Friendiversary

Today's the ten year anniversary of what was probably the single most important event in my whole life.

In 2000, i was a sophomore in high school. I hung out mostly with a bunch of freshmen. Like most single, nerdy kids in high school, there was this one girl that i had a huge crush on, also a lowly freshman, but i was too nervous to ever approach her.

Every day at lunch, my friends and i sat at a table in the center of the far back of the commons. She sat alone, often at a table to the far left from my vantage, about centered between front and back. Though i was of course enjoying my lunch and having a good time with my friends at the table, i'd always be looking at her, and somehow i'd always have a clear view of her diagonally through the parted tables.

This was Amanda.

I found out through my friend, whom i shall now refer to simply as The Worm because it's so damn appropriate, that his and Amanda's mutual friend Alyssa was having a party for Friday the 13th, which was also a full moon, and they thought it would be a good idea to have a seance. Amanda would be attending this party. I did some finagling with The Worm about getting myself invited to this seance party, not because i was interested in the seance, but because, obviously, i was interested in Amanda. I didn't tell The Worm this. I led him to believe that i was genuinely interested in his occult bullshit. Disclaimer: i'm not calling the occult bullshit, this is me retrospectively declaring The Worm's interpretation of the occult bullshit.

The Worm dragged his feet on this for a good long while, saying he needed to check with Alyssa if this would be ok. He kept forgetting, or as i now retroactively believe, "forgetting," until a couple days before the seance, i saw him walking through the school library with both Amanda and Alyssa, and i brought it up directly in front of them. He gave an annoyed sigh, turned to Alyssa, and asked if i could come to the party. This is my first recollection of having ever met or seen Alyssa. She looked at me apprehensively at first, and said, without enthusiasm or really any emotion of any kind, "Sure." It was a very happy moment for me.

When i arrived at Alyssa's house on Friday afternoon, i met several new additions to the cast of characters that was my life, and this is of course the point of the blog. This was where i met Juli, Cyndi, and Ally.

My first ever interaction with Juli was her telling a joke to somebody else at the party, and me standing by listening.

"What do you call two nuts on a wall?" she said.

Her conversation partner, who i think may have been Alyssa, said, "I don't know, what?"

"Walnuts!" she answered. "What do you call two nuts on your chest?"

Alyssa again responded that she didn't know.

"Chestnuts!" Juli exclaimed proudly, then continued: "What do you call two nuts on your chin?"

Alyssa thought carefully for a moment before again denying that she knew.

"A dick in your mouth!"

I really liked this girl, right then and there. While we were at this party i found out that Amanda was actually dating one of my friends that i ate lunch with every day. I can't specifically remember which one, she dated a couple of them during high school, but the fact that i didn't know about it leads me to believe that it was The Worm at the time. None of us really knew this about him at the time, but looking back, it makes so much sense; he never wanted us to know he was dating her because he liked to appear single, so that he could attract other ladies.

In any case, Amanda was now totally unreachable to me. I cut my losses and moved on. In spite of the strange and, in retrospect, mostly stupid, events of that night (which i will not relate today, or probably ever), i started hitting on Ally. This was largely because we were both taking French classes (although her somewhat more successfully than me), and we were trying out some phrases on each other.

The record will show that nothing came of this. I found out later that Juli was interested in me, so i pursued this wholeheartedly. We ended up dating for two and a half years, almost consecutively.

The three of us, Juli, Cyndi and i, remain the closest of friends to this day. Every year on October 13th we get together for dinner for what Juli has dubbed our "Friendiversary."

And, as you all should know by now, Amanda and i did end up together. We've been together for just over seven years now.

So this story has a happy ending. And it all stems back to that one strange, stupid day ten years ago.