My Top 5 Rejections. Number 3.

Continuing to harvest deep seated scars for your amusement. Schadenfreude-ophiles.

Numbers five and four first, if you want be orderly.

Number 3.

When you’re a high school boy, the drive to just get laid is overwhelming. You just want to do it. The trick was finding a willing female participant. Before I went off to college, I had pulled off the improbable: I had actually convinced a woman to get naked and roll around with me on the bed until certain parts aligned. But this isn’t a story about that. This is a tale of rejection. In this case, I think you will find, it was for cause.

If a high school boy’s drive to get laid is high, then as a college freshman - having tasted the sweet, sweet nectar of hooking up - the drive to get laid again is even greater. I mean, my freshman year, walking around looking at all these women who were my age, wearing little clothing, and being very flirty, my head was going to explode. In all actuality, it was still some amount of work to convince a girl to strip down and roll around, but the outlook was very promising.

In college, I was on the Swimming and Diving team. We swimmers never really saw the divers until dual meet season started. So, at the first meet of the season, there was a particularly busty, alabaster skinned, blond diver on the team. The busty-ness was enhanced by the diving board. Bouncy.

Swim meets are generally pretty boring affairs. The diving part of the meet, normally even more so. On this particular occasion, I had never paid more attention to the diving, for obvious reasons. I had to do reconnaissance. Where was a team member to go to get the intelligence on a co-ed team member? A-ha! The don’t call it the locker room for nothing. As guys do, I inquired and we talked about her locker-room style after the meet. Fellow swimmer and team captain Todd informed me that she was a sophomore and, he had heard, didn’t take too much convincing to hook-up. I took a mental note.

Since it was an away meet for us, we had a 2 hour drive back to school. Boarding the bus, the gods were smiling on me because, lo-and-behold, there was an empty seat next to Easy Diver. Hallelujah, I started to find religion. I sat down, and planned to test the waters on the drive home. I had two hours to work with and I was going to give it my best shot.

Frankly, looking back, I really don’t remember the conversation. Maybe she wasn’t very interesting. Maybe all I could focus on were her boobs (Floor 2), but whatever the case, when we got back to school and pulled into the rec center parking lot, I played my card…”Hey, do you want to back to my room and then grab a bite to eat.” “Yes, ok,” she replied. I almost fell off the bus. My plan was actually working.

We walked from the school’s rec center past the student activity center where a concert sponsored by the Black Student Alliance was being held, and on to my dorm. My dorm room was a mess, smelled of chlorine (my roomate was also a swimmer), and had a six foot tall head shot of Robert Smith from the Cure on the wall, courtesy of my roommate. Robert’s huge image, with his goth white face and black eye make-up, was looking down on the standard suburban issue, late 70’s vintage, brown-and-orange couch where I invited Easy Diver to sit.

I can’t even remember if I turned on the TV, the radio or what. We were probably in the room for only 30 seconds when I sat down next to her, and asked if I could kiss her. I think she was shocked by how suddenly I sprung the question.

To my way of thinking at that time, though, if a girl agreed to go alone to your room, the obvious was going to happen. Right? I mean, come on. Let’s get to business. But, this isn’t a story about getting down to business. You know what this story is.

She consented to the kiss. I had a live one on the line with a reputation for being easy. Woo-hoo, here we go! I leaned in for the kiss, then thrust my tongue into her mouth and tasted the spot where her tonsils used to be. I was going in full force. My hand were all over the place. We kissed for a few seconds, and then…she pulled back. I can’t imagine why. Had to be because the Robert Smith poster freaked her out. Whatever the real reason, it was clear she wanted to put a halt to this train.

I could see her brain trying to come up with something, anything to get outta of the pool scented freshman dorm room. I saw the lightbulb.

“Could we go to the concert at the student activity center?”

“What? The BSA concert?”

“Yeah, I wanted to check that out.”

I knew the train was derailed. In the back of my mind, I was trying to figure out how to get things back on track. We walked over the the concert. Did I say it was a Black Student Alliance concert? Well, it was. And this super-white, blond haired not-so Easy Diver and I were the only white folks in the hall. She immediately skipped over to the dance floor and started to dance with some people.

After less than a minute, I threw in the towel. Maybe I got faulty information on her, who knows. It was over. So close. Well, at least we didn’t really have to see each other outside of swim meets.

As is typical of locker room behavior, I became a legend in the locker room because all the guys were involved in the conversation after the meet, and they saw me leave the bus with her. I tried to tell the truth about what went on, but they didn’t believe that I bombed out. This poor girl had to live with this (probably undeserved) reputation.

I don’t even remember her being on the team after that year. She may have been there, or she may have dropped out. I really can’t remember. I did however run into her at an alumni reunion. Easy Diver is doing well and living in a trailer park in some rural area with her 7 children, and her busted-down pickup truck and her no-good deadbeat of a husband. She has a pool, though, with a bouncy diving board.