Spanish Class

Spanish class. Sophomore or Junior year of high school. (Don’t remember which, I have strong cases for either year.) Coming from a complete joke and trainwreck of a Spanish class during freshman year, I was completely out of my element. Mandatory conversational Spanish to be used at all times, mostly students whom I’d never met or even probably seen before, and dual-credit options that I turned down out of fear of failing - yet I still pulled a solid A.

I made friends, I had fun, I actually learned quite a bit about Spanish. But someone stood out to me. Well, a few people stood out to me.

A3, or “Beto” as his “Spanish name” in class would be, was a lower-grade fellow math track student who meme-d the phrase “No Me Digas!” and used it throughout the year whilst somewhat being a class clown.

M7(? was that his name?) the bearded Irish/Scottish-like dude who caused lots of weird pseudo-alpha-male-tension with me over the last person on this list. Later had to shave his beard off because it was giving him heat rashes.

E. Beautiful girl, possibly from New York. Clearly from money; proper makeup, fashion, the works. Money, looks, and quite nice. Might have dated me if not for relationship with final person. But that may have just been a platitude in place of an outright “no.”

And lastly, but absolutely not leastly, a girl who grabbed my attention while doing what she could to avoid the spotlight, kept to herself, and was clearly quite shy, L.

I don’t often become interested in random people the way that I did with her - especially given that meeting new people was always something that made me quite uncomfortable, of course - and they end up being quite as boring as she was.

She was shy and closed up. She was fairly pretty - short, dirty blonde hair, skinny, held the goth/scene/emo-influenced, but yet more adult and cleaned up style of clothes and bags and such that I tended to like. I figured there might be something more interesting beneath the surface.

So I was attracted and interested; I initiated the usual - charm, flirt, eventually ask out. We went on a date or two (I think, I don’t really remember) and stayed “class boyfriend and girlfriend” for a few weeks, holding hands when we went to the Spanish dance performance thing and such.

Opportunity to go hang out at her house, score! This should be an opportunity to learn more about her and get closer to her, right? HA!

My family drops me off, the usual meet-and-greet with her parents… who are old as shit. Weird. And as we head to where we were going in the house, pass her smoking hot, jock, non-identical twin sister R fresh from a shower and in pajamas. Meh.

We went to their basement to hang out. House definitely keeps the “old people” vibe with an antique-looking couch, walls, carpet, etc. Tiny little box TV across from the couch, a treadmill, and… the oldest computer in the world. I don’t know why I was a huge snob about this, other than the fact that I was really discovering my deep passion for technology at the time and this meant we wouldn’t be connecting at all with that interest area, but man, I was just kinda like “Oh…”.

She had no interest in technology. We emailed once or twice, but that was it. No Facebook, nothing. In fact, as far as I know, she still never ended up on Facebook. Very weird.

Other interests? Watching Vampire Diaries and similar TV shows and reading books of the same caliber. Games? Nope. Sports? Nope. Other kinds of tolerable TV shows or films? Doesn’t seem like it.

Uh… alright then.

The remainder of our time at her house was spent making out in various corners of the basement or playing card games. Like.. playing cards, not trading cards or anything. It was.. weird.

I was still interested, though. She was cute and had an interest in me and wasn’t an awful kisser - and I really enjoyed the comfort of having a significant other during school time.

But it was only a couple or a few weeks later when she dumped me. Over the phone.

See, at this point in my (lack of) emotional development, I hadn’t yet developed an understanding of the difference between “I feel quite positively towards this person and they like me” and “I’m in love with them and should tell them that.”

So I played this really uncomfortable, immature, and outright insane game during one of our phone calls at one point that I had something special to tell her… and made her… guess? I don’t even. But eventually “I loves you” came out or something, and she was just kinda like “oh…”

It was awkward, and one of the stupidest relationship moments I’ve ever had. And not long later she broke up with me.

To her credit, she was crying by the end of the call, so clearly she felt something.

The rest of that semester was awkward around her. Jealousy of that extroverted M7 guy getting buddy buddy with her, her and I being uncomfortable around each other for a long while - though by the end we were able to enjoy each other’s company during class when put in groups and such - and then me trying to ask out E and ruining that class-friendship a bit.

Lul.

I can’t even entirely blame myself for my lack of understanding of being “in love,” and just liking someone, though. Instead of starting out with normal relationships, my first two real relationships at the end of middle school were long and slightly dramatic, in both cases the girl declaring she was in-love with me and wanted to spend the rest of their lives with me at various points. So that kinda set me up for a very confusing romantic career throughout high school.

Dating isn’t even something that should be considered in middle school.

In fact, many of the people I ended up chasing relationships with and then not talking to again - or at least for extended periods of time - would have wound up making fantastic friends had we/I had the emotional maturity to keep it just as that.

Somehow I still made it out with an A in the class, and learned a lot.

“Gloria… La leche…”