DID YOU LIKE ME TWENTY YEARS AGO?  CHECK YES OR NO 

We all knew them.  At least we thought we did.  They were the people you wanted to date in high school but never pursued because you knew you didn’t stand a chance.  Maybe it was because they were more popular than you.  Maybe it was because you were already friends.  For whatever reason, they were out of your reach.  Then you look back at things you scarcely noticed at the time—a compliment, a thoughtful gesture, a flirtatious remark penned in your yearbook—and you wonder.  Were they just being nice, or were you just being oblivious? 

[Fade in Background Audio: Packing]

My 20-year high school reunion is only a few days away, and as I begin packing for the trip, I’m keenly aware that although I’m not nervous now, I will be before it’s over.

Don’t get me wrong.  High school wasn’t the Traumapalooza for me that it is for some.  I wasn’t on an athletic team or in a rock band, but I was never crammed into my locker either.  I wasn’t voted Homecoming King or Most Likely to Succeed, but I was voted Most School-Spirited and Outstanding Member of the Student council.  I had lots of friends, got along well with most people, and went out on dates.  [Fade out BGA]   I thought of myself as moderately popular (although, as I’m about to find out, I may have been mistaken). 

I should probably point out that for me a date meant dinner, a movie, that kind of thing--Pretty innocent, really.  Because of my religious beliefs, premarital sex wasn’t even an option.  Even so, I wasn’t as cavalier about courtship as some people.  I rarely asked out girls I didn’t know well (unless, of course, I already had it on good authority that they were interested.  The appeal of lowered risk was so powerful, I made exceptions for it).  I don’t recall ever being turned down for a date.  If that sounds like a boast, it isn’t.  I don’t think it made me successful.  I think it just means I didn’t take enough risks.  Even rejection can teach something. 

[Fade in Background Audio: Twins Playing]

A few disclaimers here:  I have a wonderful wife and two great kids, one boy and one girl.  I can’t imagine being happier with anybody else than I am with my spouse.  In these respects, I have no complaints about the way my life has turned out.  [Fade out BGA] 

What I do regret is not knowing.  I’m not sure why.  Maybe I’m just curious.  Maybe it’s the suspicion that I missed out on some fun memories with genuinely likeable people.  Maybe it’s more.  I can’t help wondering what a little extra reassurance might have done for my self-esteem at a time in life when self-doubt has a way of running amuck.  For that matter, who’s to say that a stronger foundation wouldn’t have had a more long-term effect?  That resume’ I didn’t mail.  That contest I didn’t enter.  That long-shot career I didn’t pursue.  What if I had learned that rejection wasn’t all that bad?  What if I had discovered that failure was not the looming threat that I had built it up to be?  Most of us go our whole lives not really knowing whether we’re taking just the right amount of risk or not enough.  Dating is a perfect example. 

All of this brings me back to the cause of my impending nervousness—a nervousness that I can only hope is not hereditary.  When my dad was in high school, he was so afraid to ask my mom out, a buddy had to phone her and pretend to be him.  I can think of at least two girls that I wanted to ask out for a year or two before I actually worked up the nerve to do it.  One of these days my children will face the tooth-and-claw gladiator sport that is dating, and I say the family curse ends here!  I’d love to be able to tell them going in, “Your chances are better than you think”--if indeed they are--but if my kids are anything like I was at that age, warm fuzzies won’t do it; I’m going to need hard statistical data to back me up.

I know there’s only one way to get that data.  I have to do what most people never do;  I have to ask them.  I’m going to go to my reunion, walk up to the women those girls have become, and find out once and for all.  I’ll take a survey and tally the results. 

At first my wife, who can’t join me on the trip because of her work schedule, has reservations about the idea.

WIFE: So you wanna go to your twentieth reunion and ask a bunch of women if they would’ve gone out with you back then?

JEF: Back then, yeah.

WIFE: Isn’t that gonna be a little creepy?

JEF: Well, I was kind of hoping it wouldn’t be…..

WIFE: Are you going through a mid-life crisis? [both laugh]

JEF: No, this is not about getting dates with them now…

WIFE: [Assuming a possessive tone] Well, I know it isn’t.

[Jef laughs]

WIFE: How are you gonna go about doing this?

JEF: Well, the details are sketchy at present, but I think…I don’t know.  I guess I’m just going to go up and ask them.

WIFE: You don’t think you’re gonna come off as, like, you know…..pervy?

JEF: Well, I am a little bit concerned about their husbands because I know some of them are married, and I would have to do it in such a way that they would understand that it’s not, as you say, pervy.  I guess what I’m asking is number one, are you okay with this, and number two, is there a way to do this that wouldn’t come across as . . . uncomfortable?

