crushes
 

Tell me about someone you had unrequited love for.

how about foolish love?
 

my idiot ex-husband. I met him when I was 15, he was 21. he was in the navy, stationed here in newport, but he was originally from the back woods of North Carolina. His daddy was a preacher. He was pretty screwed up. He cheated on me, didn't call when he said he would, he'd say he'd be by to pick me up at 9:00 but he'd never come, I tracked him down at a hotel, he was with another girl and he has a hickey on his neck. he drank 1-2 40 oz bottles of beer every day, he spent 100% of his income on hotel rooms, booze, rap cds and pimping his ride. For some reason, I LOOOOVED him. I really have bno idea why, now when I look back.
He worked in the ship store and he stole stuff, so they put him on restriction to the boat for 45 days. I used to walk 3 miles to visit him everday after school, and I saved the $3 a day my grandmother gave me for school lunch so I could take cabs to see him. Instead of eating healthy lunches, I was eating 99cent french fries every day.
I used a sunless tanning lotion on my face and it made me break out in hives. He told me not to come and visit him until my face cleared up. Then, he went on a SIX month cruise. I vowed to remain faithful. I sent him care packages, letters, tapes with my voice on them and our song in the background (I will always love you- Whitney Houston)...I didn't go to my senior prom, I was waiting for him. I taught myself how to play guitar and I wrote a countdown song "today is the (blank) of the month of (blank), just (blank) days to go now, (blank) days to go now...(blank) days till I can see my baby, (blank) days, I think I'm going crazy"... And ofcourse, the depression song "depression, you're ripping through my soul, depression rusted this heart of gold..."
Among many other very pitiful 3 and 4 chord songs...
So anyway, he wrote me that he didn't even want to be with me when he got back. I waited 6 months for him, he came back, got a hotel room at the Newport Marriot, which cost about $150 even 12 years ago. I sat in the hotel lobby and waited for him for like 6 hours. The door guys were like "why are you waiting for this jerk" so I told them it was because he had my stereo and I wanted it back, but the real reason was that I was a friggin IDIOT way too in love with someone who didn't deserve it...
Anyway, I kept chasing him, so he let me hang around in between banging this other girl, who was very beautiful...His ship got sent to Virginia 2 months before I graduated high school. My grandparents told me they couldn't afford to send me to college in virginia, but if I stayed here, they would give me a car and pay my tuition. What do I do? I got a summer job, saved all my money and bought dishes, towels, all crap for our new home together. I talked my grandfather into co-signing a $2000 loan so I could move, I talked my aunt and uncle into giving me a ride, and I moved to Virginia, payed the first month's rent and deposit, made him dinner...Then we decided it would be cheaper if we were married because he would get almost double the money for me, housing and food allowances, etc. So, we went and got a couple of 10 karat gold wedding rings on credit and I made the arrangements for the minister and his wife to come to our apartment and marry us. We decided not to tell anyone...The night we were supposed to get married at 6:00, he tells me at 5:30 that he doesn't want to marry me. I cried and cried. He was finally like "whatever, okay, let's just do it", so we did. THEN, we walked up the street to BURGER KING and had two 99 cent whoppers. The NEXT DAY, he left for a 2 month deployment. He left me with cabinets full of rice, beans and Ramen noodles, and a five-dollar bill. I had no friends, no job, no money.
Okay, I'm sick of reliving this crap. Let me summarize the rest. I got two jobs, then we got relocated to kingsville TX, he got drunk every day, I sat around all depressed and got pets (2 cats, 2 birds, 3 dogs) Maybe I was lonely? I couldn't find a job and I even applied at Burger King and McDonald's, but I wasn't Mexican and I didn't know anyone in that shit town...He treated me like shit, locked my cats in the bathroom closet and taped the door, threw hot water on my cat, made me keep one of my dogs chained outside because it was a "mutt", wouldn't help me feed the rottweiler he wanted, so I had to go sell all of my cd's to buy dog food and I had to return my birthday clothes to the store to bring her to the vet...I kept threatening to leave and he would just say "well, go on, then, go!" and after packing up everything I own three times, I finally talked my grandmother into paying my way back home, along with the rottweiler, chihuahua and cat. I had to sell the birds, find a home for the 2 cats and the other dog. I was 19...
I WAS STUPID! I had a very low self esteem, my mother always treated me like a worthles pain in the ass, and she was always with different boyfriends. I never had a stable father figure. Maybe that's why I was so stupid??
Either way, what a learning experience!! I stopped dating black guys after that, not because I'm prejudice, but just because they remind me of my ex-husband. Same reason I stopped dating white americans...I have one bad experience and I need something totally fresh and new. I found happiness (after a little trauma) with a nice Russian boy :) He treats me nice.

