I have moved!

You can find my new home at http://awkwardthingsisaytogirls.com - which, if I do say so myself, is freaking awesome.

"Are you saying things to me?"

I'm typing this post from my old bedroom on Christmas Eve. There is an awkward thing that I will get to later on, but first there are two things I want to mention about how my blog is going these days.

Sometimes I wonder if I can keep this up for much longer. I mean, I have to run out of things to talk about, right? Then I remember these two facts:

1. I have a list of old awkward things I want to get to someday, but it keeps getting longer as I think of a thing to write about more than once a week.
   


2. I'm running a backlog of current awkwardness, too. I have 3 or 4 (actually, probably half a dozen) stories from the past week alone that I will have to mete out over the month of January, unless something else good comes along. We can play it by ear, you and I.

And, hell, if worst comes to worst and I start dating someone and have nothing new to write about on Mondays, I am still toying with the idea of serializing that feature-length Awkward Adventure I've alluded to a few times. I mean, my friends sure know that I never get tired of telling that story.

Wait. Who am I kidding? If I start dating someone, this will become a daily blog. Anyhow, here's your Monday awkwardness, because, baby, you know I treat you right.

--

Imagine that there are seven friends sitting around playing a board game. We're all chatting happily, enjoying the good company, awash in the good feelings you get spending time with good friends during the holiday season. There's a contented, excited buzz of conversation floating about the room. Everyone is having a noisy good time.

Now imagine that, all at once, everyone finishes what they're saying and there is a lull of silence.

Well, there's a lull of silence for everyone but me. (Imagine that.) I had turned to the girl sitting next to me to look into her eyes and say, over-loud in the sudden conversational vacuum:

"Are you saying things to me?"

5 Awkward Things You Don't Know About Me

I've been tagged. And, frankly, it's about time I let you behind the curtain a little bit.

Also, don't be surprised if you notice that a Christmas Miracle has happened to this website the next time you stop by. We're turning it up to 11 over here at Awkward Things, just in time for the new year.

Okay. On to the five things!

1. I've had the songs "I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire" (made famous by Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights in 1941) and "Chances Are" (the first #1 hit for Johnny Mathis) intermittently stuck in my head since around 1997, when the Clover Hill High School show choir performed them together as a medley ballad in their competition show. I was in the band that accompanied them at competitions, but, since they did this part of the show a capella, I didn't have to play and could just listen.
   
   From my perspective at the back of the stage, all of the gorgeous choir girls singing the song were backlit by the auditorium lighting, so that all I could clearly see was the back of their heads framed in a white glow, with little glints of loose hairs sparkling against darkness. Naturally, I was hopelessly in love with each and every one of them. No wonder I sing those songs to myself in my head all the time, almost 10 years later.



2. When I solved a tough homework problem in college, I would get up in its face and trash talk it. Here's something I might say: "What? You think you can come in here and fool me with that little-girl time-independant Hamiltonian? Listen, bitch, I was strapped with partial differential equations when your punk-ass was still getting spanked by your momma for stealing cookies." Like, out loud. I'm not making that up.



3. When I'm by myself, and, say, driving or maybe even walking along, and I see extra-cute little kids, I say "Oh my goodness!" in a super dopey voice. I generally don't say it when I'm with people. Sometimes I can't help saying it when people are around, and in that case, I just try to modulate my voice so it sounds more like a real adult. I sure hope no one ever catches me saying that in my normal way, though.



4. My nickname in the college ultimate frisbee scene was "Prefontaine." As in, Steve Prefontaine: the runner who ran faster than you, just to piss you off. That guy was a badass, and, you know, maybe, so am I.



5. Four years ago, in the middle of a mild Midwestern mid-July, I went to a fancy wine store and bought a reasonably expensive bottle of champagne. I did not put it on ice, but instead wrapped it in some towels to keep it somewhat cool. I put it, along with some wine glasses that were totally inappropriate for champagne, a fact that I didn't know when I was 21, in a duffel bag.
   
   The next morning, I packed some clothes and CDs in another duffel and, bags in hand, walked the half-mile or so from my apartment to the Cedar Avenue light-rail station in Cleveland Heights. I got on a train to the airport. At the airport, I rented a car, which I drove to Onekama, Michigan.
   
   I went on this crazy goose-caper because I was in love with a girl.
   
   But what with one thing or another, which phrase, by the way, is a placeholder for, literally, an entire feature-length romantic comedy, I never drank the champagne with that girl. I kept the bottle for a few years in my closet in Cleveland, but it just never worked out that a romantic opportunity to chill it and drink it with her materialized.
   
