I’m sure I’m not the only kid who wrote notes to a friend in junior high and high school, but I may be the only one who kept them all since 1977. When I turned forty, I decided I was strong enough to take a hard look at who I was at 15. (Evidently, I was the ’70s version of my then 13-year old niece Arzaana-fay. She was fairly amused by the involved charts and graphs I made outlining my relationships:)
SO the niece is coming for a visit in July and when I checked to see if I was still keeping notes when I was 19 (her equivalent age now – she’s about 2 years more socially advanced) I found this exchange reported for my friend Diane the day of my first date when I was 15 (see, socially slow, I told you). I was going to see Star Wars (the original) at the theater with “Dave,” an eighteen-year-old friend of my brother. I wrote:
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SCREAM! AUGH! Tonight, Dad had a talk with me. Theme: you-can’t-go-out-with-Dave-he’s-too-old.
Okay, I thought, it’s not too bad.
You-may-not-go-out-with-anyone-over-18.
Wellll, that make sense. I can still go out in a group with Dave in it.
You-can-not-go-out-in-a-group-with-Dave-in-it.
([imaginary exchange – ed.] “Why can’t you go to the movies with us?””My Dad says I can’t associate with Dave.”)
“Well” said I, “Who’s gonna tell him all this?”
Dad – “You” (Like “You dummy of course you are!”)
Me – “Nope, that’s not fair. I’m not rejecting him.”
(Mom sided with me from here on in.)
“What if he comes over to see [my brother]? Can I talk to him?”
Dad – (pause) “No.”
“WHAT?”
Mom – “Good heavens! I’m glad he’s not my father!”
Dad – “You can’t talk to him without someone else around.”
Anyway the list went on. I was perfectly composed. I was just releived [sic] that he spoke up and said “No” before it got too far.
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Of course, reading that reminded me what excellent parents they were. Well, it could all have been a big front for Diane, perhaps I was actually escaping out the window and doing smack. (One “does” smack, isn’t that right?)
Oddly, for the first time in years that exchange made me think of my third college boyfriend, Mark, the research librarian at UMSL. Mark was thirty-two. I started to count and realized I was eighteen when I dated Mark. Eight! Teen! Oh, yeah, keep me from dating the father figures, old man! I checked with Gary on my chronology and yes, a mere three years later after Dave was withheld from me I was being dry-humped by a thirty-two year-old research librarian. Take that, ‘rents!