by Dan Ryckert
“So then I said ‘He really, really likes you.’ She said that she didn’t know that at all because you never said anything like that to her.”
My disappointment turned into frustration. I had wanted Jared to remain vague when discussing this, and he had mentioned my name within two sentences. But things got even worse.
“So then I said ‘Yeah, he said that he likes you so much that he’d give away his PlayStation if he had a chance to go out with you.’”
Oh good. Not only was this completely untrue, it painted me as even more of a huge nerd than I already was. Suffice it to say, that was the end of my hopes of dating Amanda.
Sixteen years later, Amanda and her husband were at the Power & Light District for our high school reunion. My ill-fated attempt to see if she liked me had been in seventh grade. I can’t recall a single instance that we talked throughout the rest of our time in school. With it being such ancient history by this point, I figured it would be funny to tell her about how much of a dumbass I used to be. Her husband was with her, so I imagined that it wouldn’t come off as me hitting on her this many years later.
I drunkenly ran down every dumb thought and plan that had gone through my head back then. Both she and her husband seemed really amused at how I clearly recognized that I had been a total idiot. Not wanting to spend too much time dwelling on a 16-year-old crush, I said it was good to see her again and that it was nice to meet her husband.
I grabbed more drinks and scanned the room to see who else I could talk to. A few minor acquaintances from Quest and my movie theater days said hello and made brief conversation before moving on. It didn’t seem like anyone I was remotely close with was at this reunion.
Mere minutes after ending my conversation with Amanda, I spotted another girl I used to have a major crush on: Jessica. We met during high school, and I was instantly interested in her. We shared an English class with many of the rowdiest guys at school, and she seemed just as annoyed by them as I was. These guys were loud as hell and constantly bragging about how drunk they had gotten over the weekend.
I wouldn’t start drinking myself for another year or so, but in high school, I looked down on classmates who partied regularly. Most of this was assuredly out of jealousy that they were confident enough to go out and socialize, but I convinced myself that it was because they were getting drunk.
Every time these guys started loudly recalling their wild weekends, I could almost hear Jessica rolling her eyes. She was really cute, but it was her personality and intelligence that drew me to her the most. Unlike with the sixth grade “she’s cute!” crush I had on Amanda, I felt like Jessica and I would have a lot in common and plenty to talk about.
Naturally, I dealt with this by almost never talking to her. As a result of my shyness, I have extremely surface-level memories of these girls. Without ever having real conversations with them, all that I can recall are details like “Amanda was cute! Jessica was smart!” At no point did I know anything about them. Even back then, I wouldn’t have been able to name one song they liked or a single interest that they had. I wanted to know these things, though. If I could have just worked up the nerve to have a conversation with them, I felt like I’d have an infinite well of curiosity about them and their lives.
I spent months hoping that Jessica would start a discussion with me out of nowhere. After all, it was just a matter of time before this attractive and intelligent girl approached me based on my keen sense of fashion. On any given day, I could be wearing my Kurt Angle “It’s True! It’s True!” shirt; my Tazz “The Mood is About to Change” shirt; or my favorite, the Triple H “Game Over? You’re Damn Right I’m Over” shirt.
Allow me a moment to explain that last one. Being “over” in wrestling parlance means that you are capable of garnering a reaction from the audience. Triple H started referring to himself as “The Game” during a promo in the late ‘90s (“You guys talk about being students of the game. I am the fucking game!”). The front of the shirt features the common video game phrase “Game Over,” while the back is essentially saying “Oh, you’re saying the game is over? Well yes, I am The Game, and I am over, because I am successful at my job as a professional wrestling heel because people boo me.”
Jessica never approached me. When November came around, I was convinced that my luck was about to change. In addition to English, we shared a class called Conspiracy Theories in Modern History. Believe it or not, our teacher was very into the Kennedy assassination. He offered an annual field trip to a convention in Dallas that commemorated the event.
The trip sounded interesting enough on its own, but my primary concern was whether Jessica would be going. When I found out she was, I knew that I had my in. We’d be driving down to Dallas in two large vans. If I could make sure that I was sitting next to her during the more than eight-hour drive, we’d almost certainly be able to have several long conversations and get to know each other. Once she realized that we had a ton in common, it would make it so much easier for me to ask her out after we got back to Olathe.
On the morning we left for Dallas, all the students were supposed to meet our teacher at Waffle House. We’d eat an early-morning breakfast and then load into the vans for the long drive. All I had to do was be aware of which van Jessica was heading toward after breakfast and make sure that I got in right after her.
Everyone ate their eggs and sausage while I scarfed down my plain cheeseburger and fries—lunch/dinner food is always better than breakfast food, no matter what time of day it is. It was time to spring into action as soon as I saw our teacher pay the bill. We needed to load our bags into the van we’d be riding in, so I made sure to throw mine into the same vehicle as Jessica’s.
Once our bags were in the van, there was just one more critical step to ensure eight hours of fantastic conversation. All I had to do was remain somewhat close to Jessica as we walked the seven- or eight-foot stretch that separated the back of the van from the side door. I’d hop in right after her, secure my spot, and it would be smooth sailing from there until Dallas.
