I have a teeny tiny competitive streak

Today I have to ask a boy out.

I’m terrified.

But it’s time.

It’s no longer about him. I mean, he’s still a thing of beauty to look at with an interesting life story on whom I have a gigantic crush. But I’ve had a lot of gigantic crushes in my life and not one of them has ever resolved itself into me asking him out. Mostly, they just fizzle away. And I’m fine with that. Very zen, in fact, about it. Whatever will be will be and all that. So, there’s nothing different about the level of either my crushing or the level of my desperation (actually extremely low right now) that would cause me to need to put myself out there like this. It’s no longer about him.

It’s about Erin. She also has a crush on him and she is ALWAYS THERE whenever I talk to him. She is the worst of high school in the way she angles toward him and jockeys for position. Very un-subtle. It insults my sense of propriety of how these things should be done as adults.

But I can’t help feeling a sense of competition with her because of this, which also insults my sense of propriety. So, it’s time to do something to save me from myself. I want to get to a point that if I have a conversation with him it is simply a conversation without ulterior motive. I want to get to a point where I no longer have the urge to slap her down and really PLAY the game she’s trying to start. Because let me tell you something, there are some things I know that her good Christian life can’t even begin to prepare her for. Suffering, heartache and loss, not to mention the whole not-a-virgin thing, give me a real edge that she would just bleed on if I really wanted to win this one. It’s lucky for her that a guy won through manipulation is of no interest to me.

OK, I guess I needed to get that last little bit off of my chest. Proof for you of the sense of competition that I need to get out from under. Sorry, Jesus. I know it hurts you when I talk like that.

Also, I like Erin. She is helping me break down some of the internal walls that I’ve built up against other Christians because she doesn’t seem to hold my heretical doctrine or lifestyle choices against me. I’m particularly impressed by her ability to look at her own actions and examine whether or not they were loving and to apologize for them if they weren’t. She just quit teaching after five or six years to give herself a break and I have to respect someone that broke the same you-must-teach-for-the-next-thirty-years-if-it-is-going-to-mean-something mindset that I did. Plus, she’s fun and invites me to stuff. How could I not like her?

So, this has got to stop. And it will only stop if I know whether or not he’s interested in me. If he is, then I can let her maneuver her way onto the back of his motorcycle all she wants, comfortable that I’m the one going out to dinner with him on Friday. If he’s not, then she can horn in on discussions with him all she wants without threatening my effort to impress him because I will have given up my effort to impress him.

So, all this means that I have to get off my tookas and actually live up to my sense of propriety. What good is priding oneself on being straight-forward if one isn’t actually straight-forward when one’s heart and dignity are on the line? I just have to steel myself for being embarrassed and awkward and possibly rejected and just do it.

Ack.

So, I’m going to go by the coffee shop that he manages today after work and if he’s there I will say after appropriate small talk, “I was wondering if you’d be interested in going out with me sometime.” Short, simple. No extra explanations that will only make me look flustered and cause me to have to hit myself on the forehead after I leave, chanting, “STU-pid, STU-pid.” Plus, if it’s concise, I can rehearse it in my head a lot over the course of the day.

So, I know I’m not a baby having heart surgery, but if you felt like praying for me around 5:00 or 5:15, gosh, would I appreciate it.