There was this girl in high school. I took a real shine to her.. very pretty, and quite brilliant too. A little on the introverted side I dare say, just like me. It didn't take me long to become smitten. I made an extremely awkward advance and received what was, I think I am fair in saying, an equally awkward refusal. And that was the end of it.

I saw her at the class reunion. I'm afraid the passing years have only served to enhance all those qualities that attracted me to her in the first place, and I had to swallow my considerable regrets as I engaged in the typical "Hi, how are you doing, I heard you were at X, that's great for you, really, you got promoted, have you heard from Y, I thought he was coming but then he changed his mind" exchange.

Ummm. stacey.. not that it's not a great story... but if you got married you can't call it unrequited! :angel:

I didn't know what "unrequited" meant, so I substituted "foolish" :smack:........hey, wait a minute, I just looked it up and it says it means "unanswered", so in that case, I'm right on! He never loved me, he only married me to get a bigger paycheck.

OK, point.

I dated a girl my senior year of high school, a preacher's daughter. She was as much a rebound relationship as you can expect from an 18 year old. A beautiful girl, and as sweet a girl as I've ever met. I was truly lucky to have her interested in me, but thanks to selfish youth I completely failed to realise it. I smoked and partied behind her back. I neglected to spend time with her, and generally behaved in a self-centred manner. But I was completely smitten. We both knew that when the summer ended, so too would our relationship, but in my mind I believed that it would somehow continue. It didn't, and we agreed we would keep in touch.

Keeping in touch meant regularly sending each other care packages, pictures, and the constant exchange of emails. I guess I took this continued closeness as persistence of our relationship. I found she didn't feel the same way when she called me one night for advice regarding this guy she met. I said awful, horrible, hurtful things to her. I was angry, hurt and still far too selfish.

So I eventually got over it and moved on with my life. I moved to Iowa City for a change of scenery (yeah, it's a lot nicer than you might think, I actually miss that town from time to time). I spent the time there learning to be myself, learning to wake up with a positive attitude and not spend all my time being miserable.

After "finding" myself in Iowa, I came back to Colorado and got a job at the local Sam's Club. Turns out she worked there too. I wouldn't say I was awful to her at this point, but I did make a point of avoiding her. Until she cornered me, telling me we needed to talk. I agreed, realising that I never owed someone an apology the way I did her. We decided to get together for coffee sometime. Time got away from the both of us, and we never had that coffee. Before I knew it, she had left again for school and I never got a chance to tell her about what went on in my head.

The whole experience was one of my defining moments. I look back and realise that not only did I carry a torch for that girl, but I managed to mess things up at every turn. She was truly my first love, and I learned more from her than any girl I had ever known to that point in my life. I may have fucked things up, but I am thank ful I got to know her and got to learn so much about myself as a result of my time with her.

I guess this is only marginally about unrequited love. I think about it a lot though, and it was nice to get it off my chest. I think her influence was in large part the reason I can still count Case as a friend, despite the divorce.

When I was younger, I always seemed to get smitten by pretty fellas out of my league or tortured genius types that really could only see me as a pal, meanwhile missing out on the true gems right in front of me. But you cant force chemistry, just try to work for an equal mix!

The Vice President of the company I used to work for. He was a good looking man, but not gorgeous or anything--a New Yorker and really funny. I'm not sure if it was an attraction to his power or confidence or what, but I became a blubbering mess whenever he was around. He was a happily married, family-man type, so of course I never pursued anything. (Not to mention that dating co-workers is usually a pretty bad idea). It turns out that his wife and I have the same first and middle name, and my middle name is rather unusual--weird. He always went out of his way to say hello to me, and I caught him staring at me a couple times. If he wasn't married you never know what could have happened. A girl can dream, right? Ahhhh. :joylove:

Jesus StacyV, don't hold back.

I'm glad you're happy now. You deserve it. Whew.

I think that counts as your first mistake.

My absolute first crush was on a hot little blonde number in the fourth grade. I still remember her name. And nearly everything else about her.

Not until the ninth grade would that crush be eclipsed by a crush of galactic proportion. This crush, which shifted the very axis of rotation of planet earth, lasted through my senior year. That's a long time at that age. We became very good friends but we were both very messed up kids. She was too pretty for her own good and ended up getting knocked up by an older guy resulting in an abortion. College and life separated us permanently.