   But that's okay. And, anyway, lots of people know that story. Here's the thing people don't know: over the course of the past four years, "I'm keeping that bottle to drink with her" somehow morphed into "I'm keeping that bottle to drink with someone who loves me back." It's a symbol, like the mountain in Brokeback Mountain, except that I'm hoping a girl is involved. I won't open it until I'm good and ready, but you can bet that, no matter how much damage time and temperature have done to it, if and when it gets popped open someday, it's going to taste pretty good to me.

"Where does my nose go?"

"Do you mind genuinely kissing each other on stage? Because we could do fake stage kisses if you want, but it just wouldn't be the same."

It's the early summer of 1998. My junior year of high school was just about over. I had just found out that I had won the male lead in the fall musical. The drama teacher had gathered me together with Female Lead to have a discussion about what that means.

Apparently, that means kissing.

After some glances back and forth, we told the director that, well, sure. Kissing is fine. Whatever, I mean, you know. It's not like it's that big of a deal.

Right.

No big deal at all. I mean, I was 17. I had kissed lots of girls before then - there was the one time in pre-school when I got in trouble for kissing a girl a couple of times, and then my first real kiss when I was 15. That's, like, 3 times total. So I was practically an expert.

Plus, I mean, it's not like I daydreamed endlessly about Female Lead since, say, the sixth grade, because of how much I liked her. Good thing there wasn't that.

Like I said: no big deal at all.

--

"Justin!" The drama teacher was seated out in the back of the auditorium. She could be loud when she wanted to be.

"Yeah?" We were in rehearsal, several months later. I had just finished delivering what I felt to be a key monologue for establishing my character's behavioral trajectory and for creating, in the audience's mind, a more tightly-drawn tension through my character's delayed maturation process to the final Independence he shows from societal definitions of both family and profession, which, ultimately, allows him to pursue the family and profession that he truly loves. I think my exact line was, "I am a man!" delivered to Female Lead.

"I want you to kiss her right now."

"Okay." I made a note of it in my script, then continued with my lines.

"Justin!"

"Yeah?"

"I meant, right now. As in, you need to kiss her now."

"Wait, for real?" I say. There is a pause. Some chorus girls giggle. Guys shift awkwardly. "I mean, right now?" I turn to look at her. Then I look back at the drama teacher. "Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

Okay. I can do this.

I looked back at Female Lead, who looked up at me. I ignored the stage lights, all fifty other cast members who were extras in the scene, and the assorted stage crew looking on from auditorium seats. I tried to think like my character, who had been dating Female Lead's character for eight years, but was only now discovering who he truly was and how much he truly loved her. I stepped closer. I bent my head down towards hers slowly, then slower still.

I hesitated.

Then I stepped away, turned to the drama teacher, and shouted:

"Where does my nose go?"

"Let me think about it."

About a week and a half ago, I was at a bar with a friend. He's married, and, lucky for you, I'm not.

A girl sits down with us who my friend knows and who I don't. She is definitely pretty, but she seems really distracted. I wonder to myself: what is she distracted about? She looks over at my friend and asks the worst question ever.

"Do you think I'm good looking?"

Yikes. I think the only way to deal with this situation is to induce vomiting and call a doctor. My friend takes the safe route and punts, citing his marriage to a wife.

But not me. I'm dumb.

"Oh! I'll tell you. Hang on, let me think about it."

Awkward silence. I'm actually thinking about the question. I'm serious, there are gears turning in my head. They are stupid, idiotic gears, but they're turning away.

"If you have to think about it so long, the answer must not be good."

What? Oh, no. She's misunderstood me.

"No, I'm trying to think about how good looking my friend would think you are. Personally, I think you're beautifully gorgeous. So, what do you do?"

"Did you just alternate rows between knit and purl?"

Several years ago, I said an awkward thing that worked out great.

I was at a party in college just, like, dominating the meningitis-pong table, when I noticed a girl with dark hair and a unique fashion sense somewhere across the apartment.

I don't believe in types, but I do believe in statistics, and I will say this: based on the available empirical evidence, if you're a girl with "dark hair" and "a unique fashion sense," you can reject the null hypothesis with a pretty high confidence level, because I have a crush on you.

This girl was no anomaly. Before long I was talking to her about literature and movies, and as has happened just way too many times, she was blowing my mind. Alcohol makes me affectionate, and I was quite amorously sloshed that night. So it should come as no surprise that I asked for her number, and it should be only a minor messianic miracle that she gave it to me.

Then she went to get her coat so she could go home.