WIFE: If you could do it in a way that is not at all creepy or kind of, you know, Chester the Molester-ish, okay, but you probably are gonna wanna….We’ll need a third opinion.

JEF: Okay, fair enough.  

She suggests I call Ruth.  When I tell Ruth what I want to do and why, she says, “I think it’s a great idea!  Maybe I’ll go to my reunion in two years and do the same thing.  There were some guys who probably wanted to ask me out, but I didn’t see the signs.”  “See?” I reply excitedly.  “The system’s not working for anybody.” 

After brainstorming a bit, Ruth and I agree that instead of just hand-picking five or so targets, I should ask as many as I can, including some I didn’t even know.  We also agree that if I really want them to be honest, they need the comfort of anonymity.  They need to write down their answer—just their answer—while I’m across the room talking to someone else. 

I write up a form and e-mail it to Ruth.  It’s a fourth of a page, and it reads as follows: 

I’m conducting a research project for a feature on a radio program called This American Life. 

The story will focus on social interaction in high school.  NO NAMES WILL BE INCLUDED. 

Please answer the following question as truthfully as memory allows.

If you did not know me in high school,  please answer the question anyway.

If you’re undecided, please answer “no.” 

If I (Jef Coburn) had approached you in high school (at a time when you were not going steady with someone) and asked you out on a date, how would you have replied? 

The question is followed by square boxes labeled “yes” and “no” (It seems appropriate).

At the end, after the word “optional” in all caps, is a blank labeled “Name.”  I figure since the respondent will already have answered the big question before getting to the name part, she can always leave it blank if she’s checked “no,” so the frankness of the responses won’t be tainted. 

Ruth and my wife agree that the explanation at the beginning makes the survey sufficiently non-creepy, so I copy and cut a neat little stack of them and tuck them in the pocket of a small notepad.  I finish packing for the trip.  Along with the notepad I pack a tape recorder, a microphone, and a toaster oven-sized box covered in red wrapping paper.  It has a slot in the top, and I’ve written the word “survey” on both sides with a black Sharpie. 

The next day I load up my station wagon, strap the kids into their safety seats, kiss my wife goodbye, and embark on my quest for truth. 

Before I know it, it’s Friday evening.  The kids are with my parents, who are saving me the cost of a hotel as well as providing lots of free babysitting.  Our high school’s football game is cancelled because a tropical storm has flooded the field, so instead of starting the reunion there, we meet at a local sports bar. 

Some folks will be fashionably late, but just like in high school I arrive early for the party.  I laugh at how little I’ve changed in this regard.  Then I stop laughing.  This is where the nervousness begins.  It makes no sense, of course.  There’s really nothing at stake here.  We’re all different people now, and there’s no real threat of rejection.  Nevertheless, I’m actually nervous.  That’s when it hits me.  I’m about to do what I was too afraid to do back then.  Even though there’s nothing but a hypothesis riding on their answers, just the fact that I’m finally going to ask them is enough to make me feel awkward and self-conscious.  In a way, I’m making restitution for my cowardice  two decades ago.  I’m facing my demon. 

I sit for a while and come up with several reasons not to go through with this, but I stand my ground.  [Fade in Background Audio: Crowd Sounds]  I walk in empty-handed, hoping that breaking the ice a bit before introducing the survey—not to mention the microphone--will somehow make it all a little less weird.  After a few handshakes and hugs, it’s back to the wagon for my gear.  I’m actually afraid they’ll throw me out of the reunion, even though I know that’s a little silly.  I try to saunter in as nonchalantly as possible.   

As I set the box down on a corner table, Janet shoots me a sly look and asks me what I’m up to.  “I’m glad you asked,” I say as I open the notepad.  Truth be told, I’m not just glad.  I’m downright grateful not to have to be the one to bring it up first.  I hand surveys to her and one or two other women within earshot.   

Another woman stands up from her table.  Now that I know she’s with our group, she looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t recall her name.  For the purpose of this story, I promised her she could pick her own name, so we’ll call her ….Shania.  Hey, a promise is a promise.  She leans over to read what the others are laughing about, so I hand her one too.  They mark their surveys and put them in the box.  [Fade out BGA]  I’m a little surprised by how easy it is. 

Shania shows me pictures of her daughter, who’s roughly the same age as mine.  We chat for a while about our children, our spouses, our jobs.  Then she tells me something that floors me.  She admits that back in high school, she had crushes on three or four guys that she felt were unattainable because they were some of the most popular guys in school.  She says I was one of them. 

SHANIA: I didn’t think I was as popular or that I could go out with a guy like you.

JEF: What do you mean a guy like me?

SHANIA: Well, you were just in a different league than I was, and so I just figured you guys were off limits. 

