The High School Years: Part 3 - The Not So Secretive Courting

Missed a part? Part 1, Part 2

As you may or may not have noticed by the way things developed in the last part, we sent out emails frequently as a group. My favorite part was that none of us were smart enough to realize that emails that once started out as a group notification from Mr. Zu had turned into a group wide chat about nonsense with each of us hitting the “reply all” button and Mr. Zu, the lawyer, and every other unwilling person in the club seeing our meaningless emails.

I can just imagine a bunch of anxious students waiting to get an email from an important college admissions person about an important college question they had and their ticker would keep going off.

Darn, it’s Justin. Wait, he hates Mr. Wall? Why is he telling me this?

Ooh, another one! Please let it be it? No, it’s Anna replying to Justin. Oh great, she just said that last email was crap.

Now that that garbage is out of the way, I can open up this email which surely is from the Dean of Admissions of Penn State…..no, it’s Justin again. Can’t this stupid argument end?

Oh yay, now there’s an email from May (another person in mock trials). STUPID FUCKING MOCK TRIALS IS CLUTTERING MY INBOX!!!!! MOMMY!!!!!!!!

Well that’s how a lot of other people saw it. Me, I was having a blast. I’ve never had so much fun online contact with people in my life. I was not on Facebook at the time, I hardly read blogs at the time, and I don’t even think that Twitter existed 3 years ago. Wait, did it? Well, if it did, I had no idea what the fuck it was, that’s for sure.

The point I am dancing around is that while not many others enjoyed these chats, I was having the time of my life. Okay, so maybe that’s overstating it, but the point is there. In fact, I enjoyed it so much, that once the year’s competition was over, I proceeded on trying to start up more conversations and email chains, going so far as sending the results of the end of the competition to everyone.

And it worked. The conversations kept on going.

Eventually we got to talking about relationships. Anna get telling us stories about this kid that I went to elementary school with, so that was kind of bizarre and odd.

May then randomly decided to mention that after a few years of having boyfriends, she has been single for a couple months and I chime in the fact that up until that point, I had been single all 17.5 years of my life and not once had I gone out with a girl.

Then I let it slip.

“I haven't even really found people who I'm mutually attracted too. Okay, there's one right now, but I really haven't had the guts to talk to her and/or ask her out, so obviously I would not call that a mutual attraction (unless of course she is just as shy as I am and I'm in the dust). I am in 11th grade, yet when it comes to this kind of stuff, I feel like I'm in 7th or 8th grade. I feel like I'm that stupid idiot with a stupid crush, but won't tell anyone, not even her”

Frankly I’m not quite sure what I was thinking when I said that and frankly I’m not sure if I was thinking about anything. Sure I was talking about Alura. And yes, I was well aware that I was sending that directly to her (and several others), but it never crossed my mind that anything would ever come of it.

“I can sort of relate. Except obviously with the genders reversed”, Alura replied.

We had something in common. That was a start.

Well luck be a cruel bastard, guess who’s crush people start inquiring about? You guessed it. Mine. Ugh. It’s Monday March 19 and I cannot shake these people for the life of me. I consistently state that I will not tell them who it was that it was my secret and that’s the way I wanted it (of course, just sending the answer to everyone but Alura and Anna would have been much too obvious to think of). I did not want to ruin a semi-budding friendship and more importantly create awkwardness in the team.

But I went to bed, having managed to keep my secret in tact.

Morning came. Tuesday. March 20, 2007. I’m pretty sure at some point during March Madness last year, I mentioned how the second day of the first round occurred on a significant anniversary of my life. Obviously, that was March 20. You want that whole story? Well here ya go.

I pondered during the school day whether or not I would say anything and reveal Alura’s true identity to Alura. And the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Yes. I should. Unlike Jodie Sweetin, here was my chance to tell a girl that I liked her and to maybe get in a relationship. Here it was. My first shot at a possible love. This one will not go unheard of. This one will play itself out. I will quit being a coward and for once I will tell a girl how I really feel about her. This will work. This will play out.

But……I was not going to make it easy. No. Not at all.

Let’s turn it into a guessing game!

Frankly I’m not sure what I was thinking, but in an odd sort of way, it made my job easier in that I may not be the one that necessarily breaks the news.

After a nervous day of school where I contemplated everything in regards to this matter, I decide to continue along. Yes, she was going to find out today. Yes, they would find out through their posing of questions to me.

One notable question that Anna asked was, “Is is Alura?”. I didn’t lie to her and say, “no”. I just did not answer it.

Here are some of the questions that I got asked:

Alura: “Is it someone Anna and I have ever talked about?”

Answer: Yes.

Anna then sent me an email with a barrage of questions that resembled questions you would get for a job application.

“Is she tall, short, or average?”

“Blonde? Brunette? Black? Red? Interesting variations of about five different colors?

“White, Asian, brown, black, a mixture?”

“Does her first name start with A-G, H-M, N-S, T-Z?”

And after all that, she had this little friendly message for me at the bottom, “You must answer or else I’ll never talk to you again. Seriously. I need to know…I have to know everything about everybody, always.”

There really is no filter on Anna’s emails. She must have learned to send emails at the same place where DeSean Jackson learned to tweet. But I digress.....

For the sake of identity protection I won’t give you what the answers are (although some of them I have indirectly already revealed) but do know that I answered all of the questions honestly, even adding my little note at the end that “there was one that I did not answer”.

Of course, you know which one I was referring too.

And so did Anna.

