Then and Now Last week I was reminiscing about a high school memory. →[More:]I think the specific memory was of the time my English Writing OAC class had a debate, “Should convicted repeat rapists be castrated?”, and a guy I had a crush on came to mind. He was on the “con” side with another guy, while I was moderator and the pro side were two female friends of mine who toyed with the idea of wearing t-shirts for the debate that said “Snip It” on them. (Ah, that distinctively inappropriate adolescent humour!)

Anyway, then it occurred to me to search for the guy, A., on Facebook. There were surprisingly quite a few people with his unusual and old-fashioned first name, but it was easy to figure out which was he as he’d included his middle name which I actually remembered once I saw it, and also a picture of himself – and he looks almost exactly the same as he did 20 years ago. I looked at the publicly available info and found out that he lives in Ottawa, is an RMT, and is into active outdoor activities like skiing and swimming and skating and cycling. Nice to know. A few days later I thought, why not email him and say hi, because it would nice to catch up, so I sent him a brief friendly message. A. emailed right back and also sent me a friend request, and we emailed back and forth for a few days, and then he began an IM session, and one of the first things he said to me was, “Did you have a crush on me in high school?” Oh dear. I admitted that I did, and asked if he’d known. No, he said, he didn’t know at the time, but he figured it out now because he thought otherwise he would not have come to my mind twenty years later. And he said I should have told him because he would have gone out with me if he’d known, because he thought I was a hottie. He would have taken me to prom instead of going stag, and maybe gotten to second base. Him and me both. I did have a date to prom – but I got no action as that guy was gay. (Damn but he could dance though.) I reminded A. of how he complained the next school day about all the slow dances the DJ played, and that everyone looked at him like, "Uh, A., it's PROM."

This is actually the second of the three boys in high school I had crushes on to tell me he was very attracted to me back in the day. [Head slamming on keyboard.] Crap, WHY did I have to be so utterly lacking in self-confidence and modus operandi back then?! I missed out on so many good experiences that I could have had. Instead I moped in my room writing shitty poetry and the only two boys I ever actually dated during high school turned out to be gay.

Don’t take this to mean that I live in the past or that I think anything that happens in high school has much relevance twenty years on. I knew someone who, in her thirties, was stil carrying on about how the kids in high school were so meeeeeean to her and how she couldn't wait for her high school reunion to go back and prove things to them, and it was just utterly tiresome and pathetic. For me it’s mostly just amusing to find this stuff out now, with maybe a tinge of regret. Moreover, sometimes you do get the chance to do the things you wish you could have done back in the day, adult-style. A. has mentioned that he comes to Toronto for RMT workshops sometimes and suggested we could meet for drinks and catch up, and I said that would be lovely.

And if I ever do have a teenage daughter, I’ve got some advice for her.