6

Why Love at First Sight Is Overrated

There is an art to signing yearbooks.

I mean, really, it’s a piece of writing that really is less about what you read on the day it gets written, or a week later, or a month. It’s about how you read it years down the line. Rediscovering things, and remembering things. Not that any kids ever think that when they’re signing it. But that’s what makes it so magical and so poignant, when you read it years after the fact and realize things. As much as people hide under the meaningless clichés like “have fun this summer!” and “see ya next year!” that prepare you for signing greeting cards as an adult, sometimes a note that you’ll treasure for years will slip through, and you won’t realize it for years.

I didn’t even know it until I read my sophomore yearbook years later, but Caitlyn Shackleford noticed me first.

She was one of those girls who had yearbook signing down to an art. Us guys, well, we don’t exactly put much thought into it. Except for your very good friends, if you get five lines out of us, it’s probably because we’ve squeezed it into a corner so each line is about three words long. If we can’t even think of that much stuff to write, we’ll compensate by writing either really large, or writing really illegibly. Either one has the effect of making the owner of the yearbook think you’ve written more than you really have. It’s an amazing instinct. Then, of course, it’ll be topped off with some sort of insult or childish dick joke.

Ah, those were the days.

Most girls, meanwhile, will take up the bigger blocks. And they won’t do it on the inside or outside covers, they’ll find some blank page in the middle of the book to do it. It doesn’t matter how well you know them, somehow between that one class and five times you spoke with them all year, they find a paragraph to write. Now, it might be just as meaninglessly filled with clichés, it’ll just be more specific ones, like mentioning a teacher’s name or complaining about a class. Finally, of course, it’d be punctuated with an actual quick drawing of a heart. It doesn’t really mean “Love, so-and-so,” but it’s less awkward than “your friend” or “sincerely,” and more personal than just leaving a name.

At first glance, Caitlyn was one of those girls. But then, at first glance, she was many things that she wasn’t.

I met Caitlyn my sophomore year. I’d taken note of her more because I was crushing on her friend Laurie my freshman year, and I noted Caitlyn as the sort-of cute friend Laurie had. Caitlyn and I had a class together that year, social science, but I honestly don’t remember noticing her. I mean, it registered that she was good looking, but so were many girls to a fifteen-year-old boy.

We had social science together that year, and we were concentrating on U.S. history. Our teacher made us do all sorts of things in class, like reenact the Constitutional Convention (I was George Washington), or intentionally break up cliques to be on opposite sides of Civil War debates (I got to team up with our friend Andres against Cody; it would become a theme throughout high school). I must have interacted with her, but I honestly don’t remember any time I did.

It wasn’t until our junior year that I really paid attention to her. The poor girl was put in the worst spot in our history class. In that class, Cody sat to the left of me, and Andres sat behind me. Behind Cody and to the left of Andres, completing the square of seats, sat Caitlyn.

The three of us guys could argue about anything. Politics were almost too easy of a subject. Sports were a hugely common theme. Movies were also a big one, since we were at the beginning of the nerd generation. And Caitlyn had to sit through every one of those arguments.

I’d really begun to notice her that year. Caitlyn wasn’t shaped like a supermodel. She was slim, but not skinny. She had big round cheeks and a great smile. Her hair was highlighted on occasion, but whether brown or blondish, it went well with her slightly brown skin tone. And then there were those dark eyes of hers. Those were what always got me.

It was an exchange we had after a particularly heated argument about the country’s money supply, the passing of the gold standard and the future of inflation (no, really) that stood out. As we were packing up our bags to leave class, Caitlyn walked by me after Cody and Andres had left, and said, “You know, I liked what you said there. I thought you made some really good points.” With no other words except a smile, she headed out. That was all she said, but it put me in a daze.

The next period was P.E., and we were doing volleyball. I must have been in a daze at the front of the net, because my friend Nathan asked me, “What’s wrong?”