It would be ten more years before I had another crush of that magnitude. A beautiful girl from New York passed through Atlanta and took my heart with her back to New York. I chased her up there but it was not meant to be. I retreated and fell back into a relationship that provided purpose for me but little else. This relationsip almost ruined my life. Thank God for friends who aren't afraid to lay out the cards.

It would be another ten years before the very foundations of reality would shake again. I realized quickly that this one was a keeper and made it official. That was nine years and two beautiful children ago. And we are still exploring our relationship.

hey feet- I mean footfootfoot, I'm surprised you even read my post, I figured it would be too long for you. I'm not one for holding back, I like to blurt out everything, sometimes too much, because it feels good and it's not like my coworkers and family are reading this...I'm not so open in "real" life... This is my substitute for a therapist, which is probably what I really need, but what the hell, you guys'll do.

So, James...when do we get to hear about your crush(es)?

Some years ago during what I kindly label my "dumbass years" (read: "teenage years") I developed a crush on a bouncy, active, cute redhead who had a wonderful, explore-all attitude about the world. We started hanging out after I met her and I couldn't get my mind away from thoughts of love whenever she was around. Repeated visits turned into long, late-night discussions about life and philosophical topics under the stars. Her interests in these things absolutely captured me -- I finally found a girl who was a dreamer and her carefree life stole my heart. The relationship always bordered on something more than just friends, but officially it never turned into the dating game.

Some months into this, she grew frustrated with me and cut off communication unexpectedly; my devastation only saw light after one solid month of silence and unreturned phone calls. Why had she cut her ties with me?

"You're not in love with God."

Umm... what?

"To be in love with me you must be in love with God."

Her conversation with me was cold, emotionless, and downright hostile. I never thought she was that much into religion. In fact, none of our previous conversations even hinted at it! Her full explanation revealed all, though, and I found out that she had simply strung me along in order to try to get me to attend her church and convert. At that point, her conversations with me about philosophy suddenly had much more meaning -- she was finding out which side of the fence I was on and through this she found a heathen she wanted to save to get points with the big man in the sky and did everything she could in order to send me down the right path. That was her goal, nothing more, and once she found out I was "too far gone", even friendship wasn't permissable.

Bitch.

Was she mormon?

No, she was Presbyterian.

Wow... I'm shocked.

You should count your lucky stars she "dumped" you. Women like that are to be avoided like ebola. I guess a clue was spending all those late nights together with no "action." Sounds like her church was offering commissions for converts and, well, she couldn't close the deal. Not that it hurts any less, just some perspective.

This thread just makes me wish I knew "then" what I know now. *sigh*

When I was in college, I was utterly smitten by a girl in one of my journalism classes. We had tons of chemistry, I thought. We'd sit around and talk, flirt across the room, team up for group labs. I finally got the nerve to ask her out (this took more effort than anything I had ever done or have done since - I was completely out of my mind over her) and she said yes.

I spent the remainder of the day hovering about 6 inches off the ground, wondering how life had gotten so good. The next night, when I called to confirm, she cancelled the date, saying she had a boyfriend and didn't want to cheat on him.

Have you ever had all the blood in your body migrate to your face in under a second? It's a singular experience. Damn. That sucked.

I'm not the most resilient person in the world. For a year and a half, everything I did was defined by that single rejection. I dated, but I never really gave anyone a chance. I didn't relate well to people - I figured if I couldn't have my first choice, I wasn't going to give myself emotionally to door #2. I had a lot of one-night stands. Hell, I had several one-hour stands.

My senior year, she reappeared in another class, and tried to start flirting, etc. I couldn't make myself be friends with her. What I did do, in a splendid display of tastelessness, was go out drinking at 11 in the morning with another girl from the same class. By classtime, we were both spectacularly drunk, laughing hysterically and leaning on each other to keep from falling over. I'm sure I looked really cool. I thought I was getting "revenge". Well, at least she didn't flirt anymore...

well, ther was this one girl named Kristi. I noticed her the first day of 12th grade Biology. She was a junior, but smart enough to be in our class. I was a big fat scary looking "techer" I had long hair, a beard, black engineer boots, and weiged around 260 at 6'2". If i didnt have such a pleasant demeanor and a baby face, you'd have been afraid of me.

