My first date!

I recently watched a great movie, Cyrus http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/cyrus/ (watch the trailer), about love lost and new love found... and I am currently eating a whole tub of freezer-burnt ice cream which, stereotypically, is reserved for sad occasions when love just doesn't work out. I'm in a good relationship right now, so I'm not feeling sad about that (I just have no self control and the Ben & Jerry's container just looks so small and manageable!) but it got me thinking about past loves.

Isn't it funny how you could be so completely obsessed and 'in love' with someone and honestly feel that you will die if they don't love you back? You think about what your life will be like, what your kids will look like, what vacations you may or may not go on. It's funny when you think that this is it. This is the person I will love for the rest of my life! I am giving up from here on in because I have discovered my soulmate and my path has been laid out! It's especially funny to think that way if you're 9. What the heck do you know when you're 9? Not much. But boy you can be convinced otherwise.



There were only 2 Ukrainian boys in my grade at Ukrainian school: Roman and Oleh (see Arson-io Hall Post for more on Oleh and be aware that Danylo didn't join our class until much later). I wouldn't even dare consider the older boys (scary! they might try to touch me!) so it was between those two. Roman was great. Great in that he was so easy to make fun of. This boy literally wore sweatpants every day of his life. I remember in Grade 8 he wore jeans and we all got excited. It was a big day. But then Olanna quickly pointed out that no, they weren't jeans, they were sweatpants with a jean print. I'm pretty sure someone pantsed him after that. We were awful to him, be he was just such a weirdo nerd that no girl considered him a potential mate. Oleh, on the other hand, was lazy and had beautiful, flopsy blond hair and the roundest face that just screamed 'Eastern Europe!' What sensible girl wouldn't want that? Well boy oh boy, I wanted it. I pined for him for 7 years. 7 YEARS! I waited, year after year, thinking that someday he would be my husband. Or something like that.


Anyhoo, when I was in Grade 10 he passed me a note during Ukrainian school. It said some asinine thing about the book we were reading like: "Man, 'Woodland Song' is so boring, right?" It was the sweetest thing I had ever read in my life. This was my chance. I had to be funny and cute and beautiful if I wanted to secure him as my lifemate. It was all down to the response note. I picked a special purple pen that I had gotten for my birthday and I wrote back "Yeah. I'd rather be dead. How was your day at regular, school?" And with that open-ended question I opened the gates to a multi-week back-and-forth-note jaunt. Every Wednesday night at Ukrainian school we'd pass notes, jokes, drawings. He sat in front of me and it felt so special. I didn't want to be a cheap whore so I waited for him to make the move. I mean... come on. He was passing me notes! Asking me things about my life! OBVIOUSLY he wanted to ask me out. It was the next step. And I waited with baited breath. I couldn't wait for Wednesday nights.

THEN. One day he passes me this little message "So... there's someone I really like." SHIT MAN. This was it. I could see my wedding dress. He's finally gonna tell me he likes me. "Is she in this class?" I ask coyly, smiling to myself. Ohh... I'm so coy, I'm such a catch, I think. I bet he's gonna kiss me after the class, before his mom picks him up.

"No," he responds, "but she's Ukrainian. Guess who it is."

Well, then. I was now drowning inside myself, feeling like I was melting into my chair... into oblivion. I couldn't feel my hands. At that moment I knew I would die alone. While simultaneously thinking of horrible ways to kill myself, I kept up my funny/cute demeanor and listed off every single Ukrainian person I could think of (boys included). When none of them fit the bill, I looked up at our teacher, Fr. Peter, who was teaching us religion, and it clicked. It was his daughter. MY BEST FRIEND. "Is it Mary?" I asked in disgust.

"Yeah. Isn't it obvious" he replied with his stupid fat face and ugly yellow hair. And then it became VERY obvious. All that time that he was asking me about things that Mary and I had done over the last few weeks, thinking he had a keen interest in my social life, he was just USING ME for this disgusting game knowing that I would tell her and build the bridge for their everlasting happiness!
After class I was supposed to walk home with my friend Vanessa, but I forced her to walk the extra block and a half to Mary's house. I walked in and RAN up to Mary's room. "We need to talk. ALONE" I said. So we locked ourselves in the bathroom while Vanessa and Mary's mom called up to us, asking us to come out. I remember this as being a very traumatizing situation, but I don't think that Mary felt the same, no offense to her. I cried, poured my heart out, telling her that this boy that I had loved had used me to get to HER. And she was only in Grade 8. What the hell.

Well on Friday, Mary had a special visit. After school, Oleh had walked all the way from his school to her house (a fair distance) and asked to speak with her. Just to be clear, they had probably only said about 5 things to each other in the many years they had known each other. So they were basically strangers. Her mom invited him in. Mary was doing something upstairs so she took her time coming down and he was left alone with her mom and two visitors: a prominent Ukrainian TV personality from the show Kontakt (who later was charged with child molestation) and some other weird priest, who were passing through Ottawa. It was in front of these three people that he asked Mary if she would go on a date with him on Saturday night. Mary, not knowing what to do and not being overly sensitive to my raw, demolished feelings, said yes. And since he asked her in front of her mother, she was told "Only if you go with a chaperone."


I got a call about 5 minutes after he left asking if I'd be willing to go on their date with them. I was upset and confused, but how much crying can you really do about such things? Plus, I was obviously curious about how it would go and this gave me a first-hand chance to spy on the date by BEING PART OF IT. We met at her house on Saturday and it was probably the most awkward thing in the world. He didn't want me to be there, I didn't want her to be there and she just felt weird about the whole thing and didn't really like him to begin with but was curious that he was interested in her. It was winter so we walked along the canal to the mall downtown and I was basically the only one talking. I was bent on showing him that I was WAY more fun than Mary and was still hoping that maybe he'd fall in love with me because, hey, it's almost like he and I were on a date, right? Except that the person he was in love with was accompanying us. Also, she had boobs, which I think trumped any joke or tight shirt I was trying to impress him with.


Nothing happened on the date. He held her hand once when he insisted that we climb up the canal wall instead of taking the stairs about 25 feet away and helped hoist her up, (which was obviously his big 'move'). I climbed up myself without his help, not that he offered. Mary remembers feeling that it was an 'erotic' moment for her when she touched his hand but then she was quickly disgusted (child of a priest... what do you expect?). The stores at the mall were all closed so I tried to convince them we should climb up the escalator the wrong way for fun but they weren't having any of it cause they were both so nervous about impressing each other that they'd rather sit in silence. So we went back to her place and read girly magazines and no one talked and then he left. When he asked her out again three days later she lied and said she wasn't allowed to date and that was that.

I guess it made me realize that he wasn't that great. I mean, the date sucked and he was boring. I guess I had really only liked him on paper, as many of us do, until we get to know the other person and what they truly have to offer. Whatever. You win some you lose some, you go on traumatic dates with your best friend and the love of your life and you survive.

Here's to love!