Grade School Daze 03

The only girls I kissed as a very early teen were at a combination Halloween-Birthday party in seventh grade. Was the party thrown by . . . was it Rita Z. or Mary somebody? Can’t recall. But I remember thoroughly enjoying that night, the whole party, not only the occasional kiss. It was a magical evening. Dressed as a pirate, I felt sufficiently attractive that I actually talked and joked with all the girls there. And especially with Carol S., who I thought of, with my heart ready to burst, as my girl-friend. Even though she and another one of my school-mates, Frank A., had only recently “broken up” as it were.

To me, Carol was smart and athletic as well as attractive. And even better she whispered to Rosemary C., who immediately turned around just as she was supposed to and told me that Carol liked me too. Oh gloriously happy day!

Naturally, I went a little wild over the kissing in the dark, behind a sheet drawn across the basement. Not obviously wild, but certainly in my most secret of hearts. I probably kissed three or maybe four girls, tops. As did most of the other boys. God, it was the stuff of dreams. Soft tender lips, bodies slightly touching in the dim light. It was a night whose perfection I thought unmatched.

It didn’t take long for the shit to hit the fan. Try the very next school day. The girls at the party got into trouble at school (the dreaded nun patrol found out everything) for playing spin-the-bottle and post office and quickly transferred the blame onto the horndog boys who were present, me included. As a result, our names and reputations were instant mud. Aspersions were cast upon us from on high. My already weak social position was undermined past salvation and my budding relationship with Carol S. withered and died on the spot.

Frank A., who lived only three short blocks from her and had the golden opportunity of walking her home every day after school, quickly wormed his way back in her good graces (he had not taken such obvious pleasure in what the nuns called “wanton” kissing and “wild” dancing at the party because he had been on the outs with Carol and had not been invited). Shit on once again, I was resigned to continuing my career as a mushroom.

So by eighth grade I found myself even more ostracized than before. I did not dance at all with girls because basically I was too unsure of myself. Also, other than my neighborhood friend, Rosemary, I didn’t know any girls well and therefore never learned how to dance, or how to communicate with girls.

Okay, that’s a small exaggeration. Rosemary was right across the street and tried her damnedest to teach me to dance. But I was so terribly self-conscious and shy around girls that I simply couldn’t bring myself to participate in anything so bold as holding a girl in my arms. Therefore, on our eighth grade class picnic at the end of the year I sat around the park where we had gone, feeling wretched and watching everyone else have a good time dancing to the tunes pouring from the jukebox.

Sounds exactly like a proto-typical early teenage experience but the pain was personal.