Death to the Teenage Romantic Comedy!

Death to the teenage romantic comedy. There is nothing that has scarred me more during my young romantic years than those cursed movies. They made me think the ladies liked the secret admirer. They made me think that sticking poems in lockers could win a girl's heart. They made me think your actions could win over a girl's heart.

I was a sophomore in high school. She was Susan Rice, freshman, cheerleader, and curly brunette. Sigh. She lived in the same neighborhood as me, and would every now and then need a ride home. She seemed as nice as she was cute. Did I mention she was a curly haired brunette? I was smitten. Being the shy son of a teacher, I didn't have the stones to actually ask her out. I decided to go the secret admirer route. If I ever had a son, the "never be a secret admirer talk" is coming right after the birds and bees.

At this point in my life, I had aspirations to be a comic book artist. I would spend my class periods drawing the panels and then photo copying them into a pamphlet. Even then I knew that making her a comic book would be pulling the wings off Cupid, so I decided I'd write her a poem. It seemed harmless enough. I would just write a little poem, get a flower, and put it on her locker. Since my Dad was the teacher, I had free reign of the school for about an hour before the rest of the students. I didn't know how to sneak the flower by my Dad, so I just stole a rose out of the school garden. I would like to say that the poem was genius. In reality I just wrote some corny lines, so that the first letter of each line would spell out her name . You can start laughing at me...now.

After placing the note and flower on her locker, I hung around in the background to make sure nobody stole it. Ah the bewildered look on her face as she saw my token of admiration on her locker. It became quite the lunch time discussion. I sat there and smiled and eavesdropped as her friends made their list of suspects. Perhaps I should have noticed I didn't make the desired list of suspects, but I didn't. Since the poem and flower caused such a commotion, I decided to keep it going. Strike while the iron is hot. This time I just wrote the poem, no flower. If I kept this going, the gardeners might notice the dead rose bushes.

Two days later I slipped another poem in her locker. I figured it was safer, and I didn't need to hover around for an hour to make sure nobody stole it. Once again I became the subject of lunch time gossip. I think it wasn't the fact of winning her over, but the notoriety that I was jonesing on. That is what led me to my first mistake. Needing to share this I told my small group of friends that I was the secret admirer. It all came crashing down around me. To use anticipation to my benefit, I decided to wait a week till the next poem. Also, I was quickly running out of charming and romantic things to write.

At the end of the week, I was wandering the halls between classes. There was Susan Rice walking in my direction. I gave a little smile. She gave me the "You sick, sick man" look, and scurried out of sight. Yeah, I was in trouble. Though even if she found out it was me, the poems were innocent enough. If she didn't like me, I could eventually live with that. There is no reason for her to be hostile.

During the following class period, my friend Jeff gave me the low down on the hell I was about to endure. Since, my friends can't keep a secret, somebody found out I was the secret admirer. This person, being the asshole that they are, decided to write a poem with Dear Penthouse language, and sign my name to it. I was no longer a sweet shy guy with a school boy crush, but a vile pervert. Not only did I not a have shot with Miss Rice, but my chances with any girl in school was now in jeopardy. Afraid of confrontation as I was at that age, I sent my friend Jeff to explain the situation to Susan. Yeah, that was another mistake. I should have either done it myself, or picked someone who actually had a firm grasp of the English language. Things were eventually ironed out, but she still never spoke to me again. The culprit was never discovered. You would think this would have taught me a valuable lesson about taking the secret admirer route. It didn't. It took me about five more crash and burns till I finally realized those "teenage romantic comedies" were all lies. Thank you John Hughes...you asshole.