Pooner Diaries: Cool Kid

Birdboy · November 10, 2010

It was long, long, ago and in a more innocent time. I was in high school, and a quiet, shy and bookish student. She was an almost stereotypical cheerleader. Tall, willowy, blonde hair in long, loose curls. Busty. Brilliant icy blue eyes, and many straight white teeth. And when she flashed them at me, I had to look away, the dazzling brilliance of her smile and her beauty making me tongue-tied and shy. She was cool, she was funny, she was at the center of her own little clique in the middle of the whole in-crowd.

She smiled at me, as she smiled at everyone. She had a way of making everyone her friend and putting everyone feel at ease.. that is, it seemed like everyone but me. Without her even trying, she intimidated the daylights out of me. I had a crush on her, as did quite a few of the guys I knew. But I never did anything about it. There was the small matter of her big dumb football-playing boyfriend, and I knew I was terribly out of my league in any case.

I sat next to her sister in one of my classes. She was constantly being overshadowed by her cheerleader sister. I came to realize that she was always trying just that little bit harder. She was bright and fun to talk to and a great pal. We talked every day, in our class. We finished high school, and we parted ways forever. And I forgot all about my cheerleader crush. Or so I thought.

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It was years later, and I was sitting in a movie theatre, waiting for the movie to start. A group of people entered my row, and seated themselves next to me. I looked at the lady who had sat next to me. I quickly recognized her as my old pal, the cheerleader's sister. After the initial mutual surprise, we caught up quickly with old times. And after a few minutes of talking, she dropped a bombshell.

"My sister had this really big crush on you." It turns out that every day, after we had talked in our classes, she went home and they had talked about what I had said. And that she'd given me plenty of hints to approach her, but I just wasn't cluing in, or perhaps I just wasn't really paying attention.

I thought about that conversation for a long time after that evening. I'm happy in my current life. But I couldn't help but wonder about things that might have been. My life might not have been any different if anything had happened back then, but it would have left some interesting memories.

I left high school, and moved on to bigger and brighter things. I lost my shyness. My bookishness helped me in college and my career, and gave me a reserve of knowledge that has always held me in good stead in a lifetime of adult conversation. I grew up, worked out, filled out, and became a man instead of a boy. Became polished, urbane, cultured. An adult.

And oh yes, I also became a pooner.

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She was one of the brightest lights on the review board I frequented. She was a tall, slim nordic delight, with eyes of blue ice wrested from the glaciers of ancient fjords. Long and wild platinum hair. And a rack that would make a priest kick a hole through a stained glass window. I came to know her profile picture well. This glamazon flashed a subtle grin mixed with a come-hither look, as long blonde hair flowed in waves over her breasts.

She was definitely part of the in-crowd. Her cell phone had the numbers of the best, the bustiest, the brightest of the ladies in the business in it, as her friends and acquaintances. But unlike my old cheerleader crush, she never intimidated.

Attractive women are hardly a rarity in this business. But there was much more about her. She had a certain charm. A way of making everyone feel at ease, as though she was just common folk instead of the incredible creature that she was. And she was everywhere on that board. She posted, and posted, and posted some more. She developed an enormous following, and I was among them.

I thought nothing much more would ever come of it. She lived far away, in a city that I rarely visited. And I knew she got much more attention than anyone could ever handle.

But one fateful day, she dropped me a short note, saying hello. And that's all it took. We started a lengthy correspondence. We made such unlikely friends. But we got along much better than I ever would have expected. I realized one day that I had been writing her for so long that I just thought of her as a pal. I'd forgotten that she was so heartbreakingly desirable, so tantalizingly unobtainable.

It was late one night, and we were chatting on the computer. I mentioned that I was going to be passing through her town. Did she want to meet? I suggested drinks.

"Yeah!! I want to get together. But I hope we can have more than drinks."

"You want to have supper?" Gee, I was dense sometimes.

"No, silly. Dessert. "

I paused. I hadn't thought about this before. But it didn't take long for me to consider the possibilities.

"Sounds great! Oh, but one thing. Would you wear a cheerleader outfit for me?"

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Sometimes you can reach out, and pluck a dream back out of your past. You should grasp those times, and squeeze the life out of them. Make that dream real, make it your own. And though you really can't go home again, sometimes you can make things better the second time around.