“Oh my God Alura it’s you!!!!!! I know it is. You totally qualify and I asked him if it was her and he didn’t answer OMFG!!!”

I guess my secret’s not a secret anymore then! Sent not only to me and Alura, but to May and Mike as well. Well played, Anna. Well played. Did I mention something about a lack of filter on her emails?

“Listen, I'm really sorry for blurting that out”, Anna quickly replied back, “but Alura said she already found out about 3 seconds before I kind of exploded. I hope you're not mad at me, but I have issues where my hand does not coordinate with my brain.”

She finished off by writing the word “sorry” 38 times. Seriously. That’s not an exaggeration.

And to top it all off, she added a 39th in a separate email, only this sorry one had an “oh fuck, I’m” in front of it.

I went down to watch Deal or No Deal from Monday night before, wondering what on earth was going to happen to me. I hardly paid attention to the show as I just contemplated how my life was about to change. This is what I had wanted, wasn’t it?

I hop back on and during the show Alura had sent me her first email since Anna’s revelation (though I had never confirmed it).

“Way to not think twice and write once . . . I had pretty much guessed anyway”, was Alura’s reply. She was more pre-occupied with Anna’s quick fingers then the fact that she had a desparate boy willing to cater to her every whim.

Anna then felt the need to do more damage control by replying to Alura’s email with an “aaaaaaaah!!!!! Please don’t hate me….” message.

Once again, my feelings on this fiasco are ignored. Lovely. Just lovely.

In the spirit of forgiveness, Anna then decided to reveal who her crush was. Turns out it was the same kid who I had known in elementary school who she was telling us about the day before. And it was not that she just mentioned him she liked him and moved on with it, she took it deep into her core of love for him. It was actually quite moving and I’m not saying that sarcastically.

For all the talk of a lack of a filter, I could really tell that she was legitimately sorry. We can’t control our own filters in this world.

I decided that I finally needed to say something to Alura. Although there was one thing that I was scared of right now, her hating me.

Alura, I seriously hope that Anna did not stun you there if that sudden announcement. My way was to have it come on gradually, and then when I felt that you had figured it out, I was going to reply to Anna's message of "Is it Alura?", and I was going to simply reply, "yes, it is Alura". I was not going to scream it out like Anna did. Alura, I seriously hope you don't hate me. Please don't hate me. Please don't hate me. At this point, the only thing I am worried about is you not hating me. Please reply and say something. Please, I just need to know. Even if you think I am evil, and you don't want anything to do with me. Please just answer me. Say something, even if it is negative and you curse me to hell, I will understand, and I won't hate you. Even if you hate me, nothing you say right now, could ever make me hate you. Absolutely nothing.

“I don’t hate you”, Alura replied. Takes things quite literally, this one.

I replied:

Alura,

Thank you for not hating me. I am really sorry about this if I embarrassed you or humiliated you. I did not mean to. I am glad you don't hate me, yes, but I still feel really bad about how this ended up. Although you did say you figured it out before Anna proclaimed it, I just all of a sudden feel bad about this. The goal was not in any way to make you feel bad, degraded, humiliated, and/or embarrassed.

The truth is ever since I first saw you, I thought you were one of the prettiest, most beautiful girls I have ever seen. And then, as time went on I got to know you and I realized that not only were you pretty, but you are also one of the sweetest and nicest girls I have ever met. Whenever I sent you emails, I always tried to make them sound really nice, to try and get you to like me. I was absolutely honored when you told me I sent your 1000th email, that really meant a lot to me. Anyway, whether you like me or not, that is your call, but I will /always/ think highly of you, and I will always regard you as my first real crush. The point is, just like you will always remember me for sending your 1000th email, I will always remember you for being my 1st real crush. Hopefully, we can go out one day, but if not I guess I am okay with that. At least you know how I really feel, and I know you know how I really feel so I won't have any regrets. I am nearly crying now, but that is ok, I guess, although I do not cry much. The only thing I ask of you is to please don't label me as strange, weird, obsessive, or any of that and don't call the police and label me a stalker; please don't do that. You are a wonderful person and nothing will ever change my mind about how I feel about you (unless of course you call the police). Thank you very much, and I honestly can't say enough about how great of a person I think you are.

Justin

I am letting Anna see this just because she poured her heart out about Mark and I feel like I owe her justice. Don’t worry Anna, I will not tell him you like him, even though we are in the same homeroom. Do not worry, I will only tell if you specifically want me to tell.

“Oh my god, that's totally sweet”, Alura replied “I don't think you're weird or strange or anything for liking me. I'm actually kind of honored. I'm sorry I don't feel the same way about you that you do about me, but I hope we can still be friends?”

"You should be honored, you are a great person. It is ok if you don't feel the same way about me, I totally understand that. I almost don't expect you to feel the same way, we all have different interests. Of course, we can still be friends. Just because I don't have my first date now, doesn't mean that we can still be friends and send out occasional emails. I will always think of you not only as my first real, non-Hollywood crush, but I will always think of you as a really good friend. And maybe someday when and if you do feel the same way about me as I do about you, we can go out, but until then we will always be friends. And if you see me in the hallways or whatnot, there is no need to be embarrassed. I'll be the embarrasssed one :-). You have not hurt my feelings at all. Not that I'm unfeeling, but in a way I needed to know how you felt about me. Now that I know, we will always be friends. You have not changed my feelings about you and once again, we can and will still be friends.

Alura’s reply was a simple: “:-)”

After what had been a mentally and emotionally draining day and night, I immediately got up and did the dance that would eventually be known as The Chris Wheeler.