Date Jinx 2.0

Chapter II

Date Jinx 2.0

Back Story: The Boutonniere

If you look at the pictures of Dawn and I together, you'll notice I'm wearing a white Boutonniere.  That's the Boutonniere that Dawn had gotten me and pinned on me before we left for prom.  The one you see above is red, right?  So, why's that?  Dawn never knew this, but my Cystic Fibrosis (CF) friend Shawnna Gould (RIP: 9-12-12) didn't know that I had a date for prom.  The last we had talked, I had told her I didn't have a date yet.  She sent me (via florist) a Boutonniere.  I barely remember it, but I recall the florist delivering the Boutonniere to my house a day or two before prom.  I thought that was so nice of her to think of me during my prom and to actually do that.  So I took a picture before I left to pick up Dawn with the Boutonniere Shawnna sent me.  I did feel sad, because I knew I had to take it off.  I knew it was the right thing to do, because Dawn was my date.  If I didn't have a date, then I would have worn the Boutonniere that Shawnna gave me.  I kept Shawnna's Boutonniere for 2 years, until 2000.  The same with Dawn's as well.  So that's the little back story on the Boutonniere.  I did send Shawnna the picture and thanked her so much, but I never told her the whole story.
=============================================

So heading into my sophomore year in high school I was single.  Melissa and I had broken up in June '95, just a week after school ended.  What was suppose to be 'our summer' together, didn't turn out to be that way. She basically found someone better.  Someone with a car, even though a month after we broke up I bought my first car.  Not too many 16 year old guys have their own cars, especially nowadays.  I had been saving up for one.  I found out a week later from a neighbor who worked with Melissa, that her and her new boyfriend were caught making out at work.  That's when it really hit me.  I had hoped my sophomore year would be a good one, and it was, but it started off rocky.  Having an ex in the same class room as you can be a bit of a mental struggle.

I asked my friend Stacy to homecoming.  Stacy and I both went to Lakeland, but she was a freshman.  We had been boyfriend and girlfriend when I was in 8th grade, 2 years prior, but we remained friends.  Stacy was a bit shy, so she brought her girlfriend with her as well.  Stacy and I had a good time, but as we were getting ready to go home, she was sitting with a guy that she either got to know from school or got to know somehow.  I can't recall.  I knew who he was.  She was saying bye to him (she didn't know I was standing near them) and both their foreheads were pressed up against each other, and they were about to kiss.  I FREAKIN' COULDN'T BELIEVE IT. What was this.  Screw Jesse Part 2:  The Final Stab?

I raised my voice and said to her.

"NO!  You're not going to do his to me.  Don't you even THINK about kissing him."

You always hear stories of guys screwing up the night for a girl, by kissing someone else, flirting with someone else, or something happening.  Well folks, I was the victim in all these situations. The roles were reversed.

Stacy and I of course remained friends after that and still did until I graduated in 1998.  Its been a few years since I last heard from her.  To be fair, she was a nice person, but I think teenage hormones got in the way that night.

That was the last time anything bad happened to me at a school dance.  All my other dances, including junior and senior homecomings/winterfests went great.  By this time I felt so much anxiety anytime my date(s) would think of dancing with someone else or even if I went on a group date.  Stacy was the last 'official' date I had for a dance, until prom.

So with everything I had been through, who in the world was I going to ask to prom?  There was only one person.  An angel so to speak.

CONTINUE. . . 

 

You Are So Beautiful
By Joe Cocker
Year: 1974
One of my top 10 favorite slow songs