Now, we need to pause a moment and have a little chat about how much of a badass I am. Here's an example: in a baseball game when I was 13, I broke a catcher's hip stealing home plate in the championship game. They had to bring an ambulance out on the infield to take him away. Here's another: two paragraphs down, I'm going to split an infinitive, right in the face. I mention these things only to point out that, in case you were wondering, I'm hard like the streets of Compton.

Okay. Glad we settled that. Also, here's a fact: I know how to knit.

It's true. I have two colors of yarn and two sizes of needles in my apartment right now. I used to make scarves in college to give to homeless people. Well, I made one. The rest of the time I just made squares. Lots of squares.

Maybe you think that makes me soft, and not like the streets of Compton at all. Usually people laugh when they learn that I knit, and when they do, I don't waste time talking about being able to, with my time and energy and creativity, give (in the face!) actual physical insulated warmth to another person. Instead, I stop dicking around with grammar and tell them the end of this story.

When we last left our brunette hipster heroine, she was retreating into a bedroom to find her coat so she could go home, and she still was unaware of both my knitting ability and my callous indifference to the plight of infinitives. She came back to say good night, and I thought to myself: I've seen a scarf like that before.

In fact, I knitted one just like it. It's a really simple pattern, and it always tends to curl up lengthwise, so it's easy to recognize. Now I'm curious - did she do it herself? Because that's pretty cool.

So, as we're standing in the doorway to the apartment, her about to leave, me waiting for some friends to wrap up their own little drunken interactions, I ask,

"Did you knit that scarf yourself?"

She looks at me cutely. "Yeah, actually, I did."

"What, did you just alternate rows between knit and purl? I made one like that, too, once."

I kind of half-felt her heart skip a beat. I was looking directly at her scarf, though, so I didn't notice when, after the brief moment it took her to defibrillate, she put her hand behind my neck. The noticing started immediately thereafter when she pulled my head down, kissed me hard, then vanished out of the apartment building in a clatter of clunky shoes on wooden stairs.

"That guy who was hitting on you, how was he?"

Up until now, all of the stories I've told in this blog have been depressing tales of misery and woe, where awkward failure has inevitably brought a quick and hilarious end to any asking- or making-out that I had been trying to accomplish.

Recently, though, a conversation I was having with a girl in a bar rose from the ashes of awkwardness like an adolescent phoenix to end up being kind of cool.

I was at a bar with a few friends, who themselves had a couple of girls with them who were their friends. We were introduced briefly, and I think one of my friends wanted me to hit on one of the girls, but I really wasn't paying much attention to them.

Before long, two guys came over to talk to the girls whose names I had already forgotten. I was on the other side of a table in a crowded bar, so I couldn't hear anything.

Now, I'm instantely fascinated by what is happening. What are these guys saying? Are they failing horribly, or is it going kind of well for them? Judging by the body language, I think it's going well for one of the guys and the girl he is talking to. What is the girl saying back? The guy seems like he's hanging in there for quite a long time. Oh, look, the guys are consulting with each other - well, dude who was doing well, you need to ask for her number now! There he goes - the cell phone's coming out. Oh, awesome. Great job, buddy. Good work.

But then I'm thinking: I kind of want to know what he said to her and how she felt about it. I've never hit on a girl before when I wasn't there, so how would I know what other people do? But here's a girl who I've been introduced to, but who I barely know. She would have no reason to not be totally honest. What's stopping me from asking her about it?

Other than decency, common sense, and the trappings of thousands of years of human civilization, nothing.

So I walk up to this girl and I ask her,

"How did that go? That guy who was hitting on you, how was he? What made you decide to give your number to him?"

"What?"

"The guy you gave your phone number to. What was it like when he hit on you?"

"Oh, well, it was really flattering."

"Well but see, the thing is, I'm awful at talking to girls I don't know. I always say some terribly awkward thing that my friends think is incredibly hilarious when I go back and tell them. So I just saw that guy hit on you, and he looked like he did a good job, so I was just curious about how it went, what kind of stuff he said, that kind of thing."

What you have to believe is that I was totally honest about this stuff as I was saying it. The entire reason I was talking to her is because I thought she had something interesting to say about getting hit on by a guy, but that's it. I mean, sure I thought she was cute, but I think everyone is the cutest girl I've ever seen. I was interested in facts.

But before long, we were deep in conversation about what it is and isn't good to say when you meet a girl, what kinds of things we wanted in relationships, and how tough it was to find those things, sometimes. And as I looked at her while she talked, it was as though her eyes had softened somewhat into the sort of liquid empathy that absolutely slays me when I see it in a girl's eyes. Then I started thinking how incredibly sweet she was to actually take me seriously and legitimately want to help me hit on girls, which she seemed honestly to do.

