Last night, we watched Freaks and Geeks. At one point, Sam said something along the lines of, “Well, I’m going to ask her to the dance because my dad said sometimes pretty girls aren’t asked because people assume they already have a date.”

I don’t know if I was one of these girls, but my experience with males in high school were slim to nil.

I had a few dates here and there, but I was never a boy magnet by ANY means.

I had one boyfriend. I’ll use the term loosely because we only went on a few dates, the relationship itself lasted a month (though we remained friends after) AND we didn’t kiss. This left me to finally experience my first kiss at age 19, but that is another story for another time.

However, senior prom was my only invite to a dance during that time period. And I’m kind of pleased that it’s the only one because the story is PERFECT.

The awkwardness that surrounds it makes me smile, even though it made me cringe back then.

One sunny afternoon, my sister (who is two years my junior) had upset me, and I stormed back to my beat-up Mercedes in the back of the school parking lot. I climbed into the mint green car, pushed my key into the ignition and let out a high-pitched scream because I was so frustrated.

I had every intention of leaving her at the school to fend for herself. So I pulled myself together, threw the car into reverse and turned to check my side mirror before backing out. Because, you know, I didn’t feel like running anyone over that day.

I was startled to see a boy my age standing right next to my window.

I rolled it down awkwardly, not knowing how long he had been standing there or what he had heard, and asked him what was up.

And he said, “What would you say if a scrawny, curly-haired guy asked you to prom?”

I about died. I was not expecting that AT ALL.

And I mustered up, “Well, I guess I’d have to say yes.”

Because, after all, he WAS a nice guy. And he was the only guy who was going to ask me.

And we ended up having a lot of fun. The group in our car sang “Black Water” while flying down the interstate on the way to the afterparty, everyone breaking into different parts, which is one of my fondest memories from high school.

I just hadn’t thought about the whole (lack of) boy situation in quite some time and was reminded of it last night.

Thanks, Sam, for reminding me just how AWKWARD high school was.