Lessons Learned, Lips Burned

I think if I could have one superpower, it would be to learn things simply by being told them, not by experiencing the agony of a very, very wrong choice for myself.

I was a sophomore at college and had lots to learn about women. I had one girlfriend my freshman year...........for 3 weeks. My old man probably thought he'd prepared me adequately, but he probably also thought he understood women, so he was generally delusional. In all of his stories, the women were all 10s and chased him like ants at a picnic, while he remained cool. Those stories and James Bond failed to prepare me for the intricacies of the female brain.

Lisa had never really been off the farm, but she had a lot of enthusiasm for life, which made dating her fun. We hit it off quickly, but dated for a month before she'd agree to be my girlfriend. However, after meeting her folks and getting their approval, I was in! Her folks loved that I'd also grown up on a farm and I called her dad "sir" and that was pretty much all I had to do.

We were inseparable for a few weeks. I'd take her cruising in my convertible Mustang GT and she'd come to my city league basketball games. She was 5'9'' with a rockin' 19-year-old body. For the first time in my life I was smitten AND dating. I couldn't believe she was my girlfriend.

I wish I could've pointed to some extremely smooth move I'd pulled in rendering her affection, but it happened by chance. I took Mindy, who my friend also liked, on a science club camping trip. My plan was to cuddle up to her around the campfire. However, I came down with a cold early in the evening and went to bed early. My friend (some friend he was) swooped in and executed my plan to perfection on Mindy. They ended up dating for 5 years. While this was taking place, I was awakened by several freshman girls collapsing my tent on me and laughing hysterically. I was angered, but softened my stance when I met the primary perpetrator, Lisa.

After a few weeks of blissful dating, she sat with her head in my lap in my convertible Mustang GT on a Thursday night and asked a question that should never be asked by anyone. "Is there anything you would change about me?"

I don't want to place all the blame for my emotional shortcomings at my parents' feet, but at age 20 I was still strongly influenced by my parents. Their ideals had left an indelible impression on me. They were extremely critical of potential mates for my siblings and I with a list of things that should be present or absent in a future in-law of theirs that was a mile long and light-years deep. I had not yet learned to differentiate between defects of character and mild annoyances. I also believed in brutal, unfiltered honesty.

I wish that I had just lied, that I'd taken a softer stance on honesty and put that on the back burner while I fulfilled the more noble aim of withholding emotional trauma from a young girl, but alas it wouldn't be a story if that were the case. Crises averted seldom make headlines.

The thing is, there WAS something that bothered me. It was eating away at me for the full 8 weeks of our relationship. It was easily fixable, had nothing to do with her core character, and therefore seemed like something that she would embrace as constructive criticism. She would change, be thankful for the honest feedback, and would go on her merry way an improved and enlightened individual.

So I said it,

Me: "Babe, you know how sometimes you get a little hair on your upper lip?"

Lisa: "What?"

Me: "You know how you get a little hair right here (touching her upper lip as if to prove the point)?"

Lisa: "You're saying I have a moustache?"

Me: "No, oh no, just, you know, a little hair there."

Lisa" "I...I'm leaving."

Now here again, had things gone differently, it still wouldn't be much of a story, but it got worse. Lisa attended a Thursday night prayer group. When it was time for prayer requests, she relayed our recent conversation verbatim to the group of horrified freshmen girls.

Once again, if the story stops there, then it's not that much of a story. Getting past a couple friends isn't usually a problem because 19-year-old girls will sell out someone close to them in a heartbeat if they suspect he's someone they'd like to marry. However, the communication chain DIDN’T stop there.

The prayer group called her brother, Derek, and told him all about his baby sister’s boyfriend. Derek immediately called her parents, relaying the conversation verbatim. I went from golden boy to just above a sex offender in her mind, her friends' minds, her brother's mind, and her parents' minds. It was a relationship atomic bomb somewhat comparable to impregnating her baby sister.

She called to tell me what happened. I had expected to make some colossal dating errors, but this far surpassed even my expectations.

It took a lot of convincing for her to meet me face-to-face and when I saw her, I immediately knew why. Along her upper lip was a trail of blisters. She'd taken my words to heart and, not having used wax before, heated it too hot, scarring her upper lip. So now I was responsible for not only wounding her emotionally, but also disfiguring her physically. I felt like utter garbage, but refused to give up hope. I convinced her to go out with me one last time, bringing a dozen roses with me, which brought tears to her eyes as I pleaded for another chance. She accepted! I was back in. Her friends, brother, and parents refused to speak to her because of the decision and she still took me back.

This could have been the start of a fiery romance, but it was not meant to be. After 2 weeks of fighting, I went to pick her up for a Friday night date when she told me her brother wanted me to come over for a talk. I suppose if Lisa and I had been getting along I would've gone through the torture, but given the circumstances, I wasn't about to go over to his house. I broke up with her on the spot, hoping to never cross paths with anyone in her family again.

Fast-forward 2 years. I'm in the office of a wealthy real estate developer who I'm interviewing for a class project, but hope to parlay into a job as we seem to have hit it off and he's on the board at my college. After a thoroughly enjoyable 45-minute conversation, I prepare to leave with great information and an excellent shot at a job in a few months when he says to me, "Have you met our new salesman Derek?"