No Dancing | The Menories Journal

A middle school crush gone wrong.

            When I was younger, maybe 11-13, slow dancing was a thing, and a big thing at that. In middle schools, or at least the middle school I attended, the school would host a handful of dances every year for the 7^th and 8^th graders, perhaps preparing them for the mess that would be high school homecoming dances. It was rare that two people, even if dating, would go as a couple to these dances, so instead and being in middle school, we would gather our friend group at someone’s house in order to spend hours getting ready for what we thought would always be the best night of our lives. This resulted in groups of girls excitedly arriving in clumps to the dance followed by the groups of boys. Regardless, the last two groups to arrive, fashionably late, were always the popular kids.

            These were the kids who monopolized the only outside lunch tables, the ones who gossiped loudly in the back of class while making eye contact with the person they were talking about, the ones who dated each other almost in rotation, and yet they stood unchallenged and somewhat looked up to. The girl side of the group was strict and unrelenting when together, yet some were friendlier and more inviting when alone. The boys, often interacting only within their group, were the stars of the school, they consisted of most of the sports teams, while also being threateningly smart. While I can’t speak for who the boys in the school had crushes on, I can confidently say it was the popular boys that most of the girls in the grade would crush on. Unfortunately, myself included.

            I considered myself a social floater in both middle and high school. I had my own group of friends but often found myself hanging out with anyone that would put up with my bad jokes. In middle school especially, I had a strong girl friend group (which would come to a dramatic end with them attempting to “Survivor-style vote me off” the friend group, which in itself is a story), but would often find myself friends with the middle school burnouts, the drama kids, the nerds, mean girls, and a third of the popular group, finding whatever things we could to talk about loudly about in class. My 8^th grade math teacher would go on to tell my mom in a parent-teacher conference that I just needed to shut up sometimes; he was my favorite teacher.

            In 7^th grade, the Winter Formal fast approaching, the topic of slow dancing became especially prevalent. I think it was in P.E., as we were trying to avoid doing any actual physical education, that Jessi had asked me if I wanted to dance with anyone, mentioning my crush on undoubtedly the most popular guy in school, Greg Clarksen, and much like a celebrity, you often found yourself saying both first and last name. As soon as she spoke, I knew she had a plan. She was one of those girls who liked to push you outside your comfort zone; notably the first time I snuck out of a house, climbed a fence, or streaked was with Jessi. Being pushed to do more was fun and it helped me get out of my shell; however, she tended to go too far and to also do things without consideration.

            “Jessica, do not message him.” I immediately begged. Facebook, being still relatively new, had dominated our middle school, and Jessi liked to brag that she had over a thousand friends. While Greg Clarksen’s profile was somewhat of a mystery as he was one of few, at the time, who would deny friend requests, being selective as to what to share or who to call friends. Jessi, determined, endlessly clicked “Add Friend” until he obliged. She smiled at me, before getting up and sprinting to a different friend across the field, leaving me sitting on the grass, worried about what would follow.

            For a week leading up to the Winter Formal dance, I begged my dad to allow me to have a sleepover and pre-party at our house. After promising to match the socks in the loose sock drawer (this is where socks lived when we found ourselves too lazy to finish putting clothes away after laundry), he relented to having four girls come over. When the day came, the last Friday before our two-week winter break, I found myself excited, but already anxious to see if Jessi had actually messaged Greg Clarksen. I played what the message could have said over and over in my head, the thought of having to have someone ask him to ask me to dance with him was mortifying and made me want to avoid being on the dancefloor during all slow songs. The girls and I got ready, frying our hair with too many hot straightening and curling tools, packing make-up onto our eyes, then finally taking an hour’s worth of photos before jamming back into the car and heading to the now decorated school gym/cafeteria.

            The songs faded loudly into each other as the DJ played 2008’s greatest hits, the crowd of pre-teens fist pumping, something they had learned on the newly aired Jersey Shore, or jumping up and down. Several upbeat songs played, setting the tone for the night, before the first slow song came on, signaling for a few friends and I, a bathroom break. Two girls in the grade above argued in the bathroom corner as my friends and I touched up any smudged make-up or to more realistically, wipe sweat off our foreheads. When the next upbeat song came on, we exited the bathroom and returned to the dancefloor, fist pumping as we went.

