Romantic interest no easier now than it was for me in sixth grade

By David McElroy · April 11, 2019

It was just after Thanksgiving of my sixth grade year. For about a year and a half, I had had the worst sort of crush on a girl in my class named Wendy Ford. When I was 11, she was my dream girl.

I was terrified for anybody to figure out that I “liked” Wendy, of course. And the absolute worst thing would be for her to know it. This is confusing to adult logic, but it made perfect sense back then. Somehow, she was going to “like” me first and let me know — and then I could confess that I “liked” her, too. And then we would get married. Or something like that.

Instead, one of her friends came over to me — in music class — and asked, “Do you like Wendy?”

My face must have turned bright red. I felt as though everybody was looking at me. My heartbeat raced. And I denied it. I assured her that it wasn’t true, but I doubt I was convincing. I just wanted to be anywhere but there.

“You should have liked her,” the friend said, “because she likes you.”

Thursday evening, I remembered what that sort of conversation felt like — and I didn’t like it any better than I did when I was 11.

My pharmacy rarely has reason to call me — never unless I have a prescription being filled — but one of the pharmacists called Thursday afternoon and asked if I would be nearby this evening. She said she had something to talk with me about if I happened to be around. I was curious what was going on, because she wouldn’t give me any hints.

When she saw me walking up, she smiled a little sheepishly. There were other customers at the counter, so she motioned for me to move down to the other end where nobody was.

“Do you remember the really pretty, tall pharmacist who was substituting here a few weeks ago?” she asked.

I did remember. One of the regular pharmacists just had a baby and there had been a substitute — someone they called a “floater” — working in her place. I had come in one night for something else but stopped at the pharmacy to chat. It hadn’t been busy that night, so several of us stood around and talked for something like 15 minutes.

I didn’t remember the woman’s name, but I remembered that she was tall, blonde and attractive — a strong combination for me. But I still didn’t know what the question was all about.

“She’s just taken a job at another company,” the pharmacist said. “As long as she was working here, I couldn’t say anything, but now that she’s gone, well, it’s different.”

I still didn’t see where this was going.

“She really liked you that night y’all were talking when you met her,” she finally went on. “And now that she’s gone and it’s not like some kind of professional boundary thing, well, I just wondered…”

I was stunned. And I was flattered. But I still felt like an awkward 11-year-old.

We talked a few more minutes and she told me more about this mysterious pharmacist who thought I was interesting that night. I kept thinking back to the night we met. I had been in a good mood and I was funny that night. I had everybody laughing. Would she expect me to be funny like that all the time?

I’m sure I didn’t seem as awkward tonight as I did when I denied my interest in Wendy all those years ago, but I’m also sure that I wasn’t my most charming. I just know that it made my ego happy — and I also know that I needed that.

I have no idea what happened to Wendy Ford. We moved away to another city during the Christmas break and I never saw her again after our class Christmas party. (I gave her a present and she said she liked it. She seemed to want to talk to me, but I was terrified.) I’ve tried to look her up just out of curiosity, but I’ve never figured out what became of her.

The pharmacist is another matter. I’m not 11. We’re not moving away. She lives nearby. I guess I’ll at least figure out a bit more about who she is. You never know what might happen.

Do you remember those notes shy people were fond of sending to one another back when we were young that said, “I like you. Do you like me? Check one.” And there would have been boxes for “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.”

I didn’t see any note like that tonight, but if there had been, I would have checked, “Maybe.”

Note: I have modified some minor facts in this story to slightly disguise the identity of the people involved. But not Wendy Ford. That’s her real name. What happened to you, Wendy?

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I just went from joy to bitter disappointment in the space of seconds. I had an exciting idea, but it was something I needed feedback and discussion about. I wanted to turn to a trusted partner and say, “What do you think about this?” But I felt deflated because there was no one there. I recently shared with you how much I miss having someone to take care of, but I also strongly miss having a partner who’s there to listen and to help me plot how we can move forward in life together. The best marriages are sort of a “mutual aid society,” an arrangement by which each person is fully committed to helping the other become the best he or she can be. It was actually so late tonight when I had this thought that a partner might very well have been asleep already. But it would have been enough to say to myself, “We can talk about that tomorrow” — if I knew someone cared and wanted to be part of that conversation with me. I miss that kind of relationship. Doesn’t everyone need this?

Here’s more evidence that the modern U.S. school system is badly broken. It was once a reasonable assumption that a high school graduate who was accepted to a major college could read and write competently. For years, colleges have known their incoming freshmen’s writing was mostly dreadful, so they’ve been forced to teach students to write. (They’ve done it very poorly.) Now it has become obvious that basic reading skills among freshmen are so terrible that some colleges must now teach kids how to read. At the University of California at Santa Cruz, all incoming freshmen will now take a mandatory three-course sequence which will teach them how to read and understand what they’re reading, in addition to trying to teach them how to write. If a student has made it this far in life without learning how to read and write, this probably won’t work, but the system will eventually be dumbed down to ignore the failure. Parents who trust the modern school system to educate their children are gambling with their kids’ lives. The system is broken.

Catholic priest Richard Rohr is a well-known writer and teacher on several subjects, one of which is the Enneagram. Most of his work with which I’ve been familiar is related to spiritual and psychological development. I recently discovered that someone has posted a good bit of one of his Enneagram workshops on YouTube and I’d like to recommend that if you have any interest in the Enneagram personality typing system. It was only about six months ago that I discovered I’m actually a Type 1 (instead of a Type 4), so I’ve been watching various teachers talk about that type lately. Rohr happens to be a Type 1 as well, and his description of the type — and especially his self-criticism — struck home with me. Here are links to his teaching about most of the types: Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Type 4, Type 5, Type 6, Type 9. (Types 7 and 8 are missing.) You might also enjoy an interview that Krista Tippett did with Rohr for the On Being podcast two years ago. It was listening to that interview again this week which prompted me to go find his Enneagram teaching. I don’t always agree with Rohr about everything, but he’s always thought-provoking.

It’s still not a common pattern, but more families are deciding today that it makes sense for a dad to stay home with the kids while a mom is gone to a job. The specifics of such arrangements vary. In some cases, the wife works outside the home all the time and the husband runs the household. In others, the man works from home and the woman works outside the home part of the time. In such an arrangement, the parents switch who’s supervising children depending on who’s home and who’s busy. Society still seems to collectively have a problem with non-traditional parenting arrangements, but they can make a lot of sense for many people. Of course, the far-more-common pattern is a father who works full-time elsewhere and a mother who works full-time as well, but who still has to take care of kids and home when she’s finished with her paying job. Different arrangements are going to work for different families, but it’s clear that the worst of all worlds in the expectation that the woman work a full-time job and then come home and work another full-time job raising children on her own.

Stories about young people running away from home often don’t end well, but I just heard a story of a good outcome. The young woman who shared her story with me isn’t a child, though. She’s in her early 20s, but she ran away from home last year. She lived in Michigan with her dysfunctional family. Her mom was addicted to meth and various prescription drugs. She was the only one in the family who worked — and her family took almost all of the money she earned. The only bright spot in her life was a guy she met online playing a video game. The two grew close and fell in love. About 18 months ago, she secretly packed everything she owned — and he drove from Birmingham to Michigan to pick her up without her family’s knowledge. Today, they’re married and have a new baby. She says leaving her family was the second best thing that ever happened to her — and her husband and baby are the best. “He doesn’t seem to understand what a big deal it was,” she said, “but he saved my life. I took a big risk and he did, too, but I’m happy and loved for the first time in my life.” It might not be common, but some runaway stories do end well.

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