Awkward (ˈôkwərd): Adjective

Submitted by Kevin:

In high school, I had a crush on a girl named Paula. She wasn’t really my type – she was more of an athlete and I was just a dork. But my hormones propelled me forth and I pursued her.  Back then, I didn’t always think before opening my mouth. During our first date, this proved to be quite unfortunate.

We were having dinner at a Chinese restaurant and I was trying hard to be charming. I’m sure it just came off as desperate and awkward, but I was very inexperienced.

At the end of our meal came the fortune cookies. She opened hers up, and as I was opening mine, I said, “It’ll probably say I’m going to get hit by a car or something.” Yep, stupid joke. She suddenly got up and rushed away from the table.

As I sat there trying to figure out how such a dumb joke had upset her, it hit me like a bolt of lightning: her brother, a few years before, was struck by a car and killed.

I felt like the world’s biggest idiot. Such a dumb joke to make in the first place! And then to realize how badly I had jammed my foot into my mouth...

She returned to the table maybe 20 minutes later and I immediately began apologizing profusely. She really was a nice girl and took it in stride and accepted my apology. But I knew that my already slim chances with this girl had just shrunk even more.

Even afterward, Paula continued to be friendly towards me so I entertained the idea of still having a chance with her. As I said, she was athletic, and one day she asked me if I wanted to go running with her around her neighborhood after school. Again, I was an awkward, out-of-shape dork. But, liking her as I did,  I readily accepted her invitation.

I drove her home after school, we changed, and off we went. I’m sure she must have been laughing to herself because I had no idea what I was doing. I did manage to keep up with her but she was probably running slower than usual for my sake.

Then, about a mile from her house, it hit me. Gastrointestinal pain the likes of which I had never known in my short life. I tried to go with it, thinking it might fade if I just kept running, but every ten feet or so I felt like a knife was twisting inside my gut.

Finally I had to fess up and I asked her if we could just both walk back to her house as quickly as possible.  I made it back without any accidents, but I spent the next 45 minutes creating a stench in her bathroom that would likely unnerve the most stoic of crime scene investigators. All the while her mother kept knocking on the bathroom door to make sure that I was okay.

Once I was finally done, I thanked Paula and her mother and slinked on out to my car, my face glowing with embarrassment. Paula was thereafter always friendly to me throughout high school, but that would be the last of our “dates.” Can’t blame her in the least.