The Back To The Future thread has me reminiscing about my own school days.
I just pulled out one of my old diaries and one of the first pages I happened upon was a particularly sore memory.
“Today”, it goes “I made another effort to get in with the cool boys. I managed to stand at the edge of the group for a few minutes without being told to go. Encouraged, I took out a cigarette which I lit without anyone paying enough attention to me to notice I wasn’t actually smoking. The plan was going well – all I had to do was wait for a moment to join in the chat with one of my prepared put-downs for one of the more detested teachers and I might be in.
Then I felt a nudge on my shoulder
“What about you?”
I had been busy concentrating on holding my fag properly and scanning the horizon to see if anyone had noticed me mixing with the cool kids, so I had lost track of the conversation.
“What?” I affected what I thought was an air of confidence.
“You got a girlfriend?”
Oh no. Half an inch of fag ash fell from my cigarette just as every head turned on my direction. This spaz! Of course I don’t have a girlfriend. But I can’t display weakness at this crucial moment..
“Yeah. ‘Course”
Maybe it was something in my voice, but this response was met with yells of
“He’s lying!” and finger pointing.
To my surprise, it was my initial interrogator who came to my rescue
“Sharrup you lot!”
Then, accompanied by a big grin, my new friend told me he believed me. Just for a moment, I thought I might be making progress. Then..
“So – what’s her name?”
I have to stop.
Just reading these words again, decades later, I can feel the cold sweat on my back. Needless to say, having been put on the spot to make up something in a split second, I found myself, a future Afterworder, turning to the safety of my record collection. My mind started racing as I considered the options
April Skies
A free spirit with easygoing parents. I met her at the swings at the caravan park. No. Definitely not. Too much the archetypical dream girl. Implausible.
Daisy Glaze
I’m thinking it’s an English name, serious, bespectacled.. Oh crap – I have an image of Crackerjack host Peter Glaze as a teenage girl. Ugh! Next!
Caroline No
Out of the question. She’d obviously be at boarding school as her dad lives in a volcano.
Sandy Nista
From the debating society with her CND badges. Our first date was a demonstration at the U.S. embassy..
Nah – best steer clear of politics.
Victoria Gardens
Earthy, freckly, thick-of-forearm. Probably attainable. But Victoria? Around here?
I suppose that also rules out the enigmatic, bipolar Charlotte Sometimes.
OhGodOhGodOhGod!
Reader, by the time I got to the perpetual flu victim Jean Snothappening, everyone had walked off, still laughing in my direction.
Of course, you’ve never endured such a humiliation. But if you had been in my place, what girl might you have invented and what qualities might her name suggest?
What an awful experience! Teenagehood is filled with such horror, isn’t it? I cringe every time I see an old photo of myself. I wouldn’t go back if you paid me.
I looked like Roland Browning for most of my school days. But then i blossomed into Russell Brand, so did OK in 6th form and university. Then I became a generic 80s post-grad. Ned Flanders. I am now Ed Kemper. Thankfully, my wife still likes me, and her mental model has me as the post-grad. God help me if she every sees me as I now am.
Should have tried ‘She’s called June, she’s busting out all over you know.’ That would have shut them up. Possibly.
“I can’t tell you. Her dad works for the C.I.A.”
Because I didn’t fit into my small town I (never actually) had a girlfriend called Liza Radley.
Not from schooldays, but when I started my Apprenticeship. 20 16/17 year olds thrown together in a Training|Workshop.
Backgrounds, likes and dislikes etc were discussed – the usual. And inevitably girlfriends spoken of.
One lad – soon to be christened Billy Bullshit – stated his girlfriend was a few years older than him, and a bit of a rock chick.
Next day he produced his wallet containing a photo of said girlfriend. I recognised the picture straight away. A picture of Doro Pesch (from Warlock) snipped from a back issue of Kerrang.
My first girlfriend was called Helena Rigby
This was a scene straight from The Office . If you can imagine Comic Book Store Guy from the Simpsons -you get some idea of the IT bloke at a place where I worked.
He walks through the office loudly singing “Music” by Madonna (and getting the words wrong). When asked why he seems to be in such a good mood – with theatrical reluctance he tells us that he not only did he meet Madonna the previous night (she was in town) but, his words, he “banged” her.
During this story, delivered with cold-eyed unblinking certainty, he kept calling her “Madge” and then corrected himself to say Madonna. He explained that close friends call her Madge and she gets in touch with him whenever she’s in NZ.
His story was straight from the pages of Razzle.
And no one at all believed him. He was at that time in his mid-30s. I really don’t know what was going on. It wasn’t an elaborate joke. To this day I am sure he would gladly recount the story again.
Worth starting this dumb thread just for that story!
I once believed that I danced with Clare Grogan (she was in town) and attempted to chat her up. This would have been in Liverpool ca 1981 I was very very drunk and to this day am not sure whether it happened or I imagined it. Probably the latter, but who knows? I did find a ticket stub recently for the Altered Images concert so I was somehow in her presence.
Fucking hell that was long to tell us that you’re a sensitive soul.
I did enjoy your tale of teenage embarassment, Sewer.
Sandy Nista! Very inventive.
Teenagers are so very insecure and there is an awful lot of bragging. And an awful lot of heartache when they see all those pretty women walking arm in arm with gorillas…