be called.

but back to the girl. she was hot. in hindsight, WAAAAY too hot for my fat, awkward self to have ever scored in any sense of the word. but i was blinded and into it, and she was fairly friendly and accommodating. sure, it never went past friendly kisses, but at the time i didn’t know any better. she went on to stripping NOT to put herself through college and several failed relationships and, thankfully, a bout with breast cancer that she survived…

(thankful on the survival part, not the cancer part, which i mention so i don’t look like THAT much of a dick as you keep reading)

we lost touch for about twenty years but, thanks to good ol’ social networking, we found each other again. she still looks amazing and has aged really, really well. we instantly exchanged numbers and lots of texts and IM’s followed, and some occasional calls. at this point she was single and lonely, but i was happily taken so it changed the dynamic a bit. she wasn’t happy in life thanks to failed marriage, career, and some recent weight gain (i found out all the pics she had up were a couple years old, before the weight went on).

partially to help her feel better while she was at her lowest (so she told me – i wasn’t judging) and partially to finally confess i told her about how i had really felt back then, how much it had meant to me, and boost my ego and confidence when it came to dealing with women…even though she thought she was just being cool and friendly, i had totally misinterpreted it at the time that i was some kind of mack and, since power perceived is power achieved, it had helped me get over that hump (har) to finally start landing girlfriends and such…

…she cried. not in a bad way.

not for any kind of romantic i will quickly interject i wanted us to hang out. she agreed. but every time i would try and make it happen there was some reason it couldn’t. i wanted to think that it was because of the whole “uncomfortable with her weight” thing but she would regail me with tales of dates she was going on and people from our clubbing past she would go hang out with, just never with me. a couple weeks ago i saw her “check in” via facebook at a restaurant less than half a mile from where i work. i texted her and said she should pop by the shop when she got done eating, but was simply told “i can’t. sawwy sweetie. :(“. i wasn’t a date – she was out with one of the girls we used to hang at the club with, so it’s not like popping over six blocks would be cramping her romantic style…she just simply couldn’t be bothered…

…and that’s when it hit me – she, voluntarily or not, liked me around when she was down because of how i boosted her up. she liked how i made her feel when she was sad, but once she WASN’T then there was no purpose. i was like an emotional knee brace; when the knee was acting up you pull me off the shelf, but once you’re walking fine again i’m shoved back in the closet until the next time the humidity fucks with you.

fuck all that.

there were moments, in the late eighties and early nineties, when i wondered why i “couldn’t be lucky enough” to score this girl or “somebody just like her”. now i get why…and why sometimes things DON’T happen…for a reason.