When I was in high school, I had the biggest crush on L.
She wasn't just pretty and popular, but also incredibly sweet. For three years, I harbored my crush all the while watching her date boy after boy. It filled me with teenage angst.
Then came senior year, when I came out.
L. was incredibly supportive of me, as always, and our friendship became even stronger now that I wasn't worried about developing a fraudulent relationship with her.
After graduation, I found a "to-do list" that I had made my freshman year of high school.
The #1 item on the agenda?
1. Take L on a date.
Hey, I figured, why not?
So I asked my high school crush to go out with me for the night.
L, being the sweetheart that she was, thought it was a great idea.
We went and got coffee, and joked around that this was the most easygoing date either one of us had ever been on. We both talked about college and how excited we were to start the next chapter of our lives.
Then she got a phone call from a guy she been on a date with last week. She was going to ignore the call, but I told her to take it. I didn't want her ignoring an actual romantic possibility for me. After all, I could already check off the top part of my to-do list.
So, she invited the guy to where we were getting coffee and he showed up with a friend of his. They said that they were supposed to go to a bachelor party tonight at a local, um, gentleman's club, but that the other guys in the party had backed out, and so now they had all these "tokens" for the club that they wouldn't get to use.
Then, with a mischief in his eye that both L. and I found pretty darn cute, the guy she was interested in asked if we wanted to go to the club.
I looked at L. She looked at me. We were both what you would probably call goodie goodies. We didn't smoke or drink or do drugs. The idea of us at a strip club would have made just about anybody who knew us laugh out loud.
So before she could say anything, I said--"We're in."
On the way there, we were in total hysterics. The gay guy and his girl friend heading to a strip club. It took us a few minutes to realize that neither one of us was going to get anything out of being there except for some more laughs.
"Here's the rule," L. said, "We don't pay for anything. It's one thing for us to go to a strip club as a joke. It's another thing to spend money to go there."
I think we were both hoping that something would happen that would involve us spending money so that we could back out, but when we pulled into the parking lot, her friend paid for both his car, and ours.
It looked like we were going forward with this after all.
Then, we got into the club, and it turned out that the "tokens" the guys had were only good for next week. That meant getting in was going to be pricey, and so L. and I exercised our rule, and the four of us ended up going out for ice cream instead.
L. ended up getting some alone time with her guy while I chatted up his friend. It turned out we were both into professional wrestling (I think he was a little surprised that a gay guy even knew what a headlock was.)
The evening turned out pretty good for both of us. I fulfilled a goal, L. got to know her crush a little bit better, and we both got a fantastic story out of it.
(Okay, sure, we didn't actually get to experience the club in all its wonder, but somehow, I feel like that would have made the story less fun. In its current incarnation its PG-13, as all good high school movies usually are.)
When I called my dad, who I had no yet come out to, to tell him that I had just taken a girl to a strip club, there was a pause at the other end of the line, and then he said:
"My son is a rock star."
And believe or not, in that moment, I agreed with him.
She wasn't just pretty and popular, but also incredibly sweet. For three years, I harbored my crush all the while watching her date boy after boy. It filled me with teenage angst.
Then came senior year, when I came out.
L. was incredibly supportive of me, as always, and our friendship became even stronger now that I wasn't worried about developing a fraudulent relationship with her.
After graduation, I found a "to-do list" that I had made my freshman year of high school.
The #1 item on the agenda?
1. Take L on a date.
Hey, I figured, why not?
So I asked my high school crush to go out with me for the night.
L, being the sweetheart that she was, thought it was a great idea.
We went and got coffee, and joked around that this was the most easygoing date either one of us had ever been on. We both talked about college and how excited we were to start the next chapter of our lives.
Then she got a phone call from a guy she been on a date with last week. She was going to ignore the call, but I told her to take it. I didn't want her ignoring an actual romantic possibility for me. After all, I could already check off the top part of my to-do list.
So, she invited the guy to where we were getting coffee and he showed up with a friend of his. They said that they were supposed to go to a bachelor party tonight at a local, um, gentleman's club, but that the other guys in the party had backed out, and so now they had all these "tokens" for the club that they wouldn't get to use.
Then, with a mischief in his eye that both L. and I found pretty darn cute, the guy she was interested in asked if we wanted to go to the club.
I looked at L. She looked at me. We were both what you would probably call goodie goodies. We didn't smoke or drink or do drugs. The idea of us at a strip club would have made just about anybody who knew us laugh out loud.
So before she could say anything, I said--"We're in."
On the way there, we were in total hysterics. The gay guy and his girl friend heading to a strip club. It took us a few minutes to realize that neither one of us was going to get anything out of being there except for some more laughs.
"Here's the rule," L. said, "We don't pay for anything. It's one thing for us to go to a strip club as a joke. It's another thing to spend money to go there."
I think we were both hoping that something would happen that would involve us spending money so that we could back out, but when we pulled into the parking lot, her friend paid for both his car, and ours.
It looked like we were going forward with this after all.
Then, we got into the club, and it turned out that the "tokens" the guys had were only good for next week. That meant getting in was going to be pricey, and so L. and I exercised our rule, and the four of us ended up going out for ice cream instead.
L. ended up getting some alone time with her guy while I chatted up his friend. It turned out we were both into professional wrestling (I think he was a little surprised that a gay guy even knew what a headlock was.)
The evening turned out pretty good for both of us. I fulfilled a goal, L. got to know her crush a little bit better, and we both got a fantastic story out of it.
(Okay, sure, we didn't actually get to experience the club in all its wonder, but somehow, I feel like that would have made the story less fun. In its current incarnation its PG-13, as all good high school movies usually are.)
When I called my dad, who I had no yet come out to, to tell him that I had just taken a girl to a strip club, there was a pause at the other end of the line, and then he said:
"My son is a rock star."
And believe or not, in that moment, I agreed with him.
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