I was sure the answer would be YES…

When I was in high school, it was a fate worse than death if the boy I liked actually found out I liked him. Identifying to anyone the person I had a crush on meant they were within a small inner circle of friends that I trusted. It was understood that I would observe my crush from a distance, analyze his every move, blush bright red if he even looked at me, then go home and write about him for hours in my journal.

I was a crazy stalker.

Seriously, there are volumes and volumes of pages written about the boys I liked in high school. The scary thing is, I knew next to nothing about any of them. Whatever I didn’t know, I would just make up based on not-so-casual observation and half-conversations I would hear about him.

Mostly I was like this because back then I had no confidence in myself. But I was young and awkward and stupid but one day I grew up and all of that changed.

I remember when I was about 27 there was a guy I thought was pretty cute. He was a friend of a friend and I will call him Alex for the purposes of this blog. One New Year’s Eve, I was invited to a party Alex was attending and he basically spent the entire evening talking to me, then walked me to my car in the wee hours of the morning, carrying some of my things out to the car for me. I felt pretty certain there was a spark there, and even more certain when he invited me to his super bowl party a few weeks later. Again we spent most of the day talking, so it was a no-brainer to me that he would be calling me and asking me out at some point after that.

I waited a week. Then two. Then I decided I was just going to call him. I knew what they said about guys liking girls with confidence, but that’s not why I did it. I did it because I thought he was too shy to call me and I really wanted to go out with him. Once I made up my mind, I really didn’t hesitate. I picked up the phone and called. He answered the phone and I went through the usual small talk before asking him if he wanted to get together sometime and go out to a movie or something.

I was confident in my delivery because I really thought there was no way he was going to say no. But that’s exactly what he said. Well, it wasn’t exactly a no, but it was some equally dismissive response, like he would let me know sometime or maybe he would give me a call. Of course he never did. I knew a blow-off when I got one and that’s exactly what he was doing.

I crumbled up his phone number and threw it away. The next day I was slightly embarrassed when I had to tell my best friend how the conversation panned out, but that was pretty much the end of any conversation with or about Alex.

Within a month of my conversation with Alex, I was dating the man I would eventually marry, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But I was thinking about how people react when they don’t get the date they thought they were going to get. How many people just forget about it and almost forget that it ever happened? How many people allow something like that to really hurt their self-esteem? How many continue to pursue the person, possibly becoming someone they’re not or just trying over and over again to prove to themselves they can get the person they wanted?

I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, but I started thinking about it as I was thinking about some of the characters in the Jessica Summer Series. Those of you who have read “Love, Emily” know that Jillian was crazy about Adam to the point of literally being crazy about Adam.

I don’t think I would ever go to extremes for a guy who rejected me even once. What about you? Have you been more persistent than me (but less persistent than Jillian) and what were the results? Did you get the guy and live happily ever after? Did you get the guy and realize he wasn’t someone who was worth fighting for to begin with? Did you continue to pursue and never get the guy? Or did you just take no for answer the first time and move on to someone amazing?

I’m curious to know how other people have handled rejections from the opposite sex. If you are so inclined to comment, don’t worry, I promise I won’t write you into any of my stories without your permission!