This is a story I wrote. Yeah, it may sound familiar to various RinkChatters, mainly because it is. What I did was take a true story and change the names. The end in this story is not the end in reality, because reality is always ongoing.

And without further ado...

I think it was her hair that really started it all. Jordan had worn it especially nicely one day in advisory, and I noticed. From that point on, I kept noticing things about her, be it her hair or her coat or her general pleasantness. Then I noticed I was noticing. One day I sat down and thought about it. I thought about how she made me feel. When I got home from school that day, I went immediately online. Laura was online, too. "Good. She's good at this kind of stuff, I thought. She should be able to help me."

ThinkDoc: hey laura
Goodwink: hey lawrence

Now that the obligatory pleasantries had been exchanged, it was time to get down to business.

ThinkDoc: laura, i need your help
Goodwink: yeah?
ThinkDoc: i think i like jordan, but i'm not quite sure because it's been years since i've $liked$ something, and i can't remember how to tell

Let me explain something about Jordan first. She's somewhat tall, with shoulder-length light brown hair. Her teeth aren't perfect, but she has the loveliest smile I've ever seen. She is a warm, caring person, kind and nice. She would never do anything to hurt you, She's intelligent, and I could listen to her talk all day. She's very funny. She'll listen to what you have to say. My spirits rise whenever she's around. I enjoy being in her presence. She's wonderful.

ThinkDoc: anyway, i thought you might be able to help
ThinkDoc: you've had so much more experience with this sort of thing
ThinkDoc: you know, you've gone out with jonathan and ian and now harry
Goodwink: yeah, well, how do you feel when she's around you?

