The Birds and The B String

I don't ever recall having the "talk".   It seemed my step-dad had given me a choice. Girls or guitars.  Seeing that I had made a choice, my step-dad saved his breath. 

He figured any young man who would spend hours with an overly developed young lady wearing a cheer leaders version of a sailor suit, just listening to Chicago records (and one Phoebe Snow LP), would never need to have the talk. 

I feel like I want to say that I was a late bloomer, but a late bloomer for what? Am I required to consort at a certain age? 

When I was in six grade I met a girl I liked.  She was the cutest girl in school as far as I was concerned.  I couldn't wait to take her home to meet my folks.  After they met her,  my step-dad later said to me, "Your friend looks like Tiny Tim".   

I wasn't mature enough to ignore it. I was shattered. Not that there's anything wrong with looking like "Tiny Tim", but now whenever I looked at her, she was replaced with the ukulele troubadour .   I held that against my step-dad for a while and I hated Tiny Tim after that as well.

I became more consumed with music after that.  When you spend most of your time in your room practicing and becoming a dedicated neighborhood band leader,  I suppose it could effect ones social development.    I wasn't too bad, but when it came to the opposite sex, I was too shy, too naive, I just couldn't read the signals.  And whenever I thought I could read them,  the signal always said "Get out of my face".   So I never had a girl friend or I wasn't aware that I had.  I certainly never asked anyone, I would have been too shy for that.   

When I was in high school I met a young lady,  she was as sweet as she was cute.  And she didn't look like Tiny Tim.   We spent a lot of time together. We went bike riding once, I lead us on a route where we ended up pedaling toward traffic on the expressway.  We survived.   

I couldn't imagine flattering myself into thinking that she would officially go out with me.   So I never asked.   That's how it's done, right?   "Will you go out with me?"

I ran into her 30 years later, she hadn't changed at all.   I wasn't sure how to comfortably catalogue our friendship and memories.  So I asked,   "Um… Err… Did we actually go out?"   "Were we uhhhh… boyfriend and girlfriend?"  She was so PISSED.   I didn't know she was my girlfriend. "Really?"  "We hooked up?"  You can do that without asking?   

Apparently I hadn't changed much either.

I had my first official girlfriend in Geneseo.  She came to my apartment one day and never left. I guess we're going out.