So, it was probably mainly the hormones of being 17 yrs old, but I was a bit smitten by her. I had secret fantasies of rescuing her from some desperate situation. I made friends with her in bio, played it cool, and then I started losing weight. I dropped about 60 lbs in the six months between november and june. I drew her portrait, and hung it up in my one artist show that year. i went to a couple parties that she was at, but I think I played the friend card to well, and she started dating a guy that was in college :(. he was a nice guy, the prick. Anyway, I wound up falling for a punk rock girl and forgetting about her. never seen her since. I saw her buddy one time a few years later, but i didnt ask about her.

pretty boring and cliche now that i write it down.

there was someone that i met in Jr High and maintained a crush on all the way through my sophomore year in HS. she wasn't going for it, but we did get to be incredibly close friends. i set the crush aside but didn't abandon it. for a few years i enjoyed being a serial dater. she never approved of any of the girls i dated. i was too stupid to pick up on other signs over the next few years. eventually, she got engaged and asked me to stand up for her at the wedding. being her best friend, i said yes. then about 3 months before the wedding she asks me if i think we could have a future together if she calls off the wedding. i was of course stunned, appalled, and excited. i thought the guy she was engaged to was a complete schmo and i did still carry a bit of the crush. in the end, i told her that i thought we might, but it is unreasonable to talk about it while still engaged. if she was tht curious she just had to take her chances and find out. she chose not to, i chose not to stand up in the wedding. (even if i didn't like the guy, i thought it would be disrespectful to take part in a wedding that was almost called off over me.)

she is still married to him 10 years later and has a couple of kids. she was EXTREMELY upset when a few years back i had a rather torrid summer fling with her younger sister. ah well, it was fun.

WHAT??? I don't believe it!
Tell us more! :D

I was in 9th grade, and where I lived, 9th grade was still in Jr High. I knew this kid named Jim Powell, who lived in my neighborhood. He was an 8th grader at the time. I thought he was so cute...he had really blond hair and blue eyes and he was incredibly annoying, which for some reason, I found endearing in the 9th grade. He played trombone in the band and I played flute, so I would turn around and look at him when I thought he might not see me. He was also in my math class. Anyway, I was obsessed with this kid...I drew a picture of him from his picture in the yearbook, and use to listen to songs that had the name "jim" or "jimmy" in the lyrics. I was a dreamer, so I would think about growing up as a teenager and dating him. I even imagined what our wedding would be like. I was truly in puppy love...Until one day I got enough courage to ask him out. I called him on the phone one day after school and asked if he wanted to go skiing with me over the weekend. He said he would think about it and then never called back or gave me an answer. I was so embarassed and ashamed...I thought he must have been laughing at me behind my back, because of it. I guess those kind of experiences are pretty common among young kids. I feel like that story is pretty boring and common. Maybe you guys will think I am a little psycho...hehe. Oh well.

Geez.. I had this huge peice all written, but.. ya know it's just too complicated and I'd have ot do some graphs.. 8x10 colour glossy photos with little pictures and arrows on the back of each one..

suffice to say yes. and after a rather tumultous relationship she begged me to move across the country for her, I did.. and when I got there she dumped me for a coke dealer. then suckered me into getting engaged to her a few months later.. only to dump me for a future IT guy.. then 5 years later showed up on my doorstep (after I moved back here) next thing you know.. we're living together planning on getting hitched (for real this time) next thing you know... yeah you guessed it... she dumped me for her dance partner.. although we still talk from time to time.. it still breaks my heart.

oh yeah.. have I mentioned I'm a sucker for love? although a little colder these days :)

It's still too tender to tell the whole story, but bottom line is, I thought he was all that, a bag of chips, 32 ounce drink and icee on the side. I was ignoring all the red flags that went up. I simply did not see them. He ended it when he left to go home and slept with a woman that I reallly really disliked (and he knew it). He had talked shit about her to me, then went out and screwed what was, essentially a whore.

I was devastated.

