I was just going through the motions really. I went to Church with my family because that is what you do when you are home on leave (Navy for “vacation”). I still shared the same religious beliefs that my parents had, but I did not know anybody in this Church. It was not the Church in which I had grown up, but in order to honor my Mom and Dad, I stood by them through the service.
Since I knew I would not be in town for long, I did not feel the pressure to connect with anybody in this Church. I spent the entire first part of the service standing in the back row while everybody else was singing. Instead of opening my mouth, I was scanning the room. Seeing if there were any other folks there like me. You know, relatively good folks, younger 20’s, not so engaged, more or less there to please their parents… I figured I’d try to link up with these people and see if I could engage in the typical social life of the day. Go see a movie, get a bite to eat, go on a hike, you know… You should know that I was paying a little closer attention to the college age girls who were, I was hoping, doing exactly what I was doing.
The part of the service where everybody sits down and somebody from the congregation comes on stage to sing was beginning. I had a couple girls and a couple guys picked out to link up with after the service and see if I could plan a hiking trip with them. Sitting there on the back row with my head full of images of the Smoky Mountains, this girl starts belting out a tune with great gusto. I cannot tell you what song she was singing, but that girl could sing. She looked like she was either a senior in high school or maybe a freshman in college, but that would have been a stretch. She was one of the cutest girls I had ever seen. All thoughts of the Chimney trail in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park fell out of my head. I was mesmerized! And she just stood there, singing her heart out in a periwinkle sundress. Narrow straps. Cute shoulders.
I leaned over to my Mom and asked her the obvious question that was running through my head… “Mom, from what magical world has this little princess come from?” Which, if I recall correctly, came out more like…
“Mom… who’s that?”
“O, That’s Jessica… Why?”
“No reason.”
“Just… she’s cute is all.”
My Mom leans over to my sister at this point and then leans back to me…
“Your sister likes her too…”
I had heard enough. All the guys I knew who had been married or were dating had significant drama between their sisters and moms and the romantic interest in their lives. The evidence was overwhelming. If my Mom and sister liked a girl, then there was no way on earth that I would have anything close to a good relationship with her.
And so… as this sunbeam of cuteness walked off the stage, whatever desire I might have had to go talk to her walked off too.
See, I was plaqued with some really skewed ideas about life and I did not yet have anybody in my life to help correct these things in me. I had a pretty young relationship with a really good group of guys and men who wanted to work with me, but I had not yet started opening up to them. I’m sure I’ll talk about these guys in a later post since they did end up having such a significant impact on me.
I knew that I wanted to have a girlfriend and maybe one day a wife who loved me. I did not want a Feminazi… and cute, smart, girls who get along with women of different cultures and generations are bound for college, where the indoctrination into full fledge Feminazi culture would be complete.
And so I let this really sweet looking, super cute, periwinkle sundress walk off the stage. And there I sat… in the back… looking for somebody to talk to, somebody to be my friend...
