Girl Problems
By Ryan Kim
In middle school I attended a few of
my school’s arranged dance parties. I remember walking into the gym and
admiring the paper streamers that adorned the ceiling. The top 100 hits of 2009 blared out of speakers next to the DJ’s booth. These dances were
the premier event on the middle school social calendar, but I was an awkward five-feet tall and wore glasses, and I had the fashion sense of a brain-dead
monkey. This left me with very little confidence. But the girls took a liking to me anyway, and
before I knew it, I was in the middle of the dance floor doing the Cha Cha
slide.
After that dance I felt and acted
like a completely new person. I outfitted my closet almost entirely with
Aeropostale and Abercrombie and Fitch. My friends told me that the aura
of pure doucherey I was giving off was stronger than the cologne I had begun
wearing. Kids who I knew to be socially awkward became inferior in my eyes. I
didn’t care that not so long ago I had been one of those social pariahs. I felt
invincible with the digits of several girls in my phone.
There was one girl in my grade who
refused to talk to me. In fact she barely acknowledged my existence. Her name
was Allie. I had approached her about a date multiple times with about as much tact
as a drunken elephant. Finally one time I decided to bring her some flowers.
She finally relented and agreed to to a movie with me on friday. That friday we
settled down in the back of the theatre to watch some random action movie. Once
the movie picked up I went in for a kiss, which was the limit of my experience.
She relented, but with clear trepidation. I then tentatively moved my hand up
to her breast. She immediately slapped it away with a shriek and dumped
her soda all over my lap before storming out. My face burned so hot you could
have fried an egg on my cheeks. The laughter from those who witnessed my
humiliation rang in my ears as I called my mother to pick me up. I couldn’t
sleep that night. I couldn’t begin to imagine what the other kids in my grade
would think.
News of my humiliation spread like
wildfire through my grade. The next week at school the girls cast looks of pure
disgust at me. My guy friends on the other hand found my predicament hilarious.
They took every opportunity possible to poke fun at me. They jokingly called me
names from "strike-out" to "lap-stain." In one night I had lost my self-perceived
status as social king, and I was once again at the bottom of the social totem pole.
One day at lunch my friends advised
me to go apologize to Allie. I knew I had to make amends for my heinous
actions. I walked over to where she was sitting and gave her a heartfelt
apology. It killed me to have to apologize in front of all of her friends, and this
latest public humiliation only compounded the previous night's mistake. I
felt my face begin to burn once again, and I looked at my feet unable to
maintain eye contact with Allie. I turned away quickly and went back to my
table after delivering my apology. Allie called me that night and forgave me
because I’d had the courage to apologize to her in front of her friends. I
asked her if I could possibly take her out again to make up for our last date,
and to my surprise she agreed.
Just like the princess in the fairy
tale I had been flaunting my golden ball. My confidence with girls lead to
my downfall. I had rushed to action without considering the consequences. Like the princess, I had been throwing my golden ball too close to the edge of
darkness, and I ended up losing it. I was only able to get it back by apologizing to Allie
in public. I dated Allie for the rest of the year, and I was always careful to
think about how my actions would affect her.