Thinking about this, my crush stories are all from my side, crushing on others, with one exception: there was this one guy, we'd been good friends since meeting in homeroom in 5th grade. He was a bud. We drifted apart a bit in high school, different crowds, but senior year and the summer following we kept meeting up at parties and rekindled our bud-ship. We talked a lot. He went to college on early entry that summer 1980 (Penn State), I wrote him and as a good adventurous 18 year old with my freshly minted fake ID, I went to visit him with a gang of others and check out the parties. This was seen as visiting HIM and after a few drinks, he got all emotional on me, possesive. I was really surprised that he had these feelings. I didnt handle it well in retrospect, I actually felt a bit betrayed or something, as did he. It was so wierd and unfamilar. I really hurt him. That had never happened to me before...I felt guilty, I must have flirted and led him on. But he had never asked me out, he knew I was seeing another fella (that he was not keen on), and he was having all sorts of identity problems and feelings of being lost- stuff I could in no way solve-though he seemed to think I could. Looking back on that (rare) experience so long ago, it's held in a dear place. This guy was the first to ever profess love and cry over me - and how often does that happen in your life? Now in my geezerhood, I'll always love him for that, for showing that. Last time we ran into each other was in about 1986 at the Capital City Mall, I remember talking about Freddy Mercury. Strange crush.

My biggest crush ever was this long-haired rocker guy, a senior when I was a sophomore. He was in theatre with me, and we ended up being in a play together where our characters had to kiss. That was the first time I'd ever kissed a guy, on stage in the middle of rehearsal in front of the entire cast and crew. He wasn't that great of a kisser, but I didn't care. He was completely oblivious to me, however, as I was FAR from the only girl in school dreaming about him every night.

And the runner-up for biggest crush ever would have to be the current star of that television show "The O.C."--before he was famous. I went to high school with him, too, and he was just as cute back then as he is now. I was in a play with him as well, now that I think about it.

Ugh...I have always hated having a crush on someone. To me, that meant, "You like him, but he won't like you the same way." Chalk it up to not having the highest of self esteem about myself. Kinda hard to do when you are a teenager, overweight, and have a best friend that the guys pratically drool over (she had, and still has, a nice "rack", so you do the math...). I seemed to always be the "cute friend" that guys didn't want to do anything with except hang out, etc. Looking back in hindsight, maybe that wasn't such a "bad" thing. :D But, at the time, it sucked big time.

So anyway, crushes. God, I had so many, it's sad really. I even had a brief crush on a cousin of mine. Damn, but he was fine! :o

Had a major league crush on a friend...who was/is gay....fool!!!! I didn't even try to "change" him, I just lusted for him from afar (or at least, as far away emotionally as I could get). Sucka.... :thumbsdn:

Clod, which one, Ryan? I watch it when I have a chance, I love Seth's sense of humor.

Crushes...never had one. Full-frontal love or nothing. I can't help it. I went to Catholic schools.

Leela from Futurama!

I didn't know we could count fictional TV characters...so's, here's mine: Keith Partrige. Sooooooooooooooosexy!

well, if you want to count tv personalities, i've got the same one today that i had when i was 15... Alyssa Milano... :yum:

jessica alba. oh my.

she's lost much of the girl-next-door thing that made her so hot, but she's still fiiiiiine.

Barbara Bach, Barbara Eden, Farrah Fawcett, whatzername that plays Deanna Troi on ST:TNG.

I need a cold shower now...

you mean Ms. Mooseknuckle? ewwww

here's a link to a picture of her boobs!

Like her hair, her boobs are fake.

To sum things up.

I loved a girl...

She said she loved me...

While she was saying she loved me, she slept with 3 other guys.....

At once....

Every other night....

Her appearance in "The Wicked Lady" is worth a rental.

Dude! stop dating hookers! They ALL say they love you! :)

You know.... she didn't come off as one........

Actually, I think she was gradually becoming one when she was saying that she "loved me"

The simple answer to all of this is! Through the experience of somewhat loving me, I create hookers! WHAT HAVE I DONE?!

Thank you. ;)

Well, good to know that i've brought some lonely boys pleasure in so many ways.

The IT guy in my company. Murrrrrrrr. Too bad he's scared silly by the boss (who happens to be my big protective older brother).

ouch.... beat me

So tell your big brother to do something nice for the guy.

Like what, give him a head start? ;)

I think Mr. Noodle's heading in the right direction.

Give him the first weapon of choice, I say. "Go for the stapler on the table!"

Had a few so far, but 2 have truly blown me away, and i did nothing, cos im a coward, but it wouldnt have worked out in either case anyway, but i digress.

1 - I guess roughly this time last year. I was 16 at the time. Started hanging out with different people for no particular reason, met her. Started speaking to her, she was always happy and talkative and fun-loving. After a while i purposefully left my friends on the off chance i might see her, and i couldnt get her out of my head, which kind of freaked me out as nothing like this had ever happened to me before. Followed her around like a dope for a couple of months, got close to asking her out. Then found out from one of her friends that she is a Jehovahs witness, and apparently cant go out with people. I'm basically a coward and gave up then and there. After I while i thought about it and realised how completely unobtainable she was to a geek like me and how she probably was never interested me in the first place. Ah well, life goes on...