I simply said, “That Caitlyn girl. She listened to me argue about economics with Cody and Andres for an hour. She said she liked what I said…”

I trailed off into silence, and even though I was lost in thought, I remember the look on Nathan’s face. First, it was confusion, and then a slow realization.

“Oh, no…” was all he said.

He saw what was coming, but if only he knew the magnitude of the crush I was getting into, he probably would’ve shot me to put himself out of the misery.

He didn’t like her much. The girl had a really bad reputation around school. The big bad reputation was that she was a slut. She did date several guys over the time I crushed on her. It never really bothered me, but I’ll admit I never thought about it much. She also had the reputation of being one of those vapid high school girls, the stereotypical ditz who cared more about fashion and clothes and girl stuff than anything.

“What do you see in her?” Nathan would ask. “That she looks good? She’s a moron. You can do so much better.”

However, despite the fact I thought she was great, I wouldn’t argue. It probably wouldn’t have changed his mind, considering the arguments he had were based more on reputation than any proven fact. I just didn’t want to argue about it. I liked this girl, and I wasn’t into rationalizing it, even for a friend.

Anyway, with what I saw when I started paying attention to her, she didn’t seem entirely facile and shallow. However, they were only glimpses, because I barely spent any time around her. After the realization I had a crush, I couldn’t talk to her anymore. Never mind that I’d unknowingly talked to her many times before. Now I knew, and because of that, I couldn’t say anything.

Now, one of the nasty habits I picked up from the early 90s was a habit of writing poetry. Bad, cheesy, emo poetry. To be fair, this was before it became ridiculously popular for anyone to do, but still. So for Valentine’s Day junior year, I put one in a card and had it delivered to her to announce my feelings with those cheesy carnations. Luckily for me, we were both in social studies when the flower and poem were delivered. Several flowers were delivered that period, so the attention wasn’t only on her. Unluckily, her response was a glance at the card, a facial expression that wasn’t a smile but wasn’t really a frown, and barely a glance at me after reading it.

After class, I waited a bit for her, and she came up to me after most of the class had left.

“I’m sorry, Joseph,” she’d said. “I just think of you as a friend, that’s all.”

By the way, if any boy you meet ever tells you that the F-Word is any word other than “friend” when it’s said by a girl that they like, they’re a dirty liar.

“Oh, okay,” was all I could manage as my heart crumbled a bit.

She looked at me and said, “Are you okay?” I got the feeling that, after all the teen movies she’d seen that were about nerdy boys as their crushes, she was expecting me to break down or throw a fit or do something embarrassing.

“Uh, yeah,” was my predictably loquacious response. She smiled and took that as her exit strategy, hurrying off as I was left to walk to my next class in a daze.

However, even through the pain of rejection I was going through as I was walking away, I couldn’t hate her. Every teen movie I’d seen had said a girl like her would not just break my heart, but tear it in two publicly, humiliate me, and somehow leave me scarred emotionally for at least the rest of the day, if not the rest of my existence. But she hadn’t. She’d done it essentially in private, and without any embarrassment. She’d let me down easy.

So, yeah, that only made me like her more.

Near the end of that year, we had a week where a sub came in to teach that social studies class. As usual, they had no idea what we had been doing in class, so we got a “study period.” That basically meant do whatever you want for an hour, just don’t make too much noise, which would draw attention to the lack of anything being done. I didn’t have any close friends in that class, so I just started doing my own thing. I had isolated myself, but with a clatter of movement, I turned around and found that Caitlyn had moved into the seat behind me.

Enter me being loquacious again. “Hi,” was all I could manage.

“Hey, I just don’t want to hang around with the guys over there today,” she said. “Do you mind if I sit here?”

“Uh, sure,” I said.

She pulled out a book and started to read, and I turned back to my writing. All of a sudden, I wanted to write a poem, but I didn’t have a single thought in my head to build upon. The silence was there for a couple of minutes, until she broke it again.

“So, how are you doing? We don’t talk anymore,” she said to me. I turned around to face her, not remembering any times we had really talked in the first place, but we must have back in sophomore year.

