How to Ask out a Girl

When I was 16, I wanted to go to my school’s Homecoming.  I wasn’t sure really what all that entailed as the hierarchy of knowledge for social gathering was pretty much on a need to know basis.  It seemed like everyone had an older bother or a friend’s sister who had done the high school drill years before and thusly had bestowed all this pertinent  information upon them around just before 9th grade orientation.  I on the other hand had spent most of my childhood in a constant struggle between my parent’s divorce, Little league and the geek pursuits of Dungeons & Dragons/ Magic: the Gathering.  So when it came time to deal with girls and ask one out to homecoming, I suppose I was in the dark.  To say I was a late bloomer in the “be a teenager realm” would be a misstatement along the lines of saying that Gandhi likes to get beat up. Back to the story at hand though. So my friends had all set their sights on girls they were going to ask, and asked them, gotten their proper responses and moved on to finding sports jackets and ties and dress shoes.  I had resolved to not going again.  But, the constant pressure of seeing my friends and peers at school building up for this event really got me thinking, and I decided I did want to go.  But I needed to have a little money so I could at least show the girl a good time.

I had just started working at Dunkin’ Donuts with Jon Davidson.  Jon was the guy who cleaned up the parking lot and they needed a new doughnut finisher.  Jon thought I was the guy for the job.  So as luck would have it, they decided I had the right stuff for decorating pastries, and covering things in chocolate.  It was a miserable job waking up at 5 in the morning to bike three miles to get to the place.  I’d get messy.  I was constantly covered in sugar,sprinkles and chocolate.  But I wanted to get some money so I could enjoy myself, so I suffered in silence.   One of the worst things about this job was the crazy Italian baker.  He was fiercely loyal to me for a guy I had only met about a week into the job.

Now, I took all this with a grain of salt because I was gonna ask out this girl I thought was totally awesome.  For the sake of anonymity we’ll call her Michelle S.  As I’ve said before basically for me to be into a girl she had to have three qualities:

1.  She needed to have hair longer than mine

2. She had to be relatively attractive

3. She had to be nice to me at some point

Honestly, though there were plenty of girls I was into, but the the determining factor of getting enough guts to ask out a girl really had to do with whether or not I was going to get at least a non-threatening rejection from her.  These days I’m kind looking forward to something like just having a girl look me up and down then laughing hysterically at me.  So I can’t remember exactly when or whatever but Michelle S. was nice to me for some reason or another.  I was gonna ask her to Homecoming.  We’d have a blast!  Her friends would meet my friends and they’d all have a wonderful time, later on they’d ask what was the culminating event of the genesis of their meeting and it would all boil down to me asking out Michelle S.  There would be parades in my name and I’d be crowned Homecoming King (the youngest person in the history of High School to receive that honor.  Her and I would ride a pegasus into the sunset and live happily ever after.  Or I’d get a goodnight kiss, I DON’T KNOW the world’s a crazy place and I hadn’t really planed much farther than getting enough money to do this thing.

As I was saying I was a bit of a pariah in high school.  This comes from a steady and unfaltering love of fantasy role playing games I played and read in public in middle school as well as dicking around with my magic decks during study hall once high school started.  As you could imagine it would be a bit hard to ask out a girl in school without having someone give me a wedgie, stuff me into a locker or just have someone punch my in the arm while I was trying to look cool (hey I was a social deviant, not a complete idiot).  So I had to get her phone number.  I had resolved that writing a note would be a bad idea as it was permanent evidence that could be photocopied then edited for grammatical errors and posted around the school.  How could I get her number?

As it turned out there where only 7 S. names in the phonebook in my home town.  It was simple trial and error.  At the end of a shift at Dunkin Donuts I took the phone book into the back and started calling each S. til I got about halfway down the list. (It should be noted that because I had a brother and sister who were infinitely more likely to embarrass me as I asked out Michelle calling from home was out, lucky for me this was right before caller ID Imagine knowing that I was calling from a Dunkin Donuts, I don’t think I’d have lived down that kind of thing after the rumor mill got a hold of it.) The fourth or fifth one down was Michelle’s kind Granny.  Well, I was in luck!  Old people loved a good story, and I conspired with Granny S. to help me out.  She was more than happy to give me her granddaughter’s ROOM NUMBER!  Yep, a room number that means not having to deal with a male picking up the phone to throw me off my weak ass game.  I had my in and I was feeling good!  But not good enough to call right then, I had expended my courage for the day.  I’d call tomorrow.

I fervently  biked to the mall, into the comic shoppe that I always hung out at.  This was a victory for sure and I needed to share it with some friends and pump myself up for the next step.  Marc, the manager, was excited for me, he even tried to get me to call her from the store.  I wasn’t ready just yet.

Everyday after school I went over to my friend Harry’s house to play Magic and listen to music.  Today was different though!  I was gonna ask out a girl at his place.  After he lost a few games to me (I suspect on purpose to get my confidence up), I reached for the phone.  Have you ever seen Talledega Nights with Will Ferrel? Y’know the scene with the cougar in the car, where he has to overcome his fear of driving and just get into the car, but he keeps freaking out before he can put his hand on the car door?  Yea, Imagine I was Will the phone was the car door and Michelle was the cougar.  It went down like that for like 3 mins.  So, I decided I needed to get pumped up.  We put on the Offspring’s IXNAY the HOMBRE and listened to All I Want. That did the trick! I grabbed the phone and dialed!  THE PHONE WAS RINGING, NO GOING BACK NOW! Here’s how it went:

MS: Hello

ME: Michelle?

MS: Yes, who is this.

ME: Ok, This is Zac Clark from (whatever class), I realize that it’s a little weird that I have your phone number since I didn’t ask you for it but I called al the S.’s in the phonebook and got your Gramma, she gave me your number.  If you aren’t doing anything and you feel like going, and you don’t already have a date……DOYOUWANNAGOTOHOMECOMINGWITHME.

MS:…….Um yea I’m not gonna go to homecoming I don’t think.

ME: Oh, ok, well if you change your mind just let me know or something. My number is 856.468.9419.

MS: Ok, Zac listen I have to go.

ME: Ok Michelle, thanks I’ll see you tomorrow.

MS: Yea

*Click*

I wasn’t the most receptive person in the world back then, but her tone the whole time was one of “oh god why is this loser calling me.”  It made me nervous, I was probably tripping over my words just to get it over with.  But with the catharsis of that click I was free!  I hung up the phone and I was running around the room laughing my ass off.  Harry pointed out that I had just thanked a girl for not going out on a date with me.  I was just happy that I had asked out a girl.  It was a total rush!  I was totally gonna do it again!

So as the story goes, I didn’t end up going to Homecoming that year, I believe Michelle S. did.  But I wasn’t really all that upset.  At the end of the day, I have a pretty cool story that I’ll never forget and I could share with you.   What does she have from this experience?  I bet she doesn’t even remember it.  But I must say this.  Thanks Granny S.!  At least you believed in me!