And so it went. After about ten minutes of being interrogated by Laura, we came to the conclusion that I do like Jordan. OK. Liking someone, however, is not something you want broadcast to every person on the face of the planet, especially when the likee doesn't know. I told Laura that mum was the word, and she agreed.
All went well for a while. Then, one day in Miss Helmer's class, I saw Jonathan talking to Jordan. There was nothing unusual about that, as they often sat near each other. What caught me off guard was the look on Jonathan's face. He had on an I-love-being-with-her-I-love-having-her-talk-to-me expression. I knew that look; I wore it when I talked with her.
Miss Helmer's class is the last class of the day for us. I waited up for Jonathan afterwards and, together with Colleen, we walked to the bus station. When Colleen went off to talk to someone else, I asked Jonathan if he liked Jordan.
"What makes you say that?" he said, dodging my question.
I told him how I saw him with Jordan, and how he seemed to feel around her. He admitted it.
"It happens every time," I said.
"What?"
"Every time I start to like a girl, you come in and just like her, too. When I liked Laura a while back, I couldn't say anything because you were going out with her. Now this. I like Jordan, and then I find out you like her too."
Jonathan looked surprised. I didn't know if it was from me telling him how I felt about Jordan, or how I once felt about Laura, or what. It was probably the Laura news. I'd done a good job of hiding it, and he was the first person I told. Of course, by that point, I didn't feel that way about Laura anymore, and she had started going out with Harry.
The only other girls I've ever liked were back in elementary school. One was a pathological liar who moved away in third grade. I found out later that her mom was a drug addict. The other girl had broken into tears when I told her I liked her, but we remained good friends in spite of it.
Jonathan's bus came, and he left. "The one that could have worked out, I thought, and I have to compete for her!" I wasn't mad at Jonathan, though. He hadn't done anything. I was mad at fate, which seemed determined to keep me from ever getting a girl.
Nothing happened on the Jordan front for the next few weeks.
Then, everything happened.
On Tue 18 Jan A.D. 2000, I told Laura my plan to send Jordan an anonymous E-mail telling her that the sender liked her. It was going to be exactly what I wanted to tell her, except with no name attached.
I had planned to send it during lunch, with no chance of Jordan being around. I ran into a problem: I had lost Jordan's E-mail address. There was no way to get it during lunch, so I asked Laura in Miss Helmer's class.
After school my plans made a big change. I was a bit slow in packing my backpack, and when I got outside I saw it.
Jonathan.
And Jordan.
Standing with each other.
I walked up, as did Jonathan's cousin Sam. Jonathan and I asked him to leave, which he reluctantly did. Jonathan then asked the same thing of me. "No thanks," I said. "I'd rather just stand here."
After a moment's pause, the two continued talking. I don't remember what they said, but Jonathan spoke the most.
After a while, Stephen, Colleen, Sam and I walked to the bus station.
"You know, she can tell," I said to Jonathan, making an attempt to get Jonathan to understand it but not the other two. After they had left, Jonathan told me he'd already told Jordan about how he felt, and that he'd even asked her out.
I was quite surprised, to say the least. When I got home, I changed my original plan to something different: nonanonymous. I sent the E-mail to Jordan an hour after Jonathan asked her out. I felt defeated. I went into a favorite chat room of mine, and told everyone there about my situation. One guy gave me detailed advice on how to beat up Jonathan, despite my insistence that Jonathan was my friend and I didn't want to hurt him.
The next day was a Wednesday. Having received no reply to my E-mail message the night before (and waiting four hours for one, might I add) I figured Jordan must have gotten it but wanted to talk about it face to face. When I spoke to her she said she hadn't checked her E-mail yet. I asked her to check it that night after school and she said OK. I talked to Laura a little while later, and she said the only way she was able to get Jordan to not check the mail at school (because I guessed that her friends would be crowded around, reading it with her) was to tell Jordan what the E-mail was about.
I said hello to Jordan every time I passed her. It might have started to get a mite annoying, I guess.
I also asked Laura about Jordan's religious beliefs. Good moral person, she said, but an atheist. Ooh. I'm a practicing Christian, and religious differences can wreck a relationship. Not only that, but there's a verse in the Bible that says, "Do not be yoked together with unbelievers" and so, if we did become a couple, there could be big problems.
On the next day, I came to school even more nervous than before. What would she say? What would she do? I figured I could handle pretty much any reaction from her except crying or "I haven't read my E-mail yet." I went to advisory in second period and sat down. She was absent. I could have screamed. Instead, I made a resolution that if she hadn't read the mail by the next time I talked with her, I'd just tell her what it said.
On Friday after Mr. William's German class I went to advisory. Whee! She was there!
"Did you get my E-mail?" I asked.
"Yeah, I need to talk to you about it in just a second."
Until this whole thing started, I'd never fully understood the term "butterflies in the stomach". I first got them on Tuesday evening, but now, they were at their worst. We got instructions from the TA to vote on some sort of sheet that would decide what we would be doing from then on; I signed right after Jordan. A few more people signed it, and they went off to work on their projects. Jordan and I stood by the sheet, and she started.
"Listen, Lawrence, I think you're a really cool guy, but I don't feel ready to be dating anyone right now."
This was not the best I had been hoping for, but I felt good. She sounded sincere. It wasn't because she doesn't like me, or because she was seeing someone else, or anything like that. It was because she didn't feel prepared enough for the responsibility of going out with anyone, and I could live with that.
The dating comment reminded me of a rule my mom had set long before. I told Jordan.
"Well, actually," I said, "I--I hadn't planned on dating you, because I'm not allowed to go on a date until I'm sixteen." We both laughed, me a little nervously. She looks even prettier when she laughs.
We went off to do the assignments with our groups (my group, unfortunately, didn't include Jordan), and I felt good. Here I was, unrejected, unridiculed, unhurt, and unhated. Later on, over the weekend, I would feel depressed because of several reasons why a relationship wouldn't work between us, and of all the things I longed to say to her but morally couldn't, and because I couldn't hold her and talk to her and kiss her and keep her.
But for now, I was happy.

-eric "That's the scoop" sleator
Mon 8 Feb A.D. 2000