The Myth of the 3 "L" Llama

OK, so even tho I am beginning this with a picture of llamas I will not shall not must no become distracted into discussing my deep affection for said furry, adorable, cute-bleating, heart-healing, best-sweater-ever-providing amazing fantastic wonderful of all the animals in the llama-blessed animal kingdom.  Whew!  I am doing so good staying on point.  I may deserve a cookie

No, instead my topic will be relationships which should be interesting since even I am not sure where I am going with this one.  In any event, staying focused (lla...nonononono)

High school, looking back on it with the perspective that many years can bring and looked at a light on my current maturity, well, I can honestly say it majorly reeked (as we used to say back then kiddies.)  Some of that, I admit, was my skewed focus.  Or more correctly, my focus on trying to get skewed.  Of course, per my past post regarding such behavior, it was totally motivated by a strong desire for acceptance by females.  And the more time that passed I remained dateless the more strongly the desire grew.

Not that I was without female interaction those 4 years (yes, yay, I made it out on time.)  After all, I was a "super nice guy" and a "great listener" and you could talk to me for hours about how crappy your boyfriend was treating you or help you with editing your essays.  You can have no way to fathom how much the term "nice" when applied to me even today grates on me.  It is so non-committal, so wishy-washy blah bland.  It's like describing the smell of Dove soap or a particularly average sunset.  Girls do not want to date the nice guy.  Where's the edge, where's the danger, what is there to fix?  How boring!  And I pick the word "girls" on purpose because one sign a female has actually reached the stage of "woman" is what formerly seemed boring all of a sudden makes perfect sense.

And then came college, a new frontier filled with "young women" who would see value in me other than a relationship MASH unit where I patch them to return them yet again to the front of worthless dudes.  Oh the possibilities!  Have you figured out just how naïve I was at that stage in my life?  And, yes, grim reality found me yet again as I became a good friend to quite few very sweet and wonderful women, none of whom ever gave me a sidewise glance as being anything more.  The only upside, some of them had figured out that the "nice guy" was the way to go, just another nice guy.  That did make it better.  I so enjoy having women friends who have the good sense enough to pick a guy who treats her proper.  Still, romance COMPLETELY eluded me all 4 years, not the first date.  I sat down and made a list of all the females I had asked out between high school and college and it was over 100 in 8 years.  0 for 100, the Cubs were doing better than me for goodness sake.


I did have a date for my prom so I guess 1 for 101 but I have a tough time counting that one.  Met her on a campus visit, she was from an hour away, we wrote letters to each other (yes, I'm that old darnit!)  And she agreed to attend prom with me, Amber, totally gorgeous, sweet, laughed at my jokes, smelled great.  Of course, dancing close to her all night and then roaming the street of Indy in all its springtime magic (well it had some that night) I completely fell for her.  So much so, and brace yourself here because you may want to smack me, that when I took her back to her parent house, she suggested we go to a place where all the local kids park and well, you know.  I had the chance to cross the great barrier, enter the neutral zone, fire photon torpedoes and what did I do?  Passed it up, too smitten to even consider it, holding her hand alone lit me up.  She stopped writing back a few months later out of the blue, never heard from her again, no call, nothing.  Devastating.
 
But now back to college and my eternal disappointments in the romance department.  Those were very challenging times for me, very sad, angry with myself for being so unappealing, trying to train myself not to think about women with punching myself in the kidneys or giving concrete walls my best roundhouse kicks.  Walking around in the cold darkness of a Peoria winter coatless earning pneumonia for my trouble.  Any pain that replaced the one in my mind would do.  Thanks only to the frightening example my parents had provided the first 11 years of my life I suppose, I never was tempted to numb it with booze or drugs.

By senior year, I had become totally disillusioned with the idea of romance, or maybe frustrated.  Stopped asking anyone out, just kept to myself and a few friends.  And it was thusly for the next 5 years or so.  And that was just as unhealthy as punishing myself had been, but in a much more insidious way.  I was 27 the next time I asked out a woman, and when I had my first date.

And that's where we will end for tonight.  You are kind to have read this much so I will not take advantage of that kindness.  But trust me, much more to come.  If you have 30 more seconds, after the picture, a joke that helps explain my title.  If not, thanks so much for reading.  It means a lot to me.

I climbed to the top of The Mountain of Truth to ask the wise old man who dwelled upon it a question that had been haunting my mind.

"Wise one,"  I began, "please tell me the difference between a one "L" lama, a 2 "L" llama and a 3 "L" llama."

He gazed at me a moment, a soft twinkle in his eye and then answered.

"A one "L" lama is a religious leader"

"A two "L" llama is a furry, horse-like creature."

"And a three "L" llama is a really big fire."  (if stumped, say it aloud)

Thanks again, all.  Hug yourselves twice for me.

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The Myth of the 3 "L" Llama

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