Before I begin the diary entry itself, I'd like to provide a little background information that will prove helpful: the conference mentioned is a seminar for high school students in which half the week is spent in NYC learning about social issues at the UN. The second half of the week is spent in D.C. lobbying senators/representatives. Chaperoned, of course, but with a good deal of freedom.
And now for the main event!
4/6/01: Dear Diary, No guy has had me so whipped for a long time! I think the last time I was this crazy about a guy was over a year ago when I liked Justin (again). But now... Adam. We were together nearly the whole week of the conference. He always waited for me so we could walk together
[to and from seminar sessions]. We get along so well -- our personalities totally mesh. I'm crazy about him.
I asked him to prom and I'm writing down the conversation so I don't forget it. After working up much courage and finding my balls:
Me - "Adam, would you go to prom with me?"
Adam - "That's an odd question."
Me - "It's an odd question?"
Adam - "Not odd, just... unexpected."
Me - "I'll warn you next time... Adam, I'm warning you."
Adam - "Warning me about what?"
Me - "I'm going to ask you to prom."
Adam - "...yeeeeaaahhhhh..." (Said like "rrrriiiiiigggghhhhht" not like "Sure! I'll go to prom with you!"
*The Next Night*
Adam was going to take the elevator
[up to his hotel room], but I decided to just take the stairs instead, and he followed me. We were alone, so I brought it up again.
Me - "Adam, sorry for catching you off-guard last night."
Adam - "Oh, it's okay."
Me - "But... I was serious, so if you could mull it over, I'd appreciate it."
Adam - "Okay, I'll mull it."
* Then we started making jokes about mullets. *
When I asked him to prom we were on a ferry. It was so beautiful and it was just the two of us standing there, and to be honest, it was kinda romantic. I thought I'd scared him. On the ferry on the way back, I was inside the third level talking to my friend Phil and Adam was standing outside the third level. I told Phil I thought I scared Adam and he said, "There are three levels on this ferry. If you really scared him, do you think he'd be outside the window?" That really helped. :)
[I actually drew a smiley face in my diary at this part.]
Adam promised me before the conference that he'd dance for me there.
[He was a breakdancer.] I'd been asking him all week and he hadn't yet, but after we got back to the hotel from the ferry ride, he danced and kept doing it until the end of the week! Coincidence? I don't know. I don't want to read into anything, but it sure drove me wild!
I never asked a guy out in person before, but I think there's something to say for not getting a yes, and not affecting our friendship. Nothing was awkward; we just kept on joking around and hanging out. How often does that happen? When I left the conference, I gave him a hug and told him to e-mail me, so I'll let you know what happens. My hand is really tired.
Note from the author 4/6/11: The prom in question was for my junior year of high school. Adam was (still is, go figure) a year younger than me and attended a different high school about an hour away. He declined my invitation to be my date to my junior prom, but accepted a year later when I asked him again and he danced the night away with me at my senior prom. Ladies and gentlemen of the internet, that night remains one of my finest memories. The boy I had loved for over a year went to my senior prom with me, gave me a huge bouquet of flowers and danced with me all night long. It was glorious and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world! Since he lived too far away to drive home that night, he slept over at my house. We went home after prom and started watching Big Daddy in my family room and since that room of my house is completely secluded from the rest of the house, I was hoping for a little making out action. Isn't that what you do on prom night? However, halfway through the movie when I started to yawn, Adam informed me that I should probably go to bed... so I went upstairs to my room and he slept on the sofa.
Adam and I hung out that summer before I went to college and before his senior year of high school. At this point, I had been head over heels for the guy for two and a half years. I pulled him aside one day that summer and laid it all out for him, something along the lines of, "I'm going to college in a couple weeks and will probably meet a guy there and we'll fall in love and get married... but not if I still have a chance with you. I can't move on unless you tell me there's no way you'll ever change your mind." I remember Adam's response word-for-word: "I think we'll just always be really good friends."
And so I went to college a few weeks later. I honestly thought that everyone who hadn't already found his/her husband/wife found that person at college simply because that's where my parents had met. I assumed that's just the way it was done. I never dreamed that I'd be no closer to finding true (reciprocal) love ten years later. But I really and truly was in love with Adam, and not just puppy love. We were extremely close and my feelings for him were deep and unconditional. I think I've been in love twice since then, but Adam was the first. My first love.
So where is Adam now? Well, we continued to talk and hang out throughout my freshman year of college, but the communication became more sporadic and we gradually drifted apart. He actually randomly ended up as the college roommate of another friend of mine, a guy who knew all about my love for Adam and who I had cried to about Adam on at least one occasion... so that was kind of weird. A couple of years ago Adam married that friend's cousin, a girl I was also friends with... so that was also kind of weird.
She once tried setting me up with some guy named Ed. I'm not sure if it was because she really thought that Ed and I would be a good match, or if she felt guilty about taking my first love, but there are no hard feelings there. She and I were friends, but not the super-close kind that have rules about stealing men from one another (and it wasn't stealing since he never wanted me anyway). My only sadness stems from the fact that Adam was one of my very best friends and I have not talked to him in six or seven years. I do miss his friendship, but everything else played out exactly the way it should have.