She tells me she assumed we wouldn’t go out with someone like her.  I ask her what she means by someone like her.  She explains that she was a smoker who hung out on the terrace with the other smokers.  Then she mentions that she lived in the low-rent housing project with her single mom and four siblings.  She quickly adds that her mom did the best she could, holding down as many as three jobs at a time.  It’s clear, though, that at the time Shania felt like people were looking down on her. 

The irony isn’t lost on either of us.  I was someone else’s “unattainable.”  If she were doing her own survey, I would be one of her reasons for doing it.  I tell her I wouldn’t have cared where she lived—that if she had walked up and asked me out, I would have said yes out of sheer gratitude for not having to be the initiator.  “Besides,” I add, “A date was a date.”  She laughs a bit at that.   

It goes without saying that we might not have had a lot in common back then.  Would there have been a second date?  A third?  Would her smoking have bothered me?  Would my religious lifestyle have bothered her?  I ask her how she would have reacted back then if she had found herself dating a fairly conservative Christian.

SHANIA: At that time, with my frame of mind, I probably would’ve ran because it didn’t suit what I was doing right then.  Even though I had…every Sunday I went to church and every Wednesday I went to church because this was what my family was about, but since it didn’t suit me, I didn’t want to deal with it, so I wouldn’t have dealt with it.  No.

JEF:  You say “at that time.”

SHANIA: At that time, exactly. 

Realistically, perhaps none of the people I’m surveying would have become serious relationships.  There’s a difference between open-mindedness and compatibility.  The survey’s not about that, though.  It’s about one date and the courage to ask for that date.  It’s about people I might have known or known better—not necessarily as romantic interests, but as people. 

Shania goes on to say that Rick, a guy from my homeroom, was another one of her crushes.  From my point of view (then and now), Rick really was one of the most popular guys in school.  You couldn’t resent him for it, though, because he was a genuinely nice guy—confident but not arrogant, charming but not phony.  She not only got a date with Rick but went steady with him for a year and a half.  The whole time she was worried his friends would give him a hard time for dating—as she put it—someone like her.  I ask her what brought their dating to an end.  She says he broke up with her.  “Why?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” she says.  “He just dumped me.  I never knew why.”

“Ask him,” I say playfully.

About a half hour later, Rick shows up.  I’m not sure if Shania would ask him about it of her own accord, but she knows I’m not going to give her any peace until she does. 

While Shania’s talking to Rick, I chat with Bonnie for a few minutes and then give her a survey.  Her eyes dart upward thoughtfully as she contemplates her answer.  She says, “I was a really shallow person in high school.  What if I didn’t think you were my type but would have said yes just for the free dinner?”

“Then that’s a yes,” I reply.  This may seem like a loophole, but it’s not.  A first date is always an audition of sorts, and remember, it’s not about finding a soul mate. 

As the evening winds down, I’m a little disheartened about my progress so far.  Some of the women I wanted to question aren’t here.  I’ve only given out about seven surveys, and most people, it turns out, aren’t as brave as Shania about being interviewed on tape. 

[Fade in Background Audio: Dance floor crowd with Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” Playing]

A few people decide to go dancing for a little while, and I tag along—mostly just to hang out. 

My dancing skills have not improved much since high school.  I’m pretty good with my hips and I can follow a beat well, but like a lot of guys, I have no idea what to do with my hands. 

Ben has brought his wife, Joy, who informs me that I can’t spend the whole time in my chair.  She and Shania pull me out onto the floor and give me a dance lesson.   

Afterward I thank them and make some self-effacing remark about my moves.  Joy insists I wasn’t that bad, and then she adds something that makes me feel better, not just about my dancing, but about my survey as well.  [Fade out BGA]

“You got out there and did it,” she says.  “That’s what matters.”  

Before we leave, I ask Shania what Rick said about the infamous break-up.

SHANIA:  He said I broke up with him [laughs], and I don’t remember that.

JEF: So why do you think you remember it so differently?

SHANIA: Well, because he was one of the most popular guys in school, and I so wasn’t, so I guess I just assumed that he broke up with me.  I really don’t remember breaking up with him.  I don’t.  Why would I have?

JEF: But you believe him.

SHANIA: Yeah, I believe him because he was dead serious and he looked at me like “Are you kidding me?”

JEF: Yeah, I don’t think he’s making it up.

SHANIA: No.  And he remembered that day so well.

JEF: It makes me wonder what else we misremember.  Either we don’t remember it clearly or we didn’t perceive it clearly at the time and we just kind of hung on to the false perception all this time.

SHANIA: I so know I don’t remember everything that went on……for various reasons….[both laugh]

JEF: …..that we need not go into here.

SHANIA: Right. 

