As he gazed deep into her eyes, she passionately sang. She sang of hope, of joy. She sang of love. And he thought, Huh, I’m gay after all. Dad was right
Look, I think we all know how these things go. You either take no action, or you shoot your shot and get shot down, incurring lifelong debilitating embarrassment.
The little old Mexican lady who organizes events at my Church put this young woman who was new in town with me on decorating the hay rides for Fall Fiesta.
If you ask my wife, she'll tell you it was my sense of humor, faith, and dedication to nature that made her fall in love with me, but I know it was watching me chucking hay bails around that sealed the deal.
Probably nothing happened. I was a straight guy in a choir/theater thing with my church when I was a teenager. There was a girl who apparently liked me. (It should have been obvious as she was always around and would sit and watch when I played the piano, but I was dumb)
We both were 17 at the time, and my choir director, a sassy middle aged gay man, assigned us to be dance partners for a choreographed routine during a song. We were holding each other, touching each other, sweating together, and making eye contact for hours every week for like 3 months. One morning, when we were traveling around a different state doing performances every day, my choir director sat with me at breakfast.
This was weird as he usually sat with the other adult chaperones. After some small talk he was like "Hey, what do you think about Sally?" And I replied "Oh she's awesome. Really nice and fun to perform with." My choir director was like "Mmhmm, that's good. Do you think she might have a crush on you? I noticed she hangs out with you a lot" and I immediately responded "Oh no, we're just friends." And he sighed and said, "So, you don't see Sally that way then?" And I thought about it for a moment.
I had never in my life had a girl like me. (Or maybe I had and also didn't know) I never considered Sally was even an option I had such low self esteem. I finally told him "Well, if she did like me I would for sure date her, but I don't think she does" my choir director leaned forward and said "I really think you should consider that Sally might have a crush on you, and that's all I'll say." And he got up and went back to the adult table.
I thought about what he said and concluded that he was mistaken and there was no way Sally liked me as more than a friend. Later, after I had graduated highschool, and Sally had gone on to college in another city, one of our mutual friends asked me why I never asked Sally out. I was like "What do you mean?" And he said "Oh Haley told me that Sally had been crushing on you for like 2 years straight but just figured you weren't in to her"
That's fair honestly, but in her defense this was back in 2007 and I was in a very religious and conservative town...I don't know how socially acceptable it would have been for her to make the first move. She might have felt like she couldn't.
I don't think its dumb, its partly self defense and partly matching their energy - if they never make a move or show an unmistakable sign or put their ego at risk of rejection why should you?
Dumb is when your crush asks you if you like them and you say no because you're in front of mutual friends and worried you'll be humiliated. That's dumb.
I think you’re just supposed to wait until you and a lady are sharing plate of spaghetti, and without realizing it, both of you start eating the same noodle.
That’s probably how 85% of relationships start, right?
I had a friend like that, too touchy, close, flirty and what not. We both were 25, I liked her since I first saw her and I really wanted to date her to marry. Even my last ex was not that flirty/touchy like her.
After all this, I proposed her and she said that she was just overfriendly and I was mistaken.
After this, I met two more, I always had the confident to approach and ask out and so, I did. And they taught me the same thing.
Eventually, I learnt a fact or drew a boundary, if a woman is interested in me and if she doesn't say it directly, I'm not interested.
It's not our fault, we read it every where that women who talk nicely, smiling shouldn't be approached. Hence, I consider any and every "sign" as overfriendlyness now.
Yes, I had friends before and after Sally that I was pretty sure liked me but when I asked them out it was like nope she's just friendly. You just get to point where you assume no one will like you, and then when I would get hit on at a party or concert I was just thinking "Oh they're just drunk and hitting on anyone that walks by"
I'm 35 now, and happily married, so I eventually found the right person, but I still struggle with not feeling good enough. Therapy helps!
Every girlfriend I ever had came after me first. My first girlfriend cornered me in an elevator and outright asked if I wanted to go out with her.
My second, who went on to become my wife, saw me in the hallway at school and remarked to her friend that I was cute. She didn’t realize that I had a class with her friend, so he was comfortable with me. He marched right up to me, pointed at her, and said, “She thinks you’re cute. Do you want to go out with her?”
She was so mortified that all I saw of her was her rapidly retreating backside as she fled to the girl’s bathroom, but it was a very nice backside, so I agreed.
