My brother participated in his 20 year reunion last weekend, which brought him and his family back to Michigan for a visit. On a quick visit, I was able to spend some time with them on Sunday, returning later in the week for a longer visit. I had heard from another person to ask my brother about a conversation he had with a high school friend and that I would find it really funny. Maybe it's the Social Worker in me, I didn't find it funny; however, what I did find intriguing was something rather unrelated to my brother's conversation with him and his life, it was about me.
My brother's friend, RF had a younger brother, my age MF. MF and I met in high school as we went to different Junior High's (aka Middle Schools). I instantly liked MF. I found him oddly intriguing and funny as hell. We laughed and joked and flirted in my tomboyish way throughout the years of high school. I suppose in some way I always wondered what it would be like to date MF, but never really all that interested. Our Freshman year we were on the ski team together, so we spent a significant amount of time together that winter as well as the next. I didn't have my first date, with anyone, until my Sophomore year, which incidentally was not with MF. MF and I graduated 17 years ago, 1992. That was a long time ago to remember details, but I recall that we remained distant friends, pals, chums throughout high school. He wasn't really a crush. He wasn't someone that I thought I could easily fall in love with, but someone that in a chummy way, we were equally as awkward and annoying and had the same sarcastic sense of humor that we enjoyed each other's company.
Somehow that summer after graduation, we found each other in the same spot and neither of us were dating. I can't tell you the specifics, it really wasn't that memorable. What I do recall, is that he asked me out and I said yes. And then became the most memorable BLIND DATE story of my LIFE. AND ONLY. I'll blog about that later.
MF and I went out. I don't recall it being anything of importance. Maybe we were too close as friends to try the dating thing. It was the summer before I was going away to college across the state. I believe he was staying at home to attend the Community College. I recall one night laying in a tent in his yard talking through the night about his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. I think it happened! I recall we talked about going to the zoo but I don't remember that we ever did. I left for school a week or two after we went out. I didn't have a car on campus. He came to visit me one weekend. We slept in the same bed, but nothing happened. Other than that, I recall nothing. No feelings of remorse. No feelings of sadness. Just was. I was 2.5 hours away at college and wanted to experience college life. That was it.
I saw MF at our 10 year reunion. I was unhappily married and putting on a great front at the reunion since we were actually getting along that evening, for a minute. MF and I chatted and he told me that he was a firefighter and his girlfriend recently proposed. He wasn't sure that he wanted to marry her. I remember thinking that was odd. One thing I remember about MF was his fettish with using Q-tips to clean his belly button. In the recesses of my mind, whenever I think of belly button lint I think of him. I don't recall anything else and I haven't heard anything about MF since, until Sunday that is.
See RF and my brother had a conversation. RF told my brother that the dumbest thing his brother has ever done was to not continue dating ME. WHAT? My brother, keeping with the conversation asked him why we had stopped dating (mind you - I don't even know - we weren't really dating!) and he said that he thought it was because I was too demanding. My brother said he just said that he could see that. DEMANDING?
In the scheme of things, I wonder how a conversation 17 years later about a several week dating relationship could have meant that I was demanding. But maybe, we have characteristics that are developed very early on and I truly am demanding. My recollection is nothing of the sort. Not to say that we all see things equally, absolutely not. We all have our own perceptions of how things happened, right or wrong.
Regardless, it's ironic nonetheless why MF's older brother and mine would have an initial conversation about their younger siblings more than 17 years ago. I wonder what MF is doing now. I truly hope that he is doing fabulously well, married or not.
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