Between
Thanksgiving and Christmas that year I started hanging out with the
girl I was madly in love with every day or close to it. My friend was
also spending lots of time with her many days taking her to school or
giving her a ride back home. Several times he would tell me that she
had no interest romantically in me based on things she had told him
in their private conversations. Other times she would tell me that my
friend had been telling her all sorts of scandalous things about me.
I didn't begrudge him a single thing, it didn't even make me mad, it
was all in the spirit of competition and all is fair in love and war.
He was leading off with a few romantic gestures that had me feeling
left out so I made the exact same romantic gestures. It was getting a
little weird at times but we were still all friends and went and did
lots of things together. She went with us clothes shopping one day
and at the time the hipping and hopping community had started
advocating the practice of non-farmers wearing denim overalls in the
sassy and swashbuckling style of leaving one of the built-in
suspender things off to flap in the breeze. This was probably not a
look I would have gone with if I was alone in the wilds of fashion
all alone but my guide who I was very interested in pleasing said it
was super cute. I left my dignity and self respect at the door and
started being her dress up monkey trying on various styles and sizes
until she found the pair that pleased her and then she demanded I buy
them and wear them. My friend openly mocked my newly acquired
urban-lite styling and my almost complete lack of self respect. True
enough, but I was willing to debase myself for the opportunity to
become her full time lapdog if there was any chance whatsoever that
included some making out or 'macking' in the appropriated parlance of
the day. I dressed like she wanted me to and took on the girl-power
politics she espoused and that was my plan to win her over. My friend
was unwilling to compromise his basic sense of identify to follow me
down that particular rabbit hole and we started to move into end
game. The lesson here is that I was spineless and possessing of
almost infinitely flexible morality to get what I wanted. It's what
champions are made of.
