(Editor’s note: Welcome to Living Eulogies. All recollections are accurate in the author’s mind only. Apologies in advance to everyone who has different recollection of the same events. Send all complaints to Marty Walsh. Read all directions before use.)
In the first known picture capturing a moment between my big sister and I, she is stuffing a fully-inflated balloon into my face in an attempt to suffocate me. That I should ever have taken dating input from her says more about me than it does about her.
Yet back in sixth grade, I did exactly that, and it led to one of the most awkward sixth-grade dances in the history of sixth-grade dances, which, my friend, is saying something.
Back in the day, my sister’s first official boyfriend that I recall was Jason Wein. This led to unexpected happiness in my notably temperamental sibling and the song We Built This City being played repeatedly on her boombox, as, for some peculiar reason I didn’t understand even then, that became “their” song. As far as “their” songs go, I’d put forward that We Built This City is the shittiest of shitty choices, far worse than Never Say Goodbye by good-ole Jon Bon that was the “their” song of my first official relationship, but I digress.
I’m not sure what my sister and Jason Wein actually had in common except for being eighth-grade West Housers at Fox Lane Middle School at the time. Oh, and they both had younger siblings in sixth grade in West House at Fox Lane Middle School. Together, the two of them got it in their heads that their siblings — me and Jason’s sister Amy — should go to a dance together.
This was a spectacularly bad idea for a wide variety of reasons. Though I knew Amy existed by that point in time, I don’t believe we’d ever spoken a word to each other when the precursor to Tinder that was my sister and Jason got involved. Amy and I went to different elementary schools, and we didn’t exactly run in the same circle during our first year thrown into the cesspool that was Fox Lane Middle School.
On top of that, I wasn’t exactly what anyone would call dateable back then. It’s arguable that, despite nearly 26 years of marriage to indicate otherwise, I’m all that dateable today. But back then? I was a geeky, scrawny, awkward, bespectacled brace face who was nowhere close to the charming, charismatic heart-throb I would cough-cough, cough-cough someday become.
Yet there I found myself, seated on the floor of my sister’s room while freaking Starship sang in the background, being handed the phone to talk — for the first time ever — to Amy and ask her to go to the upcoming school dance.
Though I have no knowledge of what was going on just before that phone conversation on her end, I imagine it had something to do with brotherly intimidation to pity the poor geeky younger brother of Jason’s beloved and agree to go to the dance with him. That she agreed was as much a surprise to me as it was to everyone else who heard that I did, indeed, have a date to the dance.
What followed was a predictable disaster.
In the runup to the dance, I remember there being a number of overheard comments akin to, “Wait. You’re going with … him?” and me being like, “Hey! Why shouldn’t she go with me?” even though everything inside me was saying, “Why exactly is she going with you again, John?”
The night of the danced arrived, and we showed up in the middle school gym where, of course, boys gathered on one side and girls on the other. At some point, someone decided standing around listening to music in gender-specific groups was dumb and actually got out there and danced. Which, of course, led to the thought that I probably should ask Amy to dance with me. After all, I’d asked her and she’d agreed to go with me to, specifically, a dance.
There were numerous problems with this. The first was that I hadn’t a clue how to actually dance. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell I was going to get out there to a “fast” song and do what I’d one day come to think of as the Kevin Arnold in front of all my classmates, especially my boy buds. So if there were to be any dances, it would be to a slow song that would take very little of what I didn’t have: dancing skillz.
The problem with that, however, was that the mere thought of touching an actual girl made my palms sweat profusely. Not only did I not want to subject Amy (or any other girl) to such disgustingness, I didn’t want to subject myself to the embarrassment that would come from having Amy call for a towel to dry off her hand mid-dance.
With fast dancing and slow dancing both extremely unpalatable option, I was in something of a quandary.
Yet there was my sister, who in most instances did not want me to talk with her in a school setting lest anyone realize we were, indeed, related, coming up to me repeatedly as the music played and pushing me to ask Amy to dance.
Need I remind you of that first photo of us together once again?
At some point, I did ask Amy to dance. My recollection is that the first time I asked, she said no, which led to a rather humbling and dispirited walk back across the gym to the relative safety of the Boys Zone. After more encouragement (and perhaps a conversation between brother and sister on the other side of the gym?), I asked her again, and she did agree to dance.
I remember it as being horrendously awkward, with me trying my damnedest to find significance in this situation with a girl I didn’t know and didn’t really have any feelings toward one way or another. Amy, god bless her, wanted to be anywhere but there. That, I could feel strongly. Perhaps the fact that she looked anywhere but at me during that one dance, as if she were aboard a lifeboat and in search of someone … anyone … to rescue her, gave me a clue. But I really didn’t need the visual to form the opinion.
The song ended, I mopped off my palms on strategically placed tissues in my jeans pockets, and we went our separate ways.
And that was kind of that. Perhaps my sister and Jason were satisfied with their hazing of their younger siblings. Perhaps Amy put her foot down and said, “That’s enough of this crap!” Whatever it was, I spent the rest of the dance on the sidelines, witnessing my first-ever heavy-duty public display of affection between a dude named James and a girl named Tara in the corner of the gym.
When the night ended, we spilled out of the gym and made the long walk back to the front of the school to meet our parents in their idling vehicles. I remember spending the next day largely in my room, not wanting to see or talk with anyone about the awkwardness of my first official dance.
Amy and I returned to what we were after that … two faces in the hallways of middle school life. I don’t know that we ever had a meaningful conversation after that. It’s quite possible we never uttered any words directly to each other in the wake of that experience.
But it was something to remember … my first school dance, my first dance with a person of the opposite sex, and the last time I listened to my sister when it came to dating.
I look back on that dance now with a smile. Amy was gracious and as kind as she could be for the situation she was put in.
I still can’t dance, though my palms don’t sweat profusely when I’m swaying back and forth with my lovely bride on the rare occasions I actually get out there with her and our awesome “their” song, A Whole New World, is playing.
That song totally kicks ass on We Built This City. Just sayin’.
UP NEXT: Pat
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