Jessica stepped into the van before me. Just before I raised my leg to hop in, the biggest goober on the trip jumped in ahead of me. He took the middle seat, Jessica was against the far window, and I was stuck on the right. There would be no way for me to talk to her without automatically involving the goob in everything. My plan was ruined.
The goob was Chad. He was a golf fanatic, and he was also one of the most obnoxious human beings I had ever met. Chad’s brain housed the complete opposite of all of my anxious and insecure thoughts. He was a potent mix of being completely insufferable while simultaneously being the most unduly confident person on the planet.
The situation couldn’t have been worse. Not only was I unable to talk to Jessica, I had to overhear Chad brag about his golfing prowess for the entire drive. He’d go over every detail of his favorite clubs, tees, balls, and courses. Oh, and he was super rich as well, of course. He let her know all about his financial situation during a couple of conversational detours about the cars his parents had bought him.
Jessica seemed wholly uninterested throughout it all. Chad didn’t pick up on that, and kept bragging at a mile a minute. Once in a while, he’d make a bad joke and look over at me to see if I was laughing. I couldn’t even muster a courtesy chuckle for this guy. All I could think about was all of the great conversations Jessica and I could have been having at that very moment.
All hope was not lost yet, as we still had a whole trip to go. Our time in Dallas didn’t quite lead to long talks between Jessica and me, but we did hang out a little. With at least some conversations under our belt, I felt like I’d actually be able to ask her out once we got back to Kansas.
We returned from the Dallas trip just before Christmas break. My old “if she says no, I won’t have to see her for a while” mindset came into play again. I snuffed out this train of thought and told myself it was time to actually grow some balls and ask her. A Beautiful Mind was about to come o
ut, and it seemed like an appropriately intellectual-but-not-too-pretentious movie to ask her to see with me.
My attempts to woo girls with Butterfinger bars and friends who wore wallet chains had failed. It was time to actually ask a girl out for the first time in my life.
I got to our history class before she did and my plan was to ask her as soon as she sat down. Our assigned seats had been next to each other all semester long, but even that hadn’t been enough to spur a conversation prior to the field trip. I took a deep breath as she entered the room and sat down.
“Have you heard anything about that Beautiful Mind movie?” I asked.
“Not a whole lot. It looks pretty good based on the commercials I’ve seen.”
Here it was! Now was my chance!
“Would you want to go see it on Saturday?” I asked.
“Saturday? Actually, yeah...I think I’m free. Let’s check it out!”
Holy crap. It happened. Not only had I directly asked a girl out, but she had said yes. I was over the moon. For the rest of the day, I couldn’t help but gush to my friends whenever I saw them.
“I’ve got a date with Jessica on Saturday!” I’d say as soon as I saw them.
They all knew how big this was for me. All year, I hadn’t shut up about how much I liked her.
Jessica and I didn’t have cell phones, so we exchanged our home numbers and planned on chatting about details as Saturday drew closer.
I didn’t have to wait long to hear from her. On the evening after I asked her out, she called me at home.
“Hey Dan,” she said. I immediately noticed something odd about her tone.
“Oh, hey! How’s it going?”
“It’s going all right. Hey, I just wanted to clear something up about Saturday. Bryan told me that you were hoping this would be more than a ‘just friends’ thing. Is that true?”
My stomach tied into knots. I took a second to gather myself, and responded with something that was not my smoothest moment.
“Oh! Oh, okay. Huh, I didn’t know he had mentioned that. Well, yeah. Yeah, I think you’re pretty great. You’re really cool and I’d like to get to know you more but if you don’t feel that same way I’d be fine with it not being a ‘more than friends’ thing and we can just be friends but it’s true that I was thinking it would be more like a date but if not that’s all right too so we can do whatever you’d like on Saturday or whenever.”
“Gotcha,” she said. “Yeah, so I just wanted to clear that up. I’m not looking for it to be anything more than friendly. Do you still want to see the movie?”
“Uh, sure! Of course! The movie is at five, so do you want me to pick you up around four?”
“No. I’ll drive myself and just meet you there.”
Great!
Well, that was that. I was crushed, and now I was locked into a supremely awkward situation for 135 minutes (plus trailers). I called Bryan and asked him what the hell he had been thinking, but he didn’t have much of an answer. It didn’t matter at this point.
I showed up at the theater on Saturday fifteen minutes before Jessica, and got two tickets. When she arrived, I pulled them out of my pocket and tried to give one to her.
“Return that,” she said. “I’ll buy my own.”
Great!
The rest of the not-date went exactly as I expected after a start like that. We barely talked as we headed toward our theater, and we then spent the entire run time of the trailers and film in complete silence. When it let out, we exchanged some brief reactions about the movie and then a couple of awkward goodbyes.
We barely spoke for the rest of high school. There were no hard feelings whatsoever; it was just painfully awkward.
The GameStop location that I worked at was directly next to a Dimples Golf store. At least once a week, that goob Chad would walk past our storefront, and I’d instantly be transported back to how angry I was in that van to Dallas. Chad sucks.