To make matters even better, I lived pretty close to the school and rode my bike every day. She had a car. We figured we’d meet at my place, so I told her how to find my house and said I’d be there a minute later on my bike. I specifically warned her that my street was hard to spot, but was immediately after you leave the school.
She drove right past it, and she was so nervous that she panicked and decided to just keep driving and go home. But I was an avid cyclist, and a 17 year old who wasn’t about to let my cute new girlfriend drive away in embarrassment. I sped after her car on my bike and actually caught up with her almost a mile later. She was mortified, but I reminded her that my street was really hard to see, and we went back to my place.
25 years later, we’re still together. Thank goodness for all that time I’d spent riding a bike. My kid wouldn’t have been born if I hadn’t been able to keep up with a car!
Yea…But that could be either direction. I have two kids who got into acting when they were 8-9. They still got their weird ass crushes, even when they didn’t have a framework for what it means.
I’m assuming a children’s theatre, given that they’ve got a lead role. The age range there is usually like 7-17 (there’s almost always a hard cutoff).
Well maybe, the community theater programs I joined in the past (when I was a kid and teen) were generally only for kids and or teens. So there are age specific groups.
And Juliet is 13. I can see casting an older Romeo if you were going off age for Juliet also but if you cast a correct age Juliet wouldn't you cast a correct age Romeo?
Yeah, I wouldn’t be super sus about community theater like I would anything church related as far as attracting actual predators…
But I did crew for community theater when I was 16, lights mostly, definitely had some older ladies get not so subtle about nailing down my exact age after a few drinks at wrap parties…
I was maybe 14 or 15 when I did some community theatre. There was other people there who were 18-24ish and several older ladies like 40+ who were pretty handsy.
Basically DD was fixing a glitch in the universe with what’s called a closed time-like loop where things can loop backwards in time as long as the outcome isn’t changed. Frank was extremely improbable but not impossible under these circumstances, and was necessary to achieve the necessary outcome. Or something like that.
The rabbit is just a manipulated dead, Frank died in his Halloween costume hence the rabbit get up. And anyone who dies within the tangent universe gets to aid the living receiver from a bit of a meta position outside of the loop.
THANK YOU. I have always said this. When I saw the movie, which my friends made a huge deal about, I did go online to figure out what it meant because I thought I had missed something. No, just pretty standard time travel. I had been making it all kinds of complicated other than that because of how notoriously confusing it’s supposed to be, but I was wrong.
I remember watching it and thinking "Oh neat the twist is that we don't know if it's paranormal activities or just an unreliable narrator with psychosis". Looked into it and was just like "Oh yeah, pocket dimensions with time loops and doomsday artifacts are entirely real and a fact of the story" still fun but I kinda liked the ambiguity more.
You missed the whole another point of the movie with religion, fear mongering and overworked teachers. The time travel is not the main theme of the movie imho
As a time travel/science fiction film it's just fine.
As a commentary on religious teaching influencing public education, it's pretty on point. Plenty of adults are put into positions of authority over children that just have no business being there. What I quite like about the film is that Donnie has pretty good parents; it's the other adults in his life that are awful.
You’re not wrong, but I’m not talking about themes, I’m talking about plot in reference to the commenter who said, “…and a plot you can’t understand without opening a Wikipedia page.” I just don’t think that’s actually true and was ultimately a letdown for me.
Maaaan. Long story short, this was the only DVD my buddy and I had for a while. We watched it every single night for 3-4 months and figured out every iota of the plot. Still one of our greatest achievements lol.
I had a teacher who legitimately did this. He had all the boys sit alone, and all the girls stand. One by one, the girls were to decide who to sit next to, while he made creepy comments about their choices.
My crush sat behind me and did that manspread thing where he put one leg on either side of my chair to stretch them out a bit and my weird, creepy 14 year old brain loved every minute of it.
Yes, there’s a newer episode where Gene joins a community theater production and Mr
Ambrose is in the play and fills Linda in on all the cast and crew drama.
My high school art teacher did this to me. And, you know… he was right. But I was so terrible at it she had no idea. Once things had been clarified we actually did briefly start dating.
lol my teacher called me out in algebra and said “_ stop staring at _’s legs!” and I was embarrassed and apologized after class and joked “you can’t blame me you have great legs!” Anyways, I ended up taking her to home coming. Thanks Mrs. Gilbert!