2 - Until about November last year when I fell for another girl in my now final year at High School. Attractive, smart (Straight A's the previous year), but simultaneously very blonde ( i need to start writing down some of her comments, geez). Like last time i would speak to her whenever i could, but this time i realised the tiny likelyhood that it would work out, and this made me kinda moody, and i managed to annoy all my friends by going completely silent most of the time and not doing much. A while later i found out she has a boyfriend, who is also in my school year and i had disliked for a long time already. At this point i realised i was being stupid and gave up.

Not as deep or interesting as some of the other posts, but its my experience with crushes, so its going in anyway. All i have learned so far is that i fall for completely the wrong people, im a coward and a quitter. Im still only 17 and my whole life is still ahead of me as many would say, but its still only a matter of time before i fall for someone else foolishly. Ho hum...

hey grazzers - i don't think you are a coward or a quitter, but you definitely are short on self confidence. you've got to develop your own self respect before you will attract the attention of the people you are attracted to.

selfconfidence (not to be mistaken for arrogance) is the most attractive feature of any individual, whether they be male or female. work on that and the rest will follow.

hear, here! (both spellings included cuz i don't know which is right)

that was my biggest impediment at your age as well. it took me several years to realize that no matter how attractive or unattractive you are, no matter how cool or uncool, your comfort level with yourself is the first thing people notice.

Look at all the ugly people married to hotties. These people have sex. They are even in love with each other sometimes. It's got nothing to do with looks.

by the way, you're from scotland. that alone would get you any number of hot girls that i know (and who will have nothing to do with me). just go heavy on the burr. or brogue, whichever.

I'm from Scotland (technically). Introduce me. :P

When I was eighteen, there was a lovely and unspoken-for young co-worker name Rachelle who unwittingly turned up the color saturation in any room she entered (for me, anyhow). She was gorgeous, but charmingly shy. I was striken.

At the time I was of a rather shy nature myself, and lacked the resolve to overcome it and ask her out. I remained in this forlornly happy state for some weeks, finding any excuse to pass through her department to catch a glimpse, or a smiling hello, and I unfailingly walked away with shortness of breath and a spring in my step. She had the sort of smile that made her eyes sparkle. Ah.

Valentines day shortly arrived, and I came to work early. At her desk I deposited a half-dozen red roses along with a fanciful, complimentary note which confessed my preoccupation with her. I had even managed to overcome my inital cowardly intent of leaving it anonymously, and scratched my name on the bottom in blue ink. I hurried off before she arrived, and spent the remainder of the day trying to scrape up the courage to walk through her department, drinking gallons of water to stave off the cotton mouth. I cursed myself for the senseless, romantic lapse of shyness which put me in such a bind.

Near the end of the day, I "happened through" her area, part of me hoping she'd be away and I could have her co-workers tell her that I had been by. She wasn't away. When she saw me, she motioned me aside as her female co-workers smiled and giggled amongst themselves. The next bit was an oxygen-deprived blur... she thanked me, I asked her out, she said yes.

This story is getting long, isn't it? So sorry.

We went on our date a few days later. I tapped my small reserve of outgoingness, and managed to be not shy, and to in fact keep up a decent conversation on my end, but she was quite the opposite. She scarcely smiled, avoided eye contact expertly, and responded to my humor with the dreaded, fun-killing "polite laugh." She was nearly paralyzed with shyness from the moment the date started until the moment it ended. I had not anticipated this. I was unprepared.

I dropped her off, she thanked me for the lovely evening, and embarassed, she scurried into her house. The drive home was long and riddled with mild disappointment and bewildered reflection. I was still interested in her, but the evening had not gone terribly well.

After that, she seemed painfully embarassed and self-conscious to be around me. Being shy myself, I had no idea how to assure her that her embarassment was misplaced, and that I was still interested. Not only that, but her embarassment caused me to be embarassed, causing a feedback loop like the screeching of an active mic next to it's amp. Over time I tended to find routes that didn't intersect with her department at work.

I never asked her out again.

Oh HP she was just embarrsed that your fly was down !!!!!

I always keep my fly open... it's part of my "try it before you buy it" policy.

Thanks folks, i shall try this "confidence" thing you speak of :)