Diary Thursday: The 8th Grade Dance

Unfortunately, from an Internet publication point of view, once I got over the Ben's and Peter's of Junior High, I moved on to have crushes on the more bizarre names of my generation – the Jamikos and Logans. The Mendels, Tashos and Harlans. The uniqueness of these names means their owners could easily find this blog on an Internet search. Damn those Berkeley parents.

So in this entry, I had to change the name to protect the innocent. This person, incidentally, recently found me on Facebook and we are now “friends.” We’ll call him "Fred.”

June 17th, Monday 1991, 12am exactly

The graduation dance was… fun, I guess. I mean, I didn't have a bad time. But considering it's the only 8th grade graduation dance I'll ever go to, it could have been better. Before the dance, I went with Julie and Ethan to Zachary's Pizza for dinner. I invited Fred but #1: he thought I was crazy, and #2: he just couldn't come. It's okay though, I didn't really want him there anyhow. At the dance before going in, we hung out together and held hands. We danced the first slow song together, got our picture taken, and then I didn't see him for a while. He danced with lots of other people and I talked to my friends. Then later, (this is the awful part), he asked me to dance to a fast song. We started freaking, sorta, and I felt really really dumb and uncomfortable and out of place. He stopped me and said, "I think we'd better wait for a slow song." I felt so awful embarrassed and hurt; he hated my dancing! It was terrible. I comforted myself with the fact that it wasn't me who was in the wrong for being a bad dancer, it was Fred for being so rude and mean. He then went and freaked with Elisa. Then, to top it off, Terri, who had asked Fred whom he liked, told me that his reply was "I don't like anyone, but I like Audrey as a friend." I find that hard to believe.

I will tell you one thing, it was the only 8th grade graduation dance I ever went to.