High School Dating Memory

I met someone who looked just like the adult version of someone I dated very briefly in 10th or 11th grade--forget which--and the long-forgotten memory of that came flooding back to me and has been cracking me up all day.

He was a year younger than I, so I couldn't take him at all seriously to begin with. And then there was his high-pitched, fire-truck-siren-inspired squeal whenever he thought something was funny. He considered me to be "the funniest person he ever met," a regular laugh-riot.

The relationship was all of my shocking dead-panisms and his hysterical laughter. There was nothing more to it than that.

He was incredibly attractive and mindlessly stupid. But he had that crazy laugh-track, and I am still not above pushing the single button any given toy might have, over and over and over again....

He came from an extremely conservative back-ground with all sorts of conduct codes brow-beaten into him by his parents. He was poised and polished, naive and starched.

But he followed me around like a dumb dog and I'll admit I loved it. I had a sassy mouth and an attitude that really sucked. With ratty hair dyed whatever color, too much eyeliner and dressed to break my mother's heart, I never got to meet the parents. This was fine with me because fuck them anyhow.

I can't imagine a lipsticked teenage tart with Sid Vicious swagger spouting Fran Liebowitz-isms wouldn't be amusing and I know I worked that angle.

I became increasingly interested in seeing this giggling, one-trick-pony crack and launched an intensive campaign of talking the most dreadful smack, doing my damndest to shock and appall. He only laughed more wickedly and wildly at anything and everything I would say and rather indiscriminately. I was not impressed. I remember thinking of hyenas and feeling sad.

I convinced him to drink tequila shots and make out with me, but it wasn't until I went for his zipper that he stopped laughing and looked sick. He said that nothing was wrong but he just remembered he had to have dinner with his grandparents and he was late. We never really talked again and that's all I know about that.

Happy New Year!