[Fade in Background Audio: Clubhouse crowd with Talking Heads’ “And She Was” Playing]

It’s Saturday night, and after enjoying a kid-friendly picnic at the park earlier in the day, our class meets once more, this time at the clubhouse of a local golf course.  In the back corner, a DJ plays 80’s music and makes an occasional announcement.  There’s very little actual dancing.  Mostly people just mingle and enjoy the occasion.  [Fade out BGA] 

I talk some more with Bonnie, the self-proclaimed former shallow girl.  We discuss childrearing.  She’s very honest about wrestling with the issues that challenge every parent.  If she really was shallow, she’s obviously outgrown it.  When I mention that I didn’t drink in high school (and still don’t, for that matter), she laughs and says, “I might have to change my answer to a no.”

I play along.  “You can’t,” I say.  “Since you didn’t know me, you wouldn’t have known that until it was too late.”  She sees my logic and concedes. 

I tell Bonnie what Shania said about my being extremely popular and about how surprised I was by it.  She looks at me as if I’m clueless and says, “But you were popular!”  Before the night’s over, I talk to a third woman who says the same thing.  It catches me off guard every time.  It makes me wonder if anybody that age really knows his or her own social status.  Clearly many of us didn’t.  We saw someone as unattainable, never suspecting that someone else—or maybe even that same person—thought of us the same way.  We distanced ourselves from people and told ourselves we didn’t measure up to their standards.  We labeled ourselves rejected even as we did the rejecting.  If we’re mistaken about all this, what else have we got wrong? 

I get to chat once more with Shania.  Twenty-four hours ago we were virtual strangers, but even with a microphone between us, we talk more openly than some people who have known each other for years.

JEF:  What went through your mind when you first saw the survey I was handing out?

SHANIA:  I actually really laughed [laughs], ‘cause it’s so typical of you, from what I remember, but I also understood.  You just wanted to know what people would have said if you would have had the nerve to ask someone out.

At this point I ask myself an unsettling question.  Will my kids even believe me?  Would I have believed it if my dad had said it to me?  I bring up our conversation from the night before to get one more glimpse at what was going through Shania’s mind back then.  Her reluctance to take chances mirrors my own, so perhaps knowing what she would have done with this information will tell me something about what I might have done with it.  I ask her if she thinks knowing the truth would have mattered.

SHANIA: I’d say at least for one date. [laughs]  I can’t promise anything after that, but yeah, I would have went out with you.

JEF:  Let’s say you could know that about 75 or 80 percent of the people that you perceived as being out of your league back then.  Do you think that would have had any effect on you in a more lasting way?

SHANIA: It might have boosted my self-esteem a little bit, but, um, I obviously couldn’t date the whole high school class.

JEF: [joking] That’s not what I’ve heard… [both laugh] 

The party stretches into the late hours.  It seems we still have a lot of catching up to do.  Eventually, though, a bunch of us pose for a group picture, and after that, people start saying their goodbyes.  Shania, Rick, Ben, and Joy all head home.  A while later it’s down to about ten of us.  The clubhouse staff thank us and tell us they’re locking up, so we grab our stuff and sit outside on the patio—the terrace, if you will.  

By the time we’re ready to leave, it’s almost two in the morning.  As we make our way to the parking lot, I pass by some discarded helium balloons and other decorations.  I do something I haven’t done in a long time.  I cut a balloon loose, hold it in my outstretched hand, and let it go.  It rises calmly into the darkness. 

[Break in Background Audio: Car Starting]

As I drive back to my parents’ place, I try to process what I’ve learned about our high school experience and how knowing it might help me now.  The next day I drive home, still mulling it over.  [Fade out BGA]  During the next two weeks, I check several internet job sites and send out a resume’.  I e-mail some women who weren’t at the reunion and ask them the question.  My wife and I begin a six-week class in ballroom dancing. 

One classmate mentions in her e-mail reply that she was kept out of our high school’s National Honor Society even though she had the grades to qualify.  The reason?  She was blackballed because she hung out with the people on the terrace—people like Shania.  I tell her about what I learned from the reunion and suggest that the reasons for barring her might not be what she thinks they were, although they probably weren’t valid or fair either.  I haven’t heard both sides, of course, but if she’s right, it would suggest that sometimes the grown-ups at our school were more cliquish than the kids.

All in all, thirteen women responded to my survey.  Eleven of them said yes, they would have gone out on a date with me.  That’s about 85%.  I think about years from now when I’ll bring this up in conversation with my children.  At that age they may not even want to listen, but I have to try.  I’ll tell them that I know it’s an awkward time for them.  I’ll tell them that they’re not as alone in that awkwardness as they think they are.  I know, I’ll say, because my friends and I went through it and didn’t always make the most of it.  All too often we simply played the game according to the ground rules as we understood them. . . or misunderstood them.  We accepted that there were people we could approach and people we couldn’t.  We knew our place.  We knew ourselves.  At least we thought we did. 

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