Lil homie had irreversible social anxiety long before the teacher said anything. If you get anxiety by being accused of flirting you are already damaged beyond repair.
Or it could be that what OP mentioned was just one of the many things Miss Doyle did that gave social anxiety. I was a very confident guy, one of the cool kids, but I had this one teacher in English class that gave me and everyone else massive anxiety.
We read aloud and went around the room, reading a page each. She'd berate people for their bad reading. I was a Swedish immigrant in Ireland and had terrible english initially, and was not a good reader. She didnt give a fuck. She would tell me I was useless. Not constructive at all, just putting everyone down. She was intelligent, but just way too brutal. I am a great public speaker today after spending time in the military, but no thanks to her.
Many kids in that class were permanently damaged because of her and developed lifelong fears of public speaking.
Yeah, I'm all for putting people in challenging moments like presenting in front of class or having to organize fellow students and reading aloud. It does require a certain vulnerability, and teachers should be better about not stabbing us in the soft spots when we are in those moments.
Like, I had a teacher who had no qualms with expressing how much disappointment she had in me, and kept comparing me to my older sister. Luckily the teachers that followed were fantastic and the overall experience taught me that one shouldn't listen to authority figures all the time. But that was a silver lining at best.
Nah dude, having someone be like "why are you flirting with that person" when you were just talking to them normally is a recipe that will cause you to question every interaction you'll ever have, and ever had.
You don't see it as an issue now because you know better than to give someone else's opinions that much credence, but as kids those moments can and will define you.
Other similar ones:
When expressing something you're passionate about and they hit you with the "I don't care." or the more recent "Didn't ask."
When teasing someone and someone else asks why you were being so mean.
When chatting with someone and they abruptly say "I have a boyfriend/girlfriend".
When using relatively normal varieties of words and someone says your abusing the thesaurus.
When you have a slight interest in something and someone says you're trying too hard.
When you atypically get along with a group that you shouldn't and you get called a "pick me".
The list goes on.
It's easy to say "just ignore them, lmao" but that is so easy to say on the far side of personality development.
I had the opposite, the director started writing the scripts so me and the guy I had a huge embarrassing crush on were never on stage together because I couldn't say any lines to him without turning scarlet
I was a very sheltered 15 year old in my defense, he was one of about 3 boys my age I knew 😭
I had this verbatim happen to me in 9th grade, complete with the straight male cutie and the problematic drama teacher!
We actually gave it a go - he broke up with me after 2 months because he (a 16-year-old) "preferred older and more interesting women" 🤣 It gave me some sort of complex for awhile.
I used to manage teenagers in an old job and sometimes you have to entertain yourself. To teenagers everything is the most important thing ever and they don't have any chill.
I would take the two girls who openly hate each other and make them work together because either they would work it out or I would have free entertainment. And I needed to entertain myself most days. Or put the three obvious potheads together and see how they get through the situation. Not like I wasn't high the entire time as well.
I would gaslight them so fucking hard about shit. Just for fun. Was I wrong for it. Yes. Did I care at the time. Hell no.
I was young and depressed. I had to find some joy in life.
Also made me realize I shouldn't be in charge of people. I was definitely a villain.
My husband always likes to tell the story of a girl he had a mutual crush on in middle school, they had three classes together and he thought it was an entire coincidence that they sat next to each other in all three classes, didn't even realize it was not a coincidence when the seating chart got refreshed in 2 of the classes and they were still sitting next to each other.
My debate coach was a subtle matchmaker and was very good at it. She quietly encouraged at least 5 different couples that ended up getting married, including pairing my now-husband and I together. Looking back, we both agree that she was very good at identifying who would work and encouraging us to spend time together without making it feel overt.
7th and 8th grade I had the same teacher for some classes. Also in same classes was the girl I had a HUGE crush on. This teacher had assigned seating and would switch it up every quarter, but every quarter I was sat next to her while the rest of the class was shifted around. Man was it brutal as a scrawny little nerd. Xmas of 8th grade I sacked up and got her a gift, it was a necklace with a little teddy bear charm. When I gave it to her she laughed and made a scene before giving it back and walking off. Broke me for a long long time.
