i don't think about the girl i turned down for prom very often. like i say - it was out of the blue. totally unexpected. in hindsight, there were signs, but i really didn't see it coming. at all.

so, i mean, i dunno. did she have a crush on me for a long time? was it spontaneous? i never really asked.

i told you the story about sarah from elementary school. i knew sarah for years. we had plenty of conversations. i might dare even say there was a time when we were friends. so, i was able to understand why avoidance was the best strategy - i can analyse this, in hindsight..

but, i don't even remember having more than a cordial conversation with this girl who asked me to prom. i really didn't know anything about her besides the basics of her reputation, so i don't really know how well i might have gotten along with her. she was in my classes for years, though. maybe she was paying more attention to me than i was to her...

like, i can count the number of times i remember speaking to her on one hand, kind of thing. i remember her complimenting my cover page for the oac (grade 13, pre-university) algebra project - she thought it was "clever". that could have been small talk, i guess. i remember her trying to track me down in grade 10 or 11 to get a picture of me for yearbook, because i skipped out on the school photos that year, then dodging attempts by her to follow me around to get a shot of me, then learning she got one of me sitting by the stairs. see, she was on the yearbook committee. so, i guess there was somewhat of a game there - but i don't recall so much as a fuck you in direct conversation. it was more of a tip-off that i was being stalked. and, i recall getting into an argument with her about whether she should be allowed to qualify for scholarship money, because she's upper crust, and she doesn't need it - which she was actually rather pissed off about, because her grades were nearly perfect. well, what's a scholarship for? is it merely a reward, or a way to balance the playing field? besides that, i must have walked by her a thousand times, and i don't recall so much as a tug on my tshirt.

perhaps she liked being challenged. or, perhaps the handful of encounters i had with her were that much more memorable, given a lack of contact with other boys. maybe i read the situation wrong, and she liked my hair. i dunno....

what i know is that i really had no plans to go to prom that year, and wasn't going to change my mind due to somebody asking me.

it's easy enough to call me stupid for turning down the fucking valedictorian. all i had to do was be a man, right? well, i hadn't done the experiment yet, but i still knew better. and, i frankly just simply don't know how well i might have gotten along with her, had i gone along with it, and let her drive the night.

i didn't think about it much then, and i haven't thought about it much since.

but, i do suspect that she would have gotten bored with me relatively fast.