So the woman who gets the blame for this blog shall be known as T. We've been friends since we were roughly 13 or 14, but we met before that - and she is probably the only friend I can remember exactly the day we met, what we were doing, where we were... but I digress, that has nothing to do with dating.
T has been like a sister to me since 8th grade. Our lives and the choices we make about our lives over the last quarter of a century have become vastly different. And yet I feel like she understands the whole my life better than just about anyone. Particularly because she can call out these crazy points of reference for something that happened back in 1987, and it somehow explains everything.
Why 1987? Because that is the year T produced a small notebook as a gift to me in which she had inscribed on each page of the book a plan for boy on whom I had a crush. It started "Plan A" then "Plan B" followed by "Plan C" and so on. I will deny any suggestion that she actually managed to fill all 26 pages. The truth of it is that I had interests in many boys... crushes... delusions that they might like me... She listed their names, then we chatted endlessly discussing what I liked about them, and then fantasizing about which I was most likely to act on or try to make happen. (T never had this concern... the male population always flocked to her side, wanted to be in a relationship with her, it was astounding.)
Nothing ever came of any of the plans. Just shy school-girl crushes that the boys never even knew about.
I'd love to say I've outgrown this behavior. Really, I would. But I haven't. Rather than call them Plan A, Plan B, Plan 2845, I now give the men I date nicknames. My friends prefer it this way. I have many, many flirtations, a large number of first dates and a decent amount of second dates. And I'm a story-teller -- I get excited, and want to tell my friends about this new crush. But I found that they had trouble keeping track of the names. So this began my habit of nick-naming men, and a (petty) practice of not "naming" these men until I'd made it to a third or fourth date.
Yes, still these days I develop crushes, I think crazy thoughts about "when will he ask me out" and speak about a boy as if there is a legit chance that something could come of it... and then that fades away.
Maybe I should put that metaphorical notebook away, stop planning, and focus on someone wonderful and new?
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