            At our school dances, there was something called “snowballing” where you could submit a couple’s name, often times an unrequited crush, to slow dance with each other in front of the whole crowd. This was my nightmare, and as the DJ announced it was snowballing time, I grew cold, glancing at Jessi. She smiled first at me then at her other best friend, Theresa. Theresa smiled back at us, clearly excited to hear who it would be. “Okay ladies and gentlemen,” the DJ yelled into the microphone, “our lucky couple is Greg Clarksen and…” he paused to play a drumroll, “Theresa Robinson!” Theresa screamed excitedly and pushed forward, planting herself in the middle of the circle the crowd had created with open arms. I sighed, relieved, forgetting that Theresa liked him more than I did and happened to know Jessi longer than I. I looked over at Jessi and mouthed thank you, she winked back, still with a smirk on her face.

            As the night continued, pop songs from 2006-2008 streamed loudly out of the speakers, making the stage the DJ was on, shake. I watched while dancing as Theresa and Jessi whispered excitedly to each other about something, Jessi pushing Theresa up to the DJ, which I thought nothing of as the song continued to play and I turned my attention to a different group of friends. As Theresa walked, Jessi rejoined my side and grabbed my hand as we jumped up and down, fist pumping yell-singing the lyrics of the song. About a minute had passed when Theresa returned to our group, now crying, barely getting out the words that someone had said no to something. I quickly put two and two together; Theresa throwing looks at Greg Clarksen all night, long after their snowball-ed dance, followed by Jessi and Theresa whispering, heads together, pointing to the direction of popular boys. Greg Clarksen had said no to something Theresa has asked. Theresa, Jessi, a different friend, and myself ran to the bathroom to hear the story and to help wipe her tears; however, once we got to the bathroom, full of girls in groups with drama, I excused myself back to the dancefloor.

            As I came back out to the dancefloor, I found that some of my other friends were standing by the speaker, closest to the stage, the last chorus of the song playing ringing through our ears. We had been standing in a circle dancing, when Greg Clarksen approached, touching my arm and making me jump, “Hey, I heard a slow song is on next. Do you want to dance?” He spoke loudly, making sure I could hear over the speaker beside us.

            I froze, my heart beating violently in my chest, and panicked as I yelled, “No, I don’t want to dance with you.” However, as soon as I spoke, the song cut out, leaving enough of a silence for my statement and gross misinterpretation of how loud I needed to be to echo through the building. He looked shocked and took a step back, I quickly looked down and excused myself to the bathroom to find Theresa and Jessi.

            I continued to hide, letting a few songs pass, hiding with Theresa, until Jessi pulled us out of the bathroom and back to the center of the room, the DJ soon announcing that last song of the night (Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl”, which apparently got the DJ in a lot of trouble as he played a song to a group of 12 year olds). Once the last song ended, my friends and I piled into the car, stopped for fast food, and went back to my house. Jessi convinced us to utilize my dad’s hot tub though it had been snowing as one last way to finish celebrating the “success” of the dance. I promised I would join them, but stopped to post what I thought was a well-thought out Facebook status about following your mind versus your heart but also tied astrology into it, blaming my Cancer sign as to why I got in my feelings.

            The two-week school break passed and on our first day back, we had a desk swap in class, meaning everyone would change seats. My new desk was in the back row, seated next to one of the funnier popular guys while Greg Clarksen was assigned a desk in the front row. Jason, the boy I was sitting next to, looked over to me and immediately brought up the dance but was interrupted by Greg Clarksen yelling at him to switch seats. For whatever reason Jason agreed to switch and so for the remainder of a year I awkwardly sat next to Greg Clarksen. When he first swapped seats, I smiled at him to which he smiled he back. Was it an invitation to talk or just a nervous reflex? As the weeks went on he would go on to try and talk to me several times, but for whatever reason, mainly anxiety, I shut all conversations down, instead, talking around him to my friend that was seated across the aisle from him. He shocked me by being so nice about it and would make an effort to lean out of the way so I could see my friend as we spoke. I kicked myself instantly, I should have just talked to him.

