The Harem, pt 1

I think I'm going to abandon all pretense of secrecy. I find it confusing to keep using pronouns; and I don't want to start using alternate names. That would only serve to confuse me more. I don't think anyone besides those who already know me will actually read this journal. So I will just resume using people's names. I will, however, do them the courtesy of withholding their last names. If however, you wish me to keep your name secret, drop me a line and I will do so.

My family teases me that I have my own harem. It seems that everytime I have a friend over, it turns out to be a girl. That isn't really the case. I have had guy friends over in the past. But those are mostly my gaming buddies, and we usually head straight downstairs to play our games, and they don't stick around to meet my folks.

I've always gotten along better with girls than with guys. I just feel more comforable around them. So I would end up bringing more girls home with me. Why? You may end up saying that I'm a player. But I believe it stems from my personal insecurities.

In my experience, in a group of guys, there is always a level of competition. It is never spoken of, but it is always felt. It's a competition to determine who is the most masculine. Who is the smartest. The funniest. The strongest. And of course the one with the most sexual prowess or experience. I don't know if this unspoken competition happens in girls' circles, but it definitely is there whenever there is a group of guys.

Many times I feel that I come up short. My chosen event for the contest that occurs at our Game Night is the humor category. And it's a stiff competition because those guys are hysterical. Throughout the evening, you can hear frequent explosions of uproarious laughter. Many nights on the drive home I feel as though I lost because they told funnier jokes than I did. Many times during the night I'll say something that I think is funny, but everyone else looks at me like I'm the stupidest person. One or two guys will politely smile, but that's hardly a consolation prize. Other times I will just not be heard. That's equally humiliating.

It's not that I'm unfunny. I've told some major doozies that have floored the competition. But most of the time the victory goes to someone else, and I am reminded of my inadequacies.

When I'm with a girl or girls, I don't feel the competition. There is no pressure because I am not competing with them. I feel that I can be myself around them. And if they don't like who I am, well then, I'll just go talk to someone else.

The first girl that I can remember that really made me appreciate girls was Wendy. I'm sure my sister will bring up Missy, but it was Wendy who was more influential. We were in first grade together. She sat a couple rows behind me and to the left. She had red hair. (Yes, Charlie Brown, the Little Red Haired Girl.) I remember I had drawn something, and for some reason I turned to her and showed it to her. She said she liked it and then she smiled at me. It was the brightest smile. That smile has stayed with me my entire life. I don't remember having much contact with her during the year, but every once in a while I would turn and show her a drawing I had done or a good grade I received. She would smile at me.

It's hard to tell how I felt at the time, but Wendy left a lasting impression. The kind that influences what I would look for in a girlfriend when the time came that I actually cared about that.

I didn't have many crushes growing up. I remember being a huge fan of Aileen Quinn, the girl who played Annie in the Annie movie. I absolutely adored her and would listen to the LP soundtrack all the time. When Debbie Gibson entered the music scene, I developed a huge crush on her. It was so bad that I would go into newsstands and pharmacies to buy magazines like Tiger Beat and Teen Beat because they were the only ones that had pictures of her. I always felt completely embarrassed and never made eye contact with the clerk.

There were some girls that lived around here, but I was never attracted to any of them. We were playmates and friends, but nothing else. When I went to private school in junior high, there was only one girl who I was attracted to. Her name was Oriana and she was beautiful, but I was never that invested in her. I met her occasionally after junior high when our different youth groups would meet for weekend retreats.

Megan was my first real crush. I say real because she was a real person I knew, not some celebrity I saw in a music video or a magazine clipping. She went to my youth group and later to the same high school. She was the definition of the word "sweet". From her smile to her eyes to her voice to her personality. I just always found myself drawn to her. Many times my head would feel like it was spinning and my heart would be in my throat.

We were really good friends and got to spend a lot of time together because we were both heavily involved in the youth group. But I was always delegated to the "friend territory". Not that I had any clue that that was a bad thing. My strategy was to use patience. Seeing as how I didn't know the first thing about asking a girl out, I decided that I would become really close friends with her. Then after she had gone through several broken relationships with guys who turned out to be assholes, she would decide to go out with me and then we would live happily ever after, or something to that effect. You know, that age-old story.

While I was a senior and she was a junior, we would pass each other in the hallway between classes. As we were passing, she would hand me a hand-written, carefully folded note. She never wrote anything deep. Just stuff like "I'm tired because I didn't get much sleep last night. I'm taking a test next period. My foot is killing me today." Mundane stuff. She never poured her heart out to me. But you know what? I didn't care. I saved each and every one of those notes.

We went to the same prom, but not together. I had already graduated, and it was her senior prom, but not at our own high school. My sister had set me up with her friend's cousin, Amy. Megan was there with another guy from our youth group, someone I found hyperactively annoying. I never went to my own prom. I wound up going to Amy's because I wanted to get some experience with a girl in a romantic setting, but mostly due to pressure from my sister and mother. Poor Amy. I hardly spent any time with her. We danced a few times, but I was a complete lump, for lack of a better term. I had never been in that type of setting before, and I didn't know how to talk to girls. I don't think we really liked each other. There was no animosity, but I would've been fine not to go, and she would've been fine to have gone stag. We never saw each other after that night.

The entire night I was thinking about Megan. I was hoping that I could have a dance with her. I talked to her quite a bit, but never got up the nerve to ask for a dance. Besides, I was already there with a "date". I knew that it would have been a completely stupid thing to do, to dance with someone else, regardless of whether or not there was any attraction between my Amy and me. When the final dance came, I knew I had missed my shot. I knew that the nice thing to do would be to dance with Amy one last time.

I barely saw Megan at all after high school. She ended up dating Simon, a kid who would bully me in Boys Brigade, the church equivalent of the Boy Scouts. She married someone else. I was going to go to her wedding, but I missed it. I though it was at 11am (Aren't they all?). Turned out to be at 10am. As I got to the church, everyone was filing out, so I ended up not going.

I see Megan every once in a while. She comes into the store and says hi. We strike up a casual conversation. Let me tell you, whenever that happens my old crush for her come right back! My head starts spinning and my heart jumps up into my throat.

Megan was a crush. Melissa is the one I would say I fell in love with. We worked together at the store. It started on Halloween of all times. I was wearing my "Floor of a Movie Theatre" costume, and she was wearing some kind of faux-Medeival dress, like a lady of the court. It looked kind of like a Snow White dress. When I saw her in that outfit, that's when I fell. Up till that point I just thought she was kinda pretty, nice to look at with a pleasant personality. But right then and there, she looked absolutely beautiful. It's weird how that happens.

After that I definitely spent more time around her. Struck up more conversations. I would make up excuses just to talk to her. She worked at the front of the store while I worked in the back. I would walk up and tell her that I was going to lunch, or that I was back from lunch. She didn't need to know that and would always give me a quizzical look. But I just wanted to spend a little bit of time with her. And everytime I saw her, she somehow became more and more beautiful.

Even if she wasn't already seeing someone, I probably wouldn't have developed the nerve to ask her out. Up to that point, my confidence was high enough that I was able to ask out two other girls, both of whom said no. But with Melissa, I would have been too nervous.

She ended up leaving the store to get married. And I actually went to her wedding. That's not the sad part. The sad part is that the man that she married shared the same name as me. It was bad enough seeing her up at the altar, but to hear her say her vows was absolute torture.

"I, Melissa, take you, Justin..."

It felt like I had just been shot in the chest.