Well, here it is. My final attempt at a relationship. The one that convinced me I was completely unlovable. I would have Crushes a couple of times after this, but I would never act on them, even in a minor fashion. So, here we go.
Raye was Darron’s sister. Shortly after I left High School, I heard from Erin’s mother that she had a minor crush on me basically since I arrived at the school. I think I can pinpoint when it started, because my first State Convention I (in my opinion) very compassionately consoled her after she was turned down for a date by a boy named Brady. I think she appreciated my attempt at being helpful and considered me a sensitive guy after that. She couldn’t have been more wrong!
But, I never noticed that she was attracted to me. She was enamored with my intelligence and vocabulary, which in my experience is unusual unless the guy pairs it with something else. She didn’t really give off many signals, in my opinion, but I admit that I was mostly oblivious to subtle non-verbal cues. So I went my whole High School career without realizing that I could have gotten a date from her anytime I wanted.
Before her Senior Year of High School, she was a bit on the heavy side. However, during her Senior Year, she wanted to fit in better with the other girls at the school, and she wanted a Boyfriend. So she ate nothing but tossed salads with ketchup on them, basically a starvation diet, until she got slim. The effect on her appearance and confidence was … dramatic, to say the least. [Editor’s note: Many years later I learned that her Food Disorder may have been a bit more severe.]
So, fresh with the information that she liked me, I asked her to go with me to the “River Boat Banquet” at State Convention. It was a special event concocted in the years immediately after I left where the Banquet (my school’s version of the Prom) was held on a River Boat on the Ohio River. I think it was 199X. She readily agreed. I asked her if I could consider it a date, and she said I could “consider it whatever you want.” I was very excited.
However, once I got there, it was a nightmare. For one thing, everybody looked at us like we were a couple of freak jobs. It was quite unusual for a 20 year old man like me to go to a High School Banquet with an 18 year old. I think Darron was especially creeped out by it, her being his sister and all. Not only that, Raye was clearly doing me a favor, considering how poorly I kept myself up. I spent most of my time standing over her while she talked with her friends, as well as other boys. People would ask her who she was here with and she deflected the question with non-answers. I knew things were going badly right then.
Suddenly, in the middle of the date, Raye said she “couldn’t do it anymore” and that I was “just like her old boyfriend.” She basically felt like he (and I, by comparison) were dragging her down, and that we were a little too needy for her attentions. So my first and only date never even reached completion. I basically spent the rest of the evening talking with Ned, who was similarly dateless. As I remember, we mocked the institution of dating, and women, quite vociferously the entire night.
Several months after my date, Raye hooked up with another guy I was very dismissive toward. He was a Country Boy through and through, and didn’t exactly seem to be firing on all cylinders. (I don’t know for certain, because I never spoke with him more than five minutes.) With the benefit of hindsight, he had a rather unattractive face but was in great physical shape. As a heavily-repressed soul I had no conception of this and couldn’t believe that Raye preferred him over me, and felt even worse about myself as a result.
Several years after high school she gained her weight back. The only man who continued to show interest in her was a guy named Jeremiah (actually Delbert’s brother) and he ended up marrying her. They have a happy, stable, very Baptist relationship now with two small boys. I don’t blame her for marrying him, but I do blame her for treating me so shittily in the middle of a date.
[Editor’s note: With the benefit of hindsight, I consider this incident to mostly likely be transparent attempt to hurt someone similar to her previous boyfriend as a means of feeling better about herself. That relationship ended acrimoniously and rather recently to the events which occurred in this entry.]