I guess I decided that I liked her a little.

So, after maybe 20 minutes of chatting about, you know, emotions, and after a natural break in the conversation, I said, "Listen, I didn't come over here to hit on you at all, but can I call you sometime? Would you think it would be fun to go out with me?"

And, after a nerve-wracking few minutes when I spelled her unimaginably common name horribly wrong into my phone (I need to practice putting new names my phone, because, seriously), I had her phone number. Obviously I'm not the only one, but hey - even if we never go out, she thinks guys who ask for her number are flattering, and I think girls who want to help me out are sweet. That's a more than fair exchange.

The most awkward kiss I ever had

"I don't want to make out with you, Justin."

Yeah, I think I can accommodate that request. "Uh, okay," is probably all I managed to say, but I was a little confused. Because seriously, it's as though she had just told me that she intended never to levitate. She was cute, smart, fun, interesting, and everything you could want in a person to make out with. Even so, I pretty much decided I would not kiss this girl ever since the uncomfortable, awkward maybe-date we had gone on to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding a year before, when I showed up with shaving cream still behind one ear. Plus, I still don't think she thought it was a date. It definitely wasn't a date.

But that was in, like, 2002. By the fall of 2003, we had been good friends for a long time. She lent me books, and I helped move her out of her dorm room while I was still high on a whole six-pack of cherry coke, after pulling an all-nighter to finish a take-home exam. We were medium-close.

But it was the fall of 2003 when she, suddenly, out of nowhere, decided to set boundaries. Up until that moment, you could say that I expected to not make out with my friend every time I had ever seen her, and that I had never been disappointed.

At least, I hadn't yet. Not until the very next night.

---

In retrospect, I should have figured out what was happening. But, generally, when people tell me not to make out with them, I follow orders.

So I expected nothing out of the ordinary the next evening when she made a few odd comments while we were drinking with friends, and I didn't really notice her nearness when we were standing, later, and talking, holding more drinks. I didn't even think it was that odd that she tipsily invited me to her room to watch a movie, even though that had never happened before, because we always watched movies downstairs.

Here's what should have given it away: the wrestling, on her bed, with her bedroom door closed and the forgotten flicker of some instantly-ignored movie lighting our faces with a blue kind of glow. Which, I swear to you, wasn't my idea. If you think I could have pulled that off on my own, well, the archives are right over there on the right hand side-bar of the webpage. I was fuzzily thinking at the time: gee, she sure is cute, and this wrestling sure is fun. Too bad she told me she didn't want to make out with me. Oh well.

It didn't really click into place until she paused, blearily, and, breathing heavily, smelling of alcohol, face inches from mine, said, "You have no idea that I want you to kiss me, do you. That's why you lose."

Oh.

Well, listen, I thought, clearly up until now I wasn't fully on board with this ultra-subtle reverse-psychology Jane Austen ninja-romance shit, but now that we are all firmly on the same page, we can begin to head in an extremely positive direction.

So I kissed her. For about two milliseconds. And after those two milliseconds, we were just friends again, right after she whispered, reluctantly, six of the last words you want to hear right after you kiss someone for the first time.

"I'm going to go throw up."

"Are you ticklish?"

For the first time (that I know of), I've decided to write about an awkward thing I said to a girl who reads this blog. I was pretty nervous about how she'd take it, and plus this is probably the most embarrassing thing I've ever posted, so I called her to talk to her first.

I bet you'd like to listen in, wouldn't you? Fine, twist my arm. Here's what I remember of the interesting part.

"Listen, a few weeks ago when I visited you and stayed at your dorm . . ."

Timeout. Yes, I said dorm. But she's a senior. That's all I'm going to say about that. Okay, time in.

". . . I did something awkward that I want to write about on my blog."

"What?" I think that's what she said. She might as well have said, "Which one?"

"Well, the thing was, I thought you were adorable and cute, and I wanted to increase the amount of physical contact that was happening, so, that's why I tickled you, and I think it's funny, so I'm going to write about it if that's okay with you."

Seriously. I'm 25 (and a half) years old. I work in middle management for a Fortune 200 company. I like football and beer, and over the summer I grew an outstanding beard, if I do say so myself. I know that tickling is a super amateur move once you are out of, oh, kindergarten.

But three weeks ago, there I was, getting ready to go to sleep on the floor of this girl's dorm room. I think it was the second night I spent there. I thought about how cute she was, and how nice of a girl she was, and how I wanted to flirt with her more, and before I could think about it I reached over, (very rudely, you could say) poked her in the side, and asked:

"Are you ticklish?"