This post was originally published November 27, 2015
So I'm at a bar on the Lower East side a few weeks ago with some friends from work. I've let my alter ego take over: she's a girl that's far more social, flirtatious and risky than myself and she only appears when I'm drunk. As this confidant woman, my friend and I start talking to some guys trying to get them to buy us drinks and to get the DJ to play more Prince. Both happened (but I'm pretty sure the shots they bought us were 100% pickle juice), and as they left one of the guys asked if I'd like to hang out again. I lied and said yes, even though I really wasn't interested, and then we exchanged numbers. When I got his text a few days later and remembered what I had promised him, I spent the entire day freaking out about how I was going to let him down. I pestered my friends at work about it, and no one quite understood why I was so scared. I was given the advice to just ignore him, and let him down that way, but this felt mean. I did it anyways.
The anxiety of letting down this stranger wore off, but I was left wondering, why am I the only one that freaks out about having to reject someone? How do people do this all the time? Why is letting down a guy more stressful to me than performing or publishing a #personal blog on the internet? In trying to answer these questions, I realized that my anxiety goes all the way back to high school. You know how sometimes you like someone and he or she doesn't like you back? Well this story is about the time I realized that sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes, someone likes you, and you don't like them back. And sometimes you have to deal with that head on.
So let's #tbt to 2009: I'm sixteen years old, getting into my Izusu Trooper after school on a nice spring afternoon. I had moved my car from the parking lot to the curb in front of the theater during drama class, my last class of the day, so that I can make a quick getaway after the bell rings and avoid the traffic. As I pull out away from the curb, I see someone running towards my car. This person, who I'll call Micah (to protect his identity and also because he was so insignificant to me that I don't remember his name) darts in front of my car, forcing me to slam on the breaks, and taps against my window.
Out of all people to practically force me to hit them with my vehicle, I wouldn't have expected Micah. I barely knew him: he had just transferred to our (public) school from a nearby Jewish school, and knew my good friend Talia from time spent at the synagogue and camp. Talia may or may not have introduced me to him one day at school, but of course, I don't remember. As I said before, Micah was so insignificant to me. We were never friends and we never talked.
So after fumbling over the hood of my moving vehicle, he came up to my driver's side window, and I rolled it down. "Do you wanna go to prom with me?" he asked. This out of breath, sweaty, shaking guy I'd never really talked to had just forced me to hit him with my moving vehicle, gave me a mild heart attack, and then asked me to prom to top it off. He didn't even smile when he asked, it was like he was doing some chore.
Of course, I was very unimpressed. In that moment (and in all other moments to be honest) he was the exact opposite of what I'd describe as cool and sexy. Also, I was sixteen, and the only boys I thought were sexy were emo guys in bands that played at Warped Tour (which I am embarrassed about now). I was practically repulsed to see a non-guitar player huff and puff his way through a proposal post vehicular manslaughter. Needless to say, I was very uninterested in going to prom with Micah.
So why did I say "okay" and drive away?
Me saying yes to something I absolutely do not want to do happens way too often, and it's something I'm still trying to fix in my professional and personal life. The problem really lies in the fact that I'm often too afraid of making waves or getting rejected, so I don't speak up and voice my opinions or concerns. I understand logically that I need to speak up for myself, whether or not what I say is going to make someone upset. Being compliant when my heart tells me "reject!" isn't very punk rock of me.
There's no nice way to say "no" to a guy asking you to prom, and then drive off. And if there is, I definitely was not about to think of it in that hurried moment after almost hitting someone with your car. I said yes in order to placate the situation--to add as little stress as possible to the current moment, and thus deal with the residual stress later. But as we know, putting things off is never really a great solution.
So sixteen year old me just said yes to going to prom with some guy that she doesn't know, and doesn't want to go to prom with, then drove off into the sunset! As I drove away, the panic started building and building as I realized what I had just agreed to. Saying yes felt easy in the moment, way easier than saying no, but in the aftermath, I immediately regretted it. I called Talia, and by the time she picked up, I was hysterical. "Come meet me in the back parking lot," she said, and I drove from one end of the school to another, and found her outside talking to my nemesis, Rohan.
Despite having an openly acknowledged feud with Rohan (that little ass licker secretly loved performing with our drama club but pretended to hate it so he could seem cooler to the jocks) I broke down in front of both of them, and started ferociously crying and explaining what had just happened.
"You're crying because... you got asked to prom?" Rohan asked, totally not getting it. I ignored him and turned to Talia, who in true high school fashion, offered to text Micah for me. I wasn't going to have to deal with this situation! The burden of letting this poor guy down would not be placed on me! I was victorious.
Looking back on it, I do wish I had been stronger and told this guy how I felt initially, but I also still think it's insane that he decided an appropriate time to ask a girl to prom was when she was driving away from school, car in motion. Did he really think that was going to go well? It's not like we knew each other well enough to be like, "yeah, totes lets do prom! chat later about deets!" We didn't chat! Did he think I was gonna pull my car over and run into his arms? Stop traffic so I could dramatically accept his well thought out proposal? It's not like this was the day before prom, he could've easily waited until the next day and then ask me awkwardly in the hallway at lunch like everyone else does! I do recall learning a bit later that I wasn't the first person he asked to prom that year (and I definitely wasn't the last!) so go figure.
So I ended up going to prom with some of my girlfriends, having a great time, steadily ignoring Micah for the rest of my high school career (which wasn't hard since we NEVER HUNG OUT TO BEGIN WITH), and finishing up junior year by starring in a play where I had to be Rohan's love interest. I never ever had to deal with the repercussions of saying yes-then-no-by-proxy to going to prom with Micah.
But I know there's not going to be a Talia around the rest of my life to do my dirty work for me. Though I've used this have-a-friend-text-him trick a few times since then, at 22 I know my days of avoiding confrontation are over. I'm still tempted to make my friends text boys for me, but I know I can't, and I promise that I will not. In high school, and even college, when you tell your friends everything about your personal life and make them get involved, it's kinda cute and fun. In your twenties, not being direct with someone and getting other people involved in your personal affairs is really lame and frowned upon. So the next time a guy asks me to prom (could be any day now!) and I don't want to go with him, I have to be honest and tell him no (unless I accidentally say yes, in which case I should really text him the recanting statement myself).
Strangely, I ran into Micah at Costco a few years ago. My mom and I walked clearly right past him, and I looked straight ahead as if I didn't see. After he walked away, my Mom said to me, "that guy was hard core checking you out!" Of course he was. I responded:
"Yeah. He asked me to prom once."