November 6, 2010: Garth Brooks - The River

Garth Brooks - The River: youtube.com/watch?v=VL893RIp3gg

This was the first song to which I slow danced with a girl. I was 14. All my friends had danced with girls at 13, had kissed them or put their hands down their pants and I was jealous, it took until I was 14 just to ask a girl to dance.

I realized lately that I'm still just about as scared of girls now as I was then. I'm 26.

It's strange that I'm still as much the same person I was when I was 14. Then I had braces, pimples, was chubby, got good grades and was kind. Of course I was picked on, my kindness was taken as weakness. And any girl I liked generally laughed at me. Literally laughed. I asked a girl out once and her and her friends laughed for the whole lunch period, 20 minutes, even pointed. Pointed! Who points and laughs at a person?

And I'm at least ten years beyond all that but still so terrified of rejection, of getting hurt, of women. Some have taken a chance on me, some loved immensely, one I would have married had she let me. But still, despite all the goodness and charity I can't call myself a hunter. I can't think of taking a step sometimes without the portraits on my walls reminding me.

Granted, I have fashioned it all this way.

I've wanted, recently, to pick a fight with a friend of mine. I wouldn't do it of course, but I'm curious to see if he would stand up for himself. He doesn't seem the type and I want to force him to stand up for himself, to show him how important it is. I realize this is a tactic my brothers used on me.