            In 8^th grade, I had not spoken to him in nearly a year, the year prior as we were seated beside each other, speaking was reserved mainly for school work help, never opening other topics of conversation. Theresa was still crushing on him hard, and at this point another good friend had very strong feelings for him as well. One lunch period, as Jessi, Theresa and I stood around, waiting to pick up our school lunches, they cornered me. Jessi and Theresa tasking me with reminding him that Theresa had liked him. I’m not sure why, but the only thing I was instructed to say was, “You know that Theresa likes you, right?” So I did, but visibly shaken at the task as I did so, to which he just shrugged and said he knew before walking off with his friends. Later in the year, the other friend’s crush developed into stronger and stronger feelings which caused her to pursue him consistently. She was only stopped when he insulted her nose, referring to it as a beak. In the days after, still furious, I watched her as she poured glue all over his backpack before all our shared 1^st period class. After her glue job was done, she ran away only to come back a minute later and act surprised at the glue soaked backpack. Greg Clarksen stared at the backpack almost emptily before looking around, trying to scope out who had destroyed his property. A few people had heard I had seen who it was and whispered to me, begging to tell them, which I did, but later heard that because Greg Clarksen had seen me whispering to people around the glue littered backpack, there was a thought that I had done it.

            In high school and the years had passed, my best friend, Elcie, would share several classes with Greg Clarksen and by our senior year she even claimed that they were friends. Jokingly, I asked if he had remembered when I yelled “No, I don’t want to dance with you” in his face, not actually meaning for her to ask him, but she did, and claimed to remind him of it frequently. On one afternoon, after school was out and Elcie and I were getting some food before going back to my house, we were talking about that middle school dance when she continued to drive towards a truck stopped at a red light. Without thinking, I let out a short, loud scream, signaling for her to break before colliding with the truck bed. As she slammed on the breaks she exclaimed, “Oh my god, that’s Greg Clarksen’s truck.” The next day she had shared with him of my heroism of saving his truck. I was mortified, not just stuck on my embarrassing actions years ago, but also that Elc was then running to him with these new updates or reminders.  

By the time, I moved to Berkeley at 19, I hadn’t seen him or even talked to him since high school (I hadn’t actually talked to him since 8^th grade); however, within two months of me being in Berkeley, I ran into what I thought was his truck. I crossed the street, running late for a morning class, when I caught eyes with a driver sitting in a familiar looking truck. It took a second before I could register who it was and thought I saw him do a double take as he checked too. Within seconds of me crossing the street, the light turned green and he was off. I convinced myself it wasn’t him, the last I heard was he was at one of the better colleges on the East Coast.

A few weeks later I had been scrolling through Tinder, distracting myself from whatever lesson was being taught in class, when I found him. I stared at my phone trying to understand what was happening and how I would proceed. I texted a few of my friends screenshots of his profile with the message, “???” One of them confirmed that he was going to school around where I was living, the other two pressuring me into trying to match with him. “How funny would it be if after you yelled in his face that you didn’t want to dance, that you would then go on a date with him years later?” one of the girls posed the question. I half agreed that it would be funny but was also half nervous that if we did match on Tinder, I would, at some point, have to apologize for what happened that 7^th grade dance. Lucky for me, it was not a match, he wasn’t interested, but after yelling at him, ignoring him, and then maybe still carrying the blame of the glue-y backpack, I couldn’t blame him.

Author's Note

Revamped story.

Reviews

[shadrach hah]

Hi Haley, this is another well-told tale by your golden pen. These are the kinds of memories that shall ever stay with you, that are a beauty to be shared. I love it when people share parts of their lives. You do it so well. I was entranced by your story. It made me remember our school, Christmas dances. I know what I like to read and your memories are something that I really enjoy reading. Have a wonderful Friday. Hugs always....Mike.

[Coyote Poetry]

Dear Haley. You told a wonderful story. Don't pay attention to people who yell and complain. Many kind people had helped me. We write to get better. I have been writing for almost 50 years and I am still learning. When we write personal story. We need a good story. This was a good story my dear friend.
Coyote

[Haley]

Thank you Coyote, I appreciate your kind words. If people don't like these stories that is more than okay, people have their opinions on what they think is story worthy or not. Just depends on the reader! :)

[Coyote Poetry]

I agree dear Haley. I love a good story.

[JayG]

Revamped or not, what will a reader find unique, or interesting enough to command attention? These words will be filled with emotion for you. But as you read them, every line will point to memories, experience, images, and more, all stored in your mind.