“I’m good.” I said. I was a little uneasy. Conversation with a girl I liked was a new thing at this point. “How are you?”

“Tired!” she said. She obviously had no qualms about this conversation. Of course, a girl like her must be used to guys liking her, I thought, so why would she be nervous? “I’m so ready for this school year to end,” she continued. “I just need a break, you know what I mean?”

I smiled and nodded. The failure of my Valentine’s Day poem had been weighing on me, and it had become standard material for those who enjoyed teasing me. I was tired of that as well, but I wasn’t going to bring that up.

“I just want to go to the beach! Go up to the City! Just get out into the sun…” she said, trailing off as her eyes glazed over, envisioning these things.

“You don’t have to work?” I asked. I was looking at a summer that would likely be dominated by my job at a local software company.

“Screw work!” she said, a little louder. “Work is for when we’re out of school. We’re young, we should be having fun.” I couldn’t agree more. “You know where I can’t wait to go? Great America!” she continued. “I haven’t been there since opening day last year.” Great America was the local amusement park, with roller coasters and carousels and all that.

I smiled. This I could join in on. “Yeah, I know. I haven’t been able to go to Marine World in months.” Marine World was an aquarium and wild animal park.

Her eyes went wide. “I know! I haven’t gone there in years! Do you still go all the way up there?”

“Yeah, not as often though. I used to love that place when I was a kid,” I said. “It was like, my place. But now that it’s so far away I don’t get to go much anymore.” It used to be right in our town, but had been moved to a city 50 miles away as land values went up. Now one of the world’s largest computer companies sits there. Apparently office parks are more important than fun.

“Mmm, you know what I always wanted?” she asked me. “To get kissed by one of the whales. But I can’t now.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because they never pick people our age. They always get the cutest little kids. It’s okay. Just a thing about growing up, I guess.” Her voice got quieter as she got more contemplative. “You ever wish you were still a kid?”

I didn’t say anything. My childhood wasn’t always the greatest. She saw the look on my face and continued.

“I mean, we’re sixteen. It shouldn’t feel like we’ve missed out on life already.”

I looked at her in the eyes. “Yeah, but we miss out on something every time we make a choice. Do this or do that. You can’t worry about what you missed on things behind you. If you do, you’ll miss out on things ahead of you.”

“Is that a song?” she asked me. I stayed silent and shrugged.

It was her turn to stay silent and look at me. She thought about it, and then started nodding slowly. “Yeah, you’re right.” She twisted her lips into a thoughtful frown, and we sat silent for a moment. I spent the moment to really take her in. She was in a hoodie and sweatpants. No makeup. And she was more beautiful than ever.

She looked up at me and smiled. “I’m glad we’re getting to talk again. I missed that.”

We sat there and talked for the rest of the period. It was only a half hour, but it was nice. She went from being just a pretty face that I’d noticed in class to much more than that. I mean, I didn’t get to know her soul or anything, but I got to know her a lot better. And I liked what I got to know.

That was the thing about Caitlyn. Throughout all the reputations she had, she never lived up to it. There were times that she seemed like a party girl stereotype. She definitely had her fun, but when it came to those quiet moments, there was more to her than she got labeled.

Of course, that was the summer that she left me her phone number in my yearbook. And I spent all year staring at it, and not calling. Even after that one day, I was still too intimidated. But that one day was enough to keep feeding my feelings.

What was crazy was looking back at my sophomore yearbook years later, after all this had happened and was over. I found something I hadn’t noticed before, and couldn’t remember getting for the life of me. Hidden in the middle of those blank pages was half a page filled with her “signature.” She complimented me on things I’d done in class, and wished my sports teams luck. But mixed in under the generic stuff came a surprisingly personal note. “P.S. - You were a great George Washington, and maybe we’ll have another heated argument over the constitution next year!”

Even the people I counted on as real friends didn’t note things like that in their signatures. And that was when it dawned on me.

She really had noticed me first.