Dating in High School
Mum said we weren’t allowed to date until I finished high school. Then when I finished high school she said I wasn’t allowed to date until I finished university. Then when we finished university she kept asking if I was seeing anyone and I wished she’d gone back to telling me I couldn’t date anyone.
As you can tell, these rules were very made up as we went along. As kids we called bullshit when Mum told us that we weren’t allowed to kiss until we got married. One time while watching our parents’ wedding video, there was this scene before the wedding where they are walking through this park just talking and laughing (what I imagined their relationship looked like before we came along). And at the end of that scene they have a little kiss under this rotunda. Thinking about her little no-kiss-before-marriage rule I asked her when was this filmed? She said it was filmed a few days before the wedding. And immediately I realised they had obviously kissed before they were married. Horny!
The western idea of dating was a weird concept for my parents. It wasn’t unheard of but their parents met the day they were engaged. It’s hard to go from that to casual sex in one generation. My parents were instead “introduced”, you know, like the cane toads in Queensland. I imagine it’s kind of like when Netflix says since you watched “The Matrix” you should watch “Matrix 2”. Except my grandparents are Netflix, “The Matrix” is “success” and “Matrix 2” is “marry a doctor”. They were married after 6 months of dating.
It makes sense why my mother tried to engrain this idea of not dating until you were mature enough. But growing up in the culture I did where kids would date all the time, it was really hard not to think like that. Dating in high school seemed like both the dumbest thing in the world, but also the ultimate thing in the world. Over the years I’d asked a few girls out, never to much success. And when I went to ask the girls out it was never really about starting a relationship. It was more about using the school gossip network to validate you socially, the girlfriend/boyfriend was just the icing on the cake.
When I was 15, I liked this girl called Jennifer Lawrence. She was new to the school, super smart, very sweet and kind. The only problem was that Jennifer Lawrence wasn’t a Christian. I grew up in a pretty strict household and for me as a kid dating was something that I was told should only happen with other Christians, probably because of sex stuff. I should clarify that I think that is pretty sound advice, purely on a practical level. Your worldview shapes your entire life and it’s hard to develop an intimate level of trust with someone that sees the world completely differently. Regardless, the 15 year old me didn't give a shiiiiiiiiit. I liked Jennifer Lawrence, because she was pretty and I wanted to make out with her. So I told my friends and closest confidants that Jennifer Lawrence was the girl I was into and in classic high school fashion I did nothing about it for a good term. Pressure builds after you’ve told a few people, because the information slowly gets old and less important and then you forget that you’ve let it slip a few times and then suddenly you’re in a PE dance class faced with a choice.
One afternoon during a PE barnyard dance class, classic crush shenanigans were afoot. You’ve got puberty and the heel and toe, does it get more romantic than that? All the guys are in a circle in the middle of the hall and the girls are rotating around the outside of that same circle. Jennifer Lawrence comes round and we chat, just general bants straight out of the silver linings playbook. Then a few partners rotate by and her best friend Michelle Obama comes through. Michelle tells me, in a deathly serious and intense tone - “You like Jennifer Lawrence right? Because she was like she likes you too.”
Now this was crazy for me. I’d never gotten this far. Usually the process was:
I’d like a girl
Tell a few people
She’d find out
It’d be awkward (she wouldn’t feel the same)
We would stop speaking
Then in six months everything would be fine
But this was a new level of anxiety, this was crazy - I’d won. Someone liked me for me! I always thought I was too fat or too nerdy or too brown. But here there was this real nice, really lovely girl who said she liked me back. I was redeemable, I was loveable. This was amazing! But at the same time, I felt this pit in my stomach - I can’t be her boyfriend, she doesn’t care about God and I really do. How could we ever talk about that stuff without it being super awkward. What if she wanted to have sex and I didn’t really want to till I got married. What if I should have sex before I get married, I’ve never really thought it was an option until now.
I was conflicted. On one hand I had this extreme sense of validation and pride, but at the same time I felt like I was betraying the values that had been instilled in me since I was a kid. I took the chance, ignored my values and I went for the validation. I asked Jennifer Lawrence out, and immediately she said yes.
THIS WAS CRAZY! Immediately I had people congratulating me, people looked at me differently, or at least it felt like they looked at me differently. Heck, I looked at myself differently. I went from being this chubby brown kid to a person worthy of a date, worthy of being loved. It felt fucking good, but deep down I felt this conflict. I pushed it down because I just felt so good.
So now that we were together I needed to take her on a date. The movies seemed like the obvious play and so I organised to go see Shrek 4 with her. During the planning process however, I realised something. My sister was sure to find out about my new girlfriend, she was only a couple of years younger than me and she was a stickler for the rules. So in confidence I went to tell her that I was going on a date with Jennifer Lawrence. Immediately, she ran downstairs and told Mum.
That conversation with Mum was really hard. She told me that I couldn’t see her and couldn’t go on this date alone. So in a panic I invited some friends along with me, no one could go except my friend Ed. So me, Ed and Jennifer Lawrence went to see Shrek 4 and let me tell you it was a trainwreck from the start. Ed even offered to not sit with us. I didn’t even think about trying to hold her hand, I was way too scared, embarrassed and awkward.
After the movie, Mum picked me up and I left Jennifer Lawrence there at the movies by herself waiting for her Mum to pick her up. She later told me that I should have waited till her Mum picked her up before we left. But my mother was so angry at me for disobeying her and with someone that wasn’t a Christian that I was too scared. My values were messing with my chance to be cool to be validated, but more importantly to treat this person with respect. It was exhausting, it was annoying and it still makes me feel ill.
After a couple of months I couldn’t handle it anymore, while we were away for my sister's soccer game I called Jennifer Lawrence on the phone and I broke up with her. She asked me why and I couldn’t really give a good enough reason. I was an asshole. The whole time I just wanted to be in a relationship for what it gave me, not for what I could give her - it was so selfish. I hated myself for how I treated Jennifer Lawrence, if I’m honest I still do. I just wanted to be like everyone else. It’s moments like this where I hated how I grew up. It felt like my family and my religion prevented me from being “normal”, being “cool” and prevented me from what it felt like to “be loved”.