My History of Anxiety, Pt 4

So now we come to the part of the story that will be the toughest for me to write because it's the part that's the most embarrassing: the sex stuff. Yes, once I finally had sex – and remember, I didn't lose my virginity until I was 29 and it was only because the woman I had sex with was rather aggressive in her pursuit of me; otherwise, I'm not sure if I'd have ever had it – boy, did I have sex.

How Puberty Hit And The One Lesson I Took Away Was A Debiltating Fear Of Girls

When I was a little kid in grade school, I was normal. I had guy friends and I had girl friends. Most of my closest friends were guys, but I was in no way shy around girls. In fact, one summer around seventh or eighth grade, I even had a “girlfriend” who I basically held hands with a few times and brought her down to Jerry's on the corner which had one of those old-fashioned soda counters and I spent 25 cents on a soda for her (I hated soda, so had nothing). The older kid behind the counter called me a “big spender”. (For the record: I have always been good at picking up people's sarcasm, and I realized this guy was making fun of me and it still bothers me to this day, maybe 45 or 50 years later.)

But then I went to an all-boy's Catholic high school. In Manhattan. Which meant I was taking the subway an hour to and from school and my whole life pretty much centered around there, so that all I saw all day were other boys. And at an age when most straight boys are learning how to act around girls who were suddenly becoming more than just another kid in the schoolyard to run around with, I was slowly but surely becoming terrified of them.

Here's a story that's pretty embarrassing for me, even now: when I was in grade school, my friends and I used to hop on the subway down to Coney Island and Brighton Beach for the day. There was also a girl in my class who was there a lot. We'd hang out with her and her friends, play games, all the stuff that kids do. Even when she developed rather early, I didn't think anything of it. I wasn't “mature” enough to think of girls in that way yet. Well, once I hit high school, I pretty much never saw her anymore. One day, as I was rushing to the subway, she was standing in the station and said hi to me. I, shy, ashamed, said a quick hello and rushed past, bumping into the wall next to the entrance and dropping all my books. I quickly picked them up and ran off. I still -- decades and decades later – wonder what she must have thought of that.

But it gets worse.

When senior year came around, I didn't have the slightest idea who I could ask to the prom. I didn't know any girls at all. Not one. I literally did not know one girl. Then a friend of mine suggested I go with his sister. I think I had met her once or twice when I'd gone over to his house, but I'm not really sure. I don't know if he volunteered her without her knowledge or if she volunteered herself to be nice, or if she might even have liked me (funny how even now, the idea of even dreaming that someone would have liked me embarrasses me and I can't help but think it is completely delusional).

The only catch was that I had to “officially” ask her over the phone.

Well, I have no idea what I said. But whatever it was, I was so terrified and it was so awkward that she was upset and I had to try again a few days later.

So I had a date to the prom, which was nice.

And I was so scared, I literally sat next to her and said nothing the whole night. I literally think I said 3 sentences to her. Which wasn't so nice.

According to my math, that was 47 years ago. And I am still so fucking embarrassed just thinking about it that I think I'll stop writing for today.

But first, let me embarrass myself even more:

I was a big fan of the TV show Happy Days when I was a kid. There was one episode in which Richie had a date with some girl. Richie was shy and pretty much like me at the prom (although I was worse). But by the end of the night, he and his date had really hit it off. She had somehow seen his “inner beauty” or some such nonsense.

I fantasized about this being me.

So after that disastrous prom – in which this poor girl about whom I remember absolutely nothing, including her name – was basically ignored and she probably regretted every second of it, I thought how maybe she had seen my inner beauty and I promptly developed some sort of weird crush on her despite never seeing her again in my life. I fantasized about somehow running into her and her brother and us hitting it off, as if somehow I would go from being practically mute to a loquacious charmer and we'd fall in love and live happily ever after blah blah blah.

This sad little fantasy would become a habit of mine as I spent the next dozen years or so in friend zone hell.

But that's for another day. Right now, I'm going to go to work and try to forget this.