Low and behold, when I walked into that classroom after lunch, W was sitting with her friends, right outside. That wasn't exactly uncommon, so hardly a miracle. While I was staring out the window at her, trying to decide what to do, I thought: "Alright God, that's great and all, but there is no way I am going to do it with so many other people around." The instant that thought went through my mind, every single other person at the table turned, grabbed their backpacks, and headed off to class, leaving her sitting there alone.
"Okay, Okay God, I get it." So I took a deep breath, headed out the door...and walked right past her. What can I say? It suddenly seemed like a good time to get a drink of water. So there I am, at the drinking fountain, kicking myself mentally. I took another deep breath, and headed back the other way.
I remember sitting down next to her, and I know that I was there talking with her for two or three minutes, but the details of what exactly was said were wiped from my memory immediately. It was by far the most emotionally stressful thing I have ever done. I could feel every vein and muscle in my body for the next hour or two, as hormones and adrenaline surged through me. I haven't felt anything like that, that strongly, ever again. Even as I was walking back into the classroom, asking myself "what just happened?" the details had already faded. I did know that the answer was "Maybe," which was better than no. She was nice in her response, and I remembered her saying something about maybe having to work that night, but most of the other specifics were already lost by the time I stood up. That is really unusual for me, in that normally I can remember most conversations I have had verbatim, even months or years later. And of all of the conversations that I could be playing back in my head hundreds of times, that one would have been on repeat for a long time. I have experienced a milder form of memory block like that (which I believe other people might call "normal") in similar types of situations that have occurred since then, but nothing that extreme.
I was a bit distracted for the rest of that class period, to say the least, but luckily I do fine in that class, so it wasn't an issue. As soon as school got out at the end of the period, I headed to the Multimedia Lab, "my" space, to decompress a bit. Steve and the girl he was with walked in almost immediately. He could tell something was off, so he asked me what was up. As I tried to figure out how to respond to that question, having never even talked about things like that before, the girl beat me to the punch. Girls must have a sixth sense, to know things like this, but she totally called it. "I bet he just asked someone to the dance." I kind of shrugged and smiled. "Who was it?" I told him, and he asked "What did she say?" "Maybe." "Well, cool dude, catch you later." And he disappeared out the door. Heart to heart guy talks...solid.
I was pretty stressed for the rest of the day. When I got home, I went out to the shed, and built something, just to have a distraction, and to process things. I didn't tell anyone else, and just waited to see what happened. As someone who rarely acts impulsively, and always has a backup plan for his backup plan, I was in an interesting situation. I had just asked a girl to a dance, but I had never even been to a dance, or really knew what one was like. I didn't have my license (that happened the following month) or a car, or any other solutions to the myriad of practical details that would present themselves. Not my normal method of operation, to say the least.
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