We're Following the Leader, the Leader, the Leader, Following the Leader Wherever He May Go

Jacquandor is very lucky that I was looking for something to blog about today (the two topics I had been considering being not quite ready for public consumption) and, also, procrastinating. I've got a new chapter of THUMB to start, and my darling muse has yet to let the bits of flotsom and jetsam gel into anything coherent for this chapter. Yes, he is very lucky that I am in fact responding to his "Seven Things" Internet Meme tag, as my first instinct is to pretend I never saw the tag* and risk exploding the internet just as I risk unraveling the fabric of space time whenever I delete a "Forward this or [insert dire consequence here]!!!" email, usually sight unseen.

So, here it is. Seven things you may or may not know me, the Crazy Relationship Edition. (My earlier iteration of this meme listed seven things about me in seven categories. I'm not going that route this time.)

1. I was once propositioned twice in the same night by two townies in a bar in South Bend. This was during the course of a Girls Night Out, and I was pissed to have to deal with Male Horomones at all, so I left the bar in a huff, asking loudly, "What, am I wearing Eau de Slut perfume?" The next day, I went to Claire's a bought a $5 ring that, in the dark of the bar, could double as an engagement ring. I wore said ring every other time I went out with the girls that summer. It didn't help.

2. For a very brief moment in the seventh grade, I dated the most popular guy in school, who happened to be black. Our relationship was instigated primarily by a friend we had in common for unknown reasons. It was the shortest relationship I've ever had, lasting less than twenty-four hours, only three of which we actually spent together. During those three hours (the course of a junior high dance), we shared several slow dances. We also held hands while surrounded by his friends (a pretty thoroughly mixed race group) who looked at me as if I had green skin and some antenna. I think this was because my only known asset (other than that I wasn't fugly) was that I was smart, not because I was white. We kissed each other on the cheek at the end of the dance. The next day, one of us called the other and we both agreed without any hesitation that it just wasn't Meant To Be, heaved simultaneous sighs of relief, and went about our lives.

3. I played the whole "let's just be friends" card with a boyfriend in junior high. We had been friends before we dated, and dating for quite a number of months, IIRC. I missed the friendship uncomplicated by the relationship (mostly because the relationship had led to much cruel teasing by some of the In-girl crowd and I let it get to me). He took the break-up hard. So hard that he had a friend of his slip an add for bust enhancement cream in my locker. So hard that he told all of his friends that I was a lesbian, which I found out about much later and actually laughed at the news. We've since reconciled and are pretty good friends.

4. The guy who gave me my first kiss was eager to ignore me when he realized a kiss was all he was going to get out of me. So eager, in fact, that when he tried to excuse his avoidance of me by saying he had mono, he couldn't understand why I might get a little freaked out about that. I had to say, "Remember? You kissed me?" And he did this little, "OH. Yeah. That." Later that day or that week, he was kissing someone else. Ah, l'amour.

5. As I was on my way to ask the guy I liked to escort me to the Junior/Senior prom my junior year, I was intercepted by a senior drama buddy of mine. And he asked me to the prom. I felt awful, but I had to say no and explain that I was actually seconds away from asking someone else to go with me. He was more frustrated and embarrassed than heartbroken as I was the third girl he had asked. I still feel bad about that, but the guy I asked said yes, and we ended up dating for the rest of high school, with a minor hiccup of a month during senior year.

6. The first "boyfriend" that I can remember having was in the first grade. I think our relationship was characterized by sitting together at lunch and playing together on the playground. Occasionally, he gave me rings that I'm pretty sure he had stolen from his older sister.

7. One of my last boyfriends broke up with me via a seven-page long email, during which he said it was my fault he had to lie to me, told me I had no right be upset about my parents' divorce because of some variant of the "there are starving children in China" argument, and (in rebuttal to my WTF? response) whined about how much time I spent studying. Then, three days later, he sent me flowers and made "maybe we shouldn't have stopped dating" noises.

I'm not going to tag anybody for this meme except to say that anyone who reads this and needs a blog entry and is at a loss for words or simply needs further means of procrastination, feel free to consider yourself tagged.

*This is the last meme I did, and it was practically perfect in every way.