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My 19 years have been filled with many encounters with the opposite sex, none of which haven't been awkward. Of course the first 10 years weren't all that interesting so we'll skip ahead to the year 1995, when i first came to live in the retirement capital of this fine country, the horribly dry (in all senses of the word) Lethbridge. TOWDE shall be divided into 3 chapters, one for each of the major dating type happenings i've encountered, leaving out the mere asking-outs and failed first dates, or perhaps saving them for an epilogue of sorts. As already stated we shall begin back when i first arrived in this town, and knowing nobody my grandma conspired to introduce me to the grand-daughter of her close friend. This girl i would soon meet was named...

 

 

Adriana lived in the small town of Calahoo outside of Edmonton, though at the time her parents were away and so she lived and schooled here with here grandma. Somehow we quickly became good friends and spent nearly all of our time in the basement of a grandmother's house or swimming. Also, she was HOT, and in a completely unrealistic way too, like the bimbos on fear factor. Now after the school year ended her parents returned, but she still spent her summers, christmases, and easter breaks here, every one of 'em from grade five till the summer following tenth grade, spending nearly every day of that time together for at least a few hours. During the course of this time we both came to want each other, but this is not a tale of warning against longdistance relationships, no that would be far to simple, you see what prevented a happily ever after for us was a two fold problem. the first being that we never wated each other at the same time. you see i would pine after her one summer while see had a boyfriend back home then accept that we were just friends  only to become oblivious to her christmas signals of longing. with so much time between visits tis hard not to look elsewhere when nothing even occurs during visits. And so the cruel fates placed between us an insurmountable obsticle of poor timing.

 

What was the seccond fold of trouble you ask? Well his name was Brennon and he is my evil twin-esque cousin. You he began to spend his summers here with my grandama, just as she did with hers, and other holidays he would be here with his family , and just as my grandma did with me, she also introduced him to Adriana. With Adriana being so damned attractive and my cousin being o damned evil, i found myself on the wrong side of a threes company situation. it always bothered me that nothing ever happened between anyone on that show, but in my situation it bothered me when it did. the summer following grade 6 was the three of us, plutonic as hell, with the following two summers being the two of them with the acadamy award going to myself for my stellar proformance as the third wheel. Brennon was just like me in every way -- except for the profuse use of lieing, cheating, and stealing. I guess the girls really do like the bad boys.

 

The summer after ninth grade was different, though confusing Adriana brought a friend with her, the realisticly attractive Jessie. Also of important note is that this time Adriana was not in the least bit interested in Brennon. I was willing to look past the ickyness and stupidy of her having dated my evil cousin, to finally take some decisive action. But there was Jessie. she was being so infuriatingly nice and seemed so attainable by comparasion, there was just too much of a very good thing. that summer the four of went about engaging and all sorts of date like activities, though without ever call it such, nor defining our interests. we had all aquired such a rich history of feelings, that things were doomed to boil over eventually

 

Things reached there climax the following, and final, summer.

 

the summer after tenth grade was looking fine indeed. My evil, evil cousin had found him self with a summer job and summer school because he had skipped too many classes to actually pass, thus he would not be of issue, finally. Adriana came down, alone. She said that she would only stay for two weeks but would would return later on, with Jessie. those two weeks we had more fun together than ever before, they were simply amazing, and that time together culminated with an actual date -- unfortunately, I was unaware of this. You see part of what made that time so great was that we really didnt do much but we managed to have a blast just sitting around together. despite this i wanted to actually do something before she left so when i called her up the day before she was to go i said that this time i actually wanted to go out and do something. i was surprised at her opposition to this, but after ascerting for awhile that i felt we should go out, she came to agree. Have you spotted the problem yet? when i met her at the movie mill that evening she was all dressed up, looking super sexified, and seemed overly exited, she the promptly informed me that she had called her boyfriend that afternoon and broke up with him. when I inquired as to why she had done that, she seemed slightly troubled. I recall finding it odd that we were going to a romantic comedy as we had never seen, nor shown interest in seeing such a movie before, i also remember an odd expression coming over her face as I bought one ticket to the movie. After the show she promptly walked home saying that she didn't feel like doing anything else that evening. As I layed in bed that night, slowly drifting towards sleep i was startled to my senses as all that had occured came together in my mind. In my defence, I had honestly given up on anything ever happening between us, and reading signals really isn't my forte. She left earily the next morning, and for the rest of that month I worried about what I would say to her when next we met.

