outside of school. We played video games and walked (I rolled) to 7-11 for Slurpees. Innocent stuff. Then, around the same time all of the fifth grade boys were gathered into a room and told about erections by the gym teacher, a switch went off inside me. Suddenly the weird changes occurring in my body made sense. Morning wood was not just a random act of nature designed to make life embarrassing when my dad woke me up and helped me get dressed for the day; it was a sign that I was old enough to have a girlfriend (which, honestly, did not make the situation with my father any less embarrassing).
Upon making this realization, I simultaneously began feeling like I was a little late to the party. All of my friends either had a boyfriend or girlfriend or plenty of stories about things they had done when their parents were not around. Many of their tales were probably fabricated—looking back, I have trouble believing that any of my eleven-year-old friends had lost their virginity—but in the moment, I believed them and thus felt like I was being left behind. Girls didn’t want to come play video games and drink Slurpees anymore. After all, what would their boyfriends think? I needed a girlfriend, or I risked becoming a “loser.”
One of my closest female friends at the time, Lizz, became the target of Operation Fifth Grade Hormones. It was generally accepted among the boys that Lizz was the hottest girl in elementary school. Her boobs were winning the developmental race by a long shot, and she was athletic, a quality of high value at that age. She was sassy, but in a cute way that gave meaning to the multitudes of awkward erections experienced by the fifth grade male population. At recess one day, she kicked a friend of mine square in the balls for making fun of her. It was the best moment of his life.
Lizz and I connected in the classroom more than anywhere else. She was kind and funny always willing to help me, but in a way that just felt like we were close friends.
She came over to my house several times. She and my brother played tackle football in our front yard, then we ate some ice cream and did homework. Clearly, I had no reason to think she was into me. But that wasn’t going to stop me.
I knew from everything my friends had told me that I needed to “ask her out” if I wanted her to be my girlfriend. That scared me shitless. If you’ve ever read the poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T. S. Eliot, he perfectly describes the neurotic internal debate I felt while working up the nerve to ask Lizz out. If you haven’t read it, please mark your page here and go do so now. You can always come back to this, and if I’m being honest, Eliot’s poem is way better than this book. In fact, you should probably just throw this book away and go buy some of Eliot’s work. (Just kidding, don’t do that, please.)
Anyway, I’ve always been a very analytical person, to the point that it occasionally crippled me more than my disease could. If I asked Lizz to be my girlfriend, and she said yes, it would be the greatest accomplishment of my life. I would have a girlfriend. Kids in wheelchairs don’t get girlfriends very easily. This would be a big step in proving to the world that I was different. On the other hand, she could say no. Everyone knows that you can’t ever go back to being “just friends” after a failed proposal. Not to mention the overwhelming embarrassment of being denied and the implication that it meant I wasn’t good enough to have a girlfriend, which in my mind would obviously be because of my wheelchair. In a way, it felt like asking Lizz out would dictate my experience with females for the rest of my life.
I had two options. Risk failure by asking her out and maybe just maybe she would say yes, or simply not even try and avoid facing the probable reality that girls would never want to date me. After some serious mental deliberating, I decided to go for it.
I called out to her as
Upon making this realization, I simultaneously began feeling like I was a little late to the party. All of my friends either had a boyfriend or girlfriend or plenty of stories about things they had done when their parents were not around. Many of their tales were probably fabricated—looking back, I have trouble believing that any of my eleven-year-old friends had lost their virginity—but in the moment, I believed them and thus felt like I was being left behind. Girls didn’t want to come play video games and drink Slurpees anymore. After all, what would their boyfriends think? I needed a girlfriend, or I risked becoming a “loser.”
One of my closest female friends at the time, Lizz, became the target of Operation Fifth Grade Hormones. It was generally accepted among the boys that Lizz was the hottest girl in elementary school. Her boobs were winning the developmental race by a long shot, and she was athletic, a quality of high value at that age. She was sassy, but in a cute way that gave meaning to the multitudes of awkward erections experienced by the fifth grade male population. At recess one day, she kicked a friend of mine square in the balls for making fun of her. It was the best moment of his life.
Lizz and I connected in the classroom more than anywhere else. She was kind and funny always willing to help me, but in a way that just felt like we were close friends.
She came over to my house several times. She and my brother played tackle football in our front yard, then we ate some ice cream and did homework. Clearly, I had no reason to think she was into me. But that wasn’t going to stop me.
I knew from everything my friends had told me that I needed to “ask her out” if I wanted her to be my girlfriend. That scared me shitless. If you’ve ever read the poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T. S. Eliot, he perfectly describes the neurotic internal debate I felt while working up the nerve to ask Lizz out. If you haven’t read it, please mark your page here and go do so now. You can always come back to this, and if I’m being honest, Eliot’s poem is way better than this book. In fact, you should probably just throw this book away and go buy some of Eliot’s work. (Just kidding, don’t do that, please.)
Anyway, I’ve always been a very analytical person, to the point that it occasionally crippled me more than my disease could. If I asked Lizz to be my girlfriend, and she said yes, it would be the greatest accomplishment of my life. I would have a girlfriend. Kids in wheelchairs don’t get girlfriends very easily. This would be a big step in proving to the world that I was different. On the other hand, she could say no. Everyone knows that you can’t ever go back to being “just friends” after a failed proposal. Not to mention the overwhelming embarrassment of being denied and the implication that it meant I wasn’t good enough to have a girlfriend, which in my mind would obviously be because of my wheelchair. In a way, it felt like asking Lizz out would dictate my experience with females for the rest of my life.
I had two options. Risk failure by asking her out and maybe just maybe she would say yes, or simply not even try and avoid facing the probable reality that girls would never want to date me. After some serious mental deliberating, I decided to go for it.
I called out to her as
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