Today there were a lot of comments in facebook on a picture Kim BG posted today of our grade 8 graduation. They were hilarious in a way, and as you'd expect pretty embarrassing. It's fascinating to see who we were and who we've become in the years since. It's literally been half a lifetime since then. We've all changed so much, but at the same time the events that happened back then shaped who we are now. In that post I was reminded about my most embarrassing experience ever. I think it's been long enough be be able to look at it subjectively and (hopefully) laugh.

I've had a lot of crushes on chicks in my life. Odds are if you're female and I've spent some time with you, at some point I've thought about it. Usually it's just a cursory thought, lasts an hour or even a few days and it's over. Sometimes it lasts a lot longer. The first serious long-term crush I had started in grade five for this girl Pandora.

Pandora was a very cute girl. She had a similar background, a nice smile, and eventually she developed... a lot! But I noticed her first. For four years I analyzed everything she did, everything I saw. There weren't any others. One evening she called me out of the blue with her friend and "asked me to go out with her." Whatever that meant... we were probably about 12 at the time. I didn't believe she was serious, so I pussied out of it. I knew I wasn't the coolest kid in the school. I didn't think she meant it... kids can be really mean. I was certain that she was doing it as a part of a cruel joke.

I wouldn't have blamed her. I certainly wasn't anywhere near being cool. I was a comic book and science fiction reading nerd who spent all his spare time watching 80s sitcoms and listening to hip hop. If Alex P. Keaton donned tights and a cape then bore a tunnel straight into the earth's core while breakdancing I would have been in heaven! I dreamed of being captain of the trivia club. I didn't join the AV squad because I didn't think I was cool enough. Can you spell GEEK? At the very least I'd say my social development was stunted.

I assumed my crush on Pandora was pretty undercover. Aside from admitting it once during an all-night gossip session on an overnight school trip, I kept my it to myself. I think by grade 8 everyone knew. It must have been pretty obvious. At our graduation dance one of the things we had to get the boys and girls away from standing on opposite sides of the gym was a "snowball dance." The DJ would play a slow song (invariably it was Can You Stand the Rain by New Edition), and get on the mic and call out the first two people to dance. It was supposed to seem random. From there other couples would randomly couple up, and then when it was announced on the mic they'd switch.

The first few dances seemed relatively random... until I heard my name. I was already embarrassed by this. I walked up to the front by the stage and waited to hear who they called. Of course it was Pandora. I waited. And waited. The DJ called her again, trying to get her to come up. She didn't. I just stood there trying to play it off. I knew she wasn't going to come. I just laughed and pretended that I didn't care until I had to walk back to the boy wall with my tail between my legs.

It is said that we are all three different people: the person we think we are (the one we have invented), the person other people think we are (the impression we make) and the person we think other people think we are (the one we fret about). You could say it would be a lifetime's quest to reconcile this battling trinity into a seamless whole. (via kottke.org)