Say what you will about me but one thing you have got to admit is
that I am massively shallow and unabashedly self-serving when it
comes to my relationships. I knew already that this girl I had been
dating was not a long term project, not even a middle-term commitment
because she was just so insufferably arrogant and self righteous. She
was, however, still a woman and to that end still a target in my
testosterone addled teen mind for a little squishing and kissing. I
invited her to go climbing and camping with my friend's and I as my
last ditch effort before returning her to the wild. We climbed until
dark with my friends giving almost audible eye rolls to her stupid
comments. As we wrapped up climbing we took our camping gear across
the river and set up a camp for the guys and then my girl, my friend
and I tried to hike some other gear up to that secret spot I used on
the disastrous picnic-love-song debacle. That was so I could have a
private camp out with the girl and me alone. The hike is very steep
and we had installed a rope to help with the accent but my friend who
was carrying her sleeping bag lost his footing and dropped it down
into the river. I know that sounds a little too convenient and
what-ever-shall-we-do-ish with a boy and a girl and only one dry
sleeping bag. My friend ran down and retrieved the bag but it was too
late and the one remaining bag had to be unzipped and shared between
the girl and I. We spent a little more time at the group fire and
then hiked back to our set up for the night. We laid down and got
covered up the best you can in a shared sleeping bag when the girl is
turned quite deliberately away in the classic do-not-try-it position.
She didn't talk to me and faked going to sleep really much too soon.
I was wondering what my best play was laying there in the dark
listening to the distant river and being given the cold shoulder. I
decided to try a little light cuddle and see what happened. I put my
arm around her waist and tried for a little big-spoon lite. She
warmed up to that and cuddled into the little-spoon position and
after a hour or so she asked if I wanted to kiss her. I said sure,
then we shared a kiss that was as unappealing as any I had ever had.
She was not good at it despite all the times she had told me how much
her and my friend had made out. I guess there are people who golf a
lot and are not very good at that either. It was so incompetent that
it actually cooled my jets and we spent the next hour or so engaged
in banal conversation and then mercifully to sleep. I told her the
next day after we were home and on our respective phones that I just
didn't think we were going to work out and she was pissed. After the
break up after three tepid weeks she told lots of people that I had
tried to molest her out camping which was so absurd that I actually
was not even threatened by the accusation and just laughed it off
when people would ask. We never dated or even really spoke to each
other again. The next time I saw her was after I had been away at
college and I ran into her and what was clearly her boyfriend when I
was at the video store with my sister and mother. She ran over to say
hi to me in an over- friendly and over-happy manner and I snatched
her up and pretended to try and kiss her on the mouth that took the
wind out of her fake excited sails and she just looked confused. She
introduced me to her boyfriend/fiance and I said cryptically, 'Oh, so
I guess things have changed.' We said how good it was to see each
other and she was talking in an excited conspiratorial way with her
man as they walked away. That was the real end of it.