Im a professional wrestler. My wrestling trainer will put together two shows on the same day. The evening show is a proper wrestling show with really experienced guys
The morning show is for the newer students of the school to get them used to working in front of a live audience. These shows are usually terrible but the audience is mostly made up the wrestlers family and friends
My trainer told me once he will either book two promising students or a good student and an experienced guy because he knows they'll put on a good match
Or he'll book two absolutely terrible students because he wants to watch a car crash and he loves shit wrestling
I had a prof in college who was this young quiet dorky type guy. He was pretty good as a professor though. I felt like there was this strange similarity between the two of us. And I think he may’ve picked up on the fact that I was a quiet guy dorky guy as well.
He assigned a group project to us and chose the groups himself. There were these two girls in my class who were extremely pretty. He put me in a group with them.
12 years later, I’m in a 12-year long throuple with those two girls. Just the other day, I was walking in the park with my two ladies. We passed this guy who had a strange familiarity. He was a middle aged quiet dorky type guy. We made eye contact as he passed. We both nodded. Then this goose came up to me and gave me 20 dollars.
Can we please speak about her posting a single eight-line-sentence entirely in lowercase with no punctuation except for stylishly questionable ampersands?
There's this stereotype of "drama club kids" being hopelessly asexual, but it couldn't be more wrong. During my (very) brief teaching career, I foolishly volunteered for drama club AND mathletes, thinking it they would be easy to manage. Sooooo wrong.
The list of shenanigans would shock you. I felt like I should bring buckets of ice water to rehearsals, so I had something to throw at all the couples who thought they were the only ones to discover the fact that the costume loft had a couch. Our production of South Pacific had two pregnancy scares and so many hookups and breakups that I actually lost track of who I had to keep away from whom.
Best story: While she was singing "I'm going to wash that man right out of my hair," the girl who played Ensign Nellie Forbush shot eye-daggers at the (offstage) boy who cheated on her with the props master, causing a major kerfluffle that threatened the entire production. The entire school knew the story, so the audience uproar was deafening. Parents were like "why is the entire auditorium screaming hysterically?"
In my hometown the 16 year old girl ended up getting groomed by the 40 something man who I suspect joined community theater specifically to get close to young girls. And the 16 year old was a mini sized teen who could have passed for 12. And she was best friends with this man's daughter. Obviously that family was destroyed forever. Oh and because the man was a well-liked member of the community, people basically put their heads in the sand and let it happen. It was only really me, a friend of mine, and another lady who called the dude out, and people kind of acted like we were the troublemakers.
Parents: community theater can be a great opportunity for your kid but I BEG OF YOU to please be very careful about the adults there.
I do wonder sometimes how often teachers do stuff like this to amuse themselves or to ‘help out’ someone they know has a crush, like sitting two people together, or grouping some people who they know have drama etc. An observant teacher could totally socially engineer the hell out of a class of hormonal teenagers if they wanted to.
Reminds me of my own high school experience. Only, she had just rejected me before we learned we were playing the couple with the kissing role. I still remember how shocked my friends and I were when the teacher read out the roles. As I was usually type-cast as the father because of my height and voice, not the love interest.
School teachers can be far too invested in kids relationships sometimes, I had several teachers who were always trying to keep up with the gossip and relationship drama of middle and high schoolers and that’s just weird to me.
Remember kids, some managers and leaders are like this. You have no clue in the world that they are playing with your life. And they have no idea how evil it is. They will casually just tell you "I was bored, so I made you do this." Let that sink in.
Dont ever feel bad for asserting yourself, leaving things, and designing your life how you want. It's fuck or be fucked. Zero in between.
Look, I'm not one of those pick-me guys, but I have seen opinions concerned about the straight guy's feeling in all of this. If this had been a guy being cast opposite a woman the director knew he liked, you'd all be singing a different tune. Why would it be okay for this socially awkward situation that would potentially ridicule the cis male and not others? I'm genuinely curious to know the consensus.
So, we're all assuming the crush was also thirteen, and this is a cute story. But that is never specified. If he was twenty, totally different situation.
I've walked out of a guy's house for less than this. Don't put up with someone who thinks they can tell you it's your fault they criticize you in a vulnerable, intimate moment.
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u/Greedy-Year8384 1d ago
Well, were the efforts of the director in vain? Did they get together? Ive been left in suspense!