Will You Go To The Dance With Me? (Part 1 of 6)

What was my main motivation in life when I was a teenager? If you asked me that question when I was seventeen I’d tell you honestly that it was girls. But if you asked me that same question when I was thirteen, I would have answered it quite differently, although, maybe not as honestly.
A conversation that Mom had with me at age thirteen, during the summer between my seventh and eighth grade years went something like this: “Billy, do you think you’d like to take a shower a little more often, now that you are getting older?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, at least could you wash your hair a little more often.”
“No, Mom. I think every other week is fine.”
“But Billy, don’t you care about your appearance?”
“Why should I care? No body else does.”
“I’m sure they do. And I’m sure you care what you look like and how you come across to other people.”
“Isn’t it what’s inside that matters most?”
“Yes, Billy, that is important, but how we look on the outside is a reflection of who we are on the inside.”
“I don’t care what other people think.”
“Don’t you care what girls think?”
I looked at Mom with mock disgust. How could she even suggest such a thing? I was struck with that same reaction as I had in elementary school. The “girls fleas” mentality. I looked at Mom and said, “Absolutely not!”
“Billy, I think there will come a time in your life when you will care how girls look at you and perceive you.”
Mom probably went away from talking with me feeling there was no hope for me. What she didn’t know, and what I wouldn’t admit anyway, was: that time had already arrived. I just couldn’t bring myself to verbalize it, yet. Actually that “yet” was to my Mother. I had already told my sister Vera that I liked a girl I had seen at school.
Her name was Charmian. She was in my math class, but I didn’t even notice her until one day in the spring of 1975 I was sitting in the lunch room as the lunch period was winding down. I saw a girl, a lunch worker, cleaning off one of the many tables in the lunch room. She had a rag and was wiping off each table. I had seen my Mom clear off the table that same way. Now here was a girl my age doing the exact same thing. I felt the emotions stirring inside me. I’d felt this way before, but not as strongly. What is a shy thirteen year-old supposed to do? Unfortunately, I didn’t know what to do.