But what of the reader, who arrives without context, expecting to be entertained by being made to feel as if they're living the events, not reading a synopsis? For them, every line will point to memories, experience, images, and more, all stored in *YOUR* mind.

I don't say that to discourage, or belittle you. It's just that you're recounting fairly mundane experiences that pretty much everyone has had. Yes,the events reported are true, but you spend the first three paragraphs, 562 words, on mundane detail in which not a damn thing happens. So the reader is well down on the third standard manuscript page, still waiting for the story to begin. It's all true, yes. But what makes it more than a report on things that every one of the readers has experienced for themselves?

Story happens. And it does so in real time. It's not interrupted every other line for a bit of gossip and explanation from an invisible someone, whose voice cannot be heard, and so is as dispassionate as a text-to-speech reader.

If you're going to write, and I encourage you to do so, take some time to learn the basics of writing for the page. Remember, all professions are acquired in addition to the basic, business skills we're given in school, like the nonfiction writing skills you're presently using. Memoirs dramatize and fictionalize events that readers will find unusual, emotionally involving, and interesting. Summation and overview? Not so much, because readers expect what THEY see as good writing. And as E. L. Doctorow said: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

But using the nonfiction skills we're given in school, all we can give is the weather report.

So check a book or two in the library's fiction-writing section and pick up a few of the tricks the pros take for granted. You'll find that thought it will be hard to convince your present writing skills to not "fix" the writing back to the nonfiction style, they make the act of writing a LOT more fun. Personally? I’d suggest Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer, which recently came out of copyright protection. It's the best I've found to date at imparting and clarifying the "nuts-and-bolts" issues of creating a scene that will sing to the reader. The address of an archive site where you can read or download it free is just below. Copy/paste the address into the URL window of any Internet page and hit Return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

Not good news I know, but it's not about talent, not about how well you write, and, fixable. And since we can' fix the problem we don't see as being one, I thought you'd want to know.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Haley]

Hi Jay,

Thank you so much for your thoughts. I do understand what you are saying and these may be "mundane", but there is sometimes beauty and solace in the mundane. While I get what you are saying about the readers not reading this in my voice, with my memories, the point is to remind you of a similar time in your life or something that you can identify with. Sure these aren't exceptionally special events or stories, but these are common experiences that it is nice to know are shared. If I were to pursue publishing I would definitely want to check out those references; however, I am just writing for myself right now and "reliving" my totally normal experiences. Thank you again for your words and recommendations.

[JayG]

• but there is sometimes beauty and solace in the mundane.

For you, perhaps. But would you be thrilled to read about me waking and having breakfast? Of course not.

• the point is to remind you of a similar time in your life or something that you can identify with.

Why do I need someone to remind me that schools have dances, or a trip to the bathroom?

The memory of how I found myself on the ocean floor, with twenty feet of water overhead, a fishook snagged to my wetsuit holding me there, and my knife out of reach, is a LOT more interesting. Or how about coming over a hill in my first car at 110 MPH at 17 years old, with a car full of friends, to find a car in the lane I was in doing only 40?

If the most interesting period of your life was junior high, you might want to get out more. 😂

• I am just writing for myself right now and "reliving" my totally normal experiences.

No, you're not. You're posting them in public, hoping people will read them and react. We both know that. So... if you're going to do that, you have a responsibility to the reader to make the act of reading interesting. If not, and are writing for pleasure and posting it in a public forum, you know what they say about people who pleasure themselves in public. 🤪

Seriously. You like writing. So take the time to learn how to please the reader. Better yet, get out there and have some exciting experiences. Much more fun to look back on, and, to read about.

But obviously, you're hoping to hear more "Attagirl," then what I'm giving, so I'll bow out and you can click the delete button on my post.

[Haley]

I'm not hoping for any praise on my posts. If people like it then they like it, if they don't they don't. You are not a fan of my writing so let's leave it at that. I appreciate your good-natured attempt at advice, thank you.

[lessa (kenzie)]

Wow, a lot of imagery which is good, like the detail as well. I don't dance and refuse to. I look like Elaine on "Seinfeld" when I dance. I enjoyed this

[Haley]

Haha I love the comparison! Thank you for reading :)