I relayed all of this to Jessica at the high school reunion. As with Amanda, this was in no way an attempt to hit on her. I just thought it would be funny to give her some insight into how dumb I was back in high school. Like Amanda, she seemed entertained to hear my take on everything in hindsight. We chatted for a bit longer, then said goodbye in a manner far less awkward than the one in the AMC parking lot over ten years prior.
The reunion had been going on for a while at this point, and it didn’t seem like there was going to be a sudden influx of people I wanted to catch up with. I must have been drinking really fast during those conversations with Amanda and Jessica because I suddenly realized how drunk I was. A high school reunion seemed like an appropriate place to get super drunk, so I kept ordering more drinks and having brief conversations with former classmates.
Soon, I was on the verge of total sloppiness. I caught myself before falling down half a flight of stairs, which let me know that it was probably time to text my dad. When he told me that he was en route, I had time for another couple of drinks as he drove from Shawnee to Kansas City.
By the time he arrived at the bar, I was in a rough way. A “rough way” for me never meant that I was angry or getting into trouble. Even at my drunkest, I’d just get goofy and happy and stumbly. I was peaking in the latter of those when my dad tossed my arm around his shoulders so he could hold me up.
He had driven there with Cindy, a genuine sweetheart who was totally different from the assortment of hard-drinking, chain-smoking, pool hall ladies my dad was usually attracted to. They’d go on to date on-and-off until she started liking him too much and he got scared. This was their first date. She waited in the car as my dad guided my staggering body down the sidewalk. As we passed a downtown alleyway, an angry-looking, muscular bald guy with tons of tattoos and a studded leather jacket walked in front of us.
“Oh, you’re tough!” I said sarcastically as I pointed my finger in his face. Whenever my dad tells this story, he notes that this was the moment in which he felt his sphincter physically tighten up.
Tough Guy didn’t instantly murder me, miraculously. My dad was praying that we’d just get to the car without incident. We were eventually walking behind two girls, and one of them was having a very dramatic conversation on her cell phone. It sounded like a petty argument, and the girl was drunk and very worked up about it. Apparently, I decided that this was the right time to reassure her about life in general.
“It’ll be fine!” I loudly blurted out. “You’re taking everything too seriously. Life always works out, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. It’ll be fine.”
I rambled a bit more until she had enough and turned around.
“Shut. The Fuck. Up,” she said, as seriously as I’d ever heard anyone say anything.
This was around the drunkest I’d ever been, but I was adamant about going to the Red Balloon with my dad and Cindy on the way home. At first they agreed, but it quickly became apparent what a bad idea that was. Before we even ordered a drink, I felt the room spinning as I struggled to sit upright in a chair.
The next thing I remember is my father lifting me by the arms as a random bar patron took my legs. They carried me through the parking lot and hurled me into the back seat of my dad’s car. Since Paul Ryckert is (understandably) incapable of leaving the Red Balloon without swinging through the Taco Bell drive-thru, he ordered entirely too much food before we hit the road. As he stopped at a red light on the way home, my body fell in a remarkably awkward position on the floor between the front seats and the back seat.
Dad and Cindy were unaware of this until they got me back to his house.
“Oh my god,” I heard him say when he opened the back door. “You idiot.”
Without the guy from the bar to help him, my dad struggled to lift my drunk body out of the backseat. Once he got me upright, he called on Cindy to help walk me up the stairs to his front door. I was nearly incoherent while I repeatedly thanked them for being so nice and helping me. As Dad and Cindy walked me to the door, I started uncontrollably farti
ng each time I reached a new stair.
“Stop farting!” my dad yelled between laughs.
I did my best, but some rectal function had apparently passed out by this point. Another step, another fart. When we got inside, I laid down on the floor in the entryway. This didn’t last long, as I instantly felt the need to vomit. My motor functions sobered up quickly as the feeling came on, and I scrambled on my hands and knees to the back porch.
There, I dropped to my knees and vomited. I dangled my head off the side of the porch in an effort to keep the puke from splattering on the wood. After I spent a couple of minutes adding to the expanding vomit pile, I realized that I needed to pee. It was dark, it was late, and the bathroom seemed insanely far away in the state I was in. While still kneeling, I unzipped my pants and started peeing off the side of the porch.
It was a night that I had envisioned would be full of gloating and impressing former classmates. Girls I used to have crushes on would be amazed at how much more confident I’d become in ten years. Those jocks who used to punch me would be cursed with soulless corporate jobs, trying in vain to mask their extreme jealousy when they heard about my awesome career. I’d finally get confirmation that I had won in life, and they had lost.
Instead, all my high school insecurities came flooding back after lying dormant for a decade. During that time, I spent so long telling myself that everyone else was stupid and that I was the only one who had it all figured out. In reality, everyone else spent the reunion comfortably catching up with old friends and sharing fun memories, while I was confronted with stark reminders of my lack of a social life and my utter ineptitude with the opposite sex. For the first time, I truly realized how much I had kneecapped my potential for years by convincing myself that I wasn’t capable of socializing with my peers or talking to girls.
Now I was here in Shawnee, farting on my dad’s porch and attempting to steady myself as I pissed into a gargantuan puddle of my own vomit. But hey, there was still plenty of Taco Bell waiting for me inside.