 

Upon her return in August i met up with her but she was with Jessie and her grandma was busy trying to engage me in small talk and offer me food. Despite not knowing what to say I always deemed it to be the wrong time to say it, and so it went unsaid.

 

The month wore on, enjoyable, though somehow not quite right, and soon enough twas two days before she would leave. The three of us spent the afternoon rollerblading around town and renting movies. As it was getting dark we decided to go to puttz for some mini-golf. I lost, and now fully dark we decided we were not yet done with our fun so we wondered the streets of Lethbridge stopping at no fewer than 7 playgrounds, and skipping over one due to a cry originating from it which stated "Don't come over here, we're naked!!". so late in the night we found ourselves back at Adriana's grandma's house. My mom would be unable to leave my sick but sleeping brother to pick me up, and Adriana's grandmother was fine with Adriana's suggestion that I stay the night.

 

With everyone else now sound asleep upstairs, Adriana, Jessie, and myself went about creating a large makeshift sleeping bag in front of the T.V. in the basement. Jessie, in thick flannel pajamas went about securing a spot on the far left of our blanket contraption, then Adriana, wearing suprisingly little, occupied the center right, rather close to my fully clothed self on the right edge. she made a comment that if i had been my cousin theres no way this would have been allowed, and that its lucky her grandma likes and trusts me so much. she then made the suggestion that i might be more comfortable wearing less. I shrugged this off, denim really doent make good sleep wear, and she couldn't have been suggesting anything with her best friend just a foot away. With mixed signals aplenty and my poor deciphering skills, I decided that I should play it safe, after all since nothing had ever really happened between us I felt it would be improper for things to start off in such a way, and with so much trust by her grandma, i would have felt positively evil having acted in any sort of a romantic way.

 

Early in the morn, having not slept at all, the three of us moved to the basements guest room with its lone single-sized bed. To fit all of us we were forced to spoon, and i found myself in the middle. I was the last to fall asleep, and was soothed by the sound, and feeling, of their breathing. twas such a peacefull serenity.

 

A few short hours later we were awakened by in such a way that was anything but peaceful. Adriana's grandpa had discovered that i spent the night, and the large hungarian machanic was not in the best of moods. After an hour yelling in half english, I was informed that I would not be returning to the household and kindly escorted out. Adriana's grandma sent her sincerest appologies to me via my grandma later on. As I began to rollerblade home I started to reflect on how doing the right thing had gained me all the negative results of not, without any of the reward, but at this time I heard a shout from behind and Adriana and Jessie rolled up to me, with Jessie commenting on how brave I had been.

 

At home I showered whist the two lovely ladies played mario kart, and then we ate. we decided that we would bowl on our final night together as it was something we somehow had neglected to do all month. with three being an awkward number for such an activity I took to phones and ended up getting Torbiak to agree to join us. That evening we played several games at Top 10 and proceeded to walk to the nearest park after having phoned for a ride. During this time I made two sarcastic jokes, and this incedent lead me to the belief that some aspect of sarcasism is lost on females. Though the park was enjoyable enough I was dropped of at home and left with an insincere farewell.

 

A short while latter the phone rang. It was Adriana and she was calling to tell me everything that was wrong with me. After my second hour long shouting of hatred in one day, I found myself unable to explain my actions, despite having reasonable explainations for everything. Why I didn't  defend myself I'm not sure. Perhaps I knew our time together had come to a close, or that any reasoning would be futile against such a force of emotion, but whatever the reason I did nothing but utter a short good-bye before hearing the opposite phone slam down.

I never heard from Adriana again.

 

My grandma has recounted tales of Adriana heard second hand from Adriana's grandma since the time this all occured. It seems Adriana has had a falling out with her family and was last known to be living with "some guy" in Calgary.

 As for myself, well, as hard as the whole experience was, it wouldn't be long before I once again became entangled with the opposite sex, but thats a different story, a story which hopefully will be shorter than this one was.

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ttfn