An interesting question

"So how long has it been since she asked you?" my aunt asked as we were all gathered at her house on Christmas day. "7 days," I answered aware that there must be rules and logistics associated with asking and answering school dance dates. "Yeah you need to answer her," she replied. Soon I was driving over to my future date's house with a box full of chocolates with one containing the paper slip with the word 'yes' on the bottom of it. I placed the box on her porch, rang her doorbell, and took off-classic high school style. I felt pretty excited about going to preference. This was actually going to be my first date ever. Although I was nervous at the same time. Missy Lunt, the girl I was going to preference with, was totally out of my league. Out of all the guys out there, I had no idea why she asked me. A couple days later, I was at my cousin Erik's house with my other cousin Stan. We were engaged in things that adolescents do during long, boring, Christmas break days - playing video games. Erik, who was older and more experienced with girls than I was, informed me that I needed to call my date to figure out some additional details: what the color of her dress was going to be, when she was going to pick me up, et cetera et cetera. I didn't want to make the phone call, in fact I vaguely remember a sick feeling in my stomach as he was explaining the task I needed to perform. But because I wanted to comply with the rules, I decided to bite the bullet and make the call. It was decided that I would call her up then and there at his house. Stan and Erik both agreed to leave the room with the phone empty for me to perform the deed. I finally found her in the phone book, picked up the phone and dialed the number. My heart was beating fast. "Hello." a boy's voice answered. "Is Missy home?" I asked. "Yes, just one minute." My heart was pounding. 'Oh crap, what am I going to say?' I frantically thought. But I knew what I was going to say. My mind momentarily went blank when I heard the soft sound of 'Hello?' 'Hi, [awkward pause] Missy?' 'Yeah.' 'Hey this is Trent.' 'Hey Trent.' '[another pause, slightly more awkward] Hey.' Now I really needed some material. What could I say at this point? Nothing was coming to mind, nothing at all.

I'm not going to say that I am now an expert in conversing with girls over the phone, but at least nowadays it's not as embarrassingly bad as it used to be. This topic brings up an interesting question about dating. Should someone use external razzle-dazzle to make him appear better than he actually is, or should he just approach girls as he is at face value?

When I was 18, I had a weird relationship with a girl. In some contexts I would classify it as a relationship, in others I would just say we were good friends. Her name was Jen. I would often think of things to say to her during the day, but when it came to talking to her over the phone, I would draw blanks at times. I found that I could write all my topics of conversation on a piece of paper, and then in the lull of the conversation, I could glance at my paper of conversation topics and I was set. After a while, however, I started doubting this approach. My question at the time was, if I need a crutch (in this case my crutch was the piece of paper, but other crutches exist such as a nice car, a cool hair style, a nice bod, or fashionable clothes) to woo a girl, is that healthy for a long-term relationship? Shouldn't the girl accept me for who I am at face value despite such trivial things? At the time, I thought no, I needed such crutches. I thought that you should use every advantage you possibly can to attract Miss Right. But after gaining oodles of experience, I now ponder this question again. My conclusion: I think that everything that you do or use to attract that special someone should illustrate the person you really are. Suffice it to say that I do not make lists anymore for phone conversations and lately I haven't been styling my hair in a cool manner. But I still do sit ups every morning. And who knows, maybe I'll start the hair thing back up soon too. But that is a long and complicated story that should be discussed at another time.