All That Glitters

All That Glitters

"...beauty is in the eyes of the beholder--and if the beholder finds courtesy, kindness, respect, and integrity to be beautiful--so be it." --C. Adkins

          During my freshman year of high school every female who was on top of her game knew exactly who they wanted to ask them to the homecoming dance even before the school year started. If they were particularly ambitious, they had already planted obvious hints that would, of course, go unnoticed by the male of choice. The males, on the other hand, were still contemplating what they might have for breakfast, and were oblivious to the fact that the females were already planning their entire night for them whether they liked it or not.
          I wasn't one of those girls. At least, that's what I told myself. Sure, I had an idea who I might like to go with, but I didn't actually expect them to ask me. They were always the same type of guy that everyone wanted to go with. They were the "knight-in-shining-armor," "Mister Chivalry Isn't Dead Yet" perfect date kind of guys. Unfortunately for me, no form of  guy like that asked me to the dance. I was asked by someone who, at the time, I thought was the complete opposite. He asked me exactly six days before the dance. Even though it's an ugly thing to say, I admit that I only agreed to go with him because I didn't have a date and I felt a little sorry for him. Luckily, I had been planning to go to the dance even in my "dateless" state, so I already had a dress, the shoes, jewlery, the hair appointment, etc.  The only problem was that I hadn't been planning on anything else. Where we were going to go to eat? Where was I going to get him a boutonniere that didn't look like Great Auntie Muriel's funeral flowers scotch-taped to some basil leaves in under six days? What on earth were we going to talk about during dinner? I nervously contemplated those questions for the entire almost-week leading up to the dance, hoping that some form of deity was keeping at least one eye on me.
          On the night of the dance, I was feeling uncomfortable even before my date graced my parents with his presence. My tomboy-esque body was crammed into a dress, my entire mane of hair was curled tight to my scalp (with the aid of enough hairspray to create quite an explosion if any matches were lit in a twenty foot radius), my nails were painted, and for God's sake I was wearing pantyhose, and I had gone as far as attempting to put glitter in my hair. When your hairdresser tells you that "The only way to really complete your hairdo" is to put glitter in it, they're lying. Don't do it. I decided that this hadn't been the best piece of advice I'd ever received when I exhaled into the glitter container and was promptly engulfed in a throat-clenching, eye-wattering, cloud of silver sparkles. After the sixty-seventh "quick glance" in the mirror, I concluded that he had better be prepared to pay for dinner, because getting ready for this dance had been a lot of work.
          As if my previously-sought-after deity had not yet filled their "awkward" quota for the month, my date was not old enough to drive. Lucky us, we were going to be driven to and from dinner and the dance by his parents, forced to suffer the ultimate freshmeat punishment--parental unit interference. They pulled into my driveway in their bright red mini-van, fully equipped with bumper stickers and a pine tree air freshener dangling mockingly from the rearview mirror. My date hopped out of the sliding-door holding a corsage box and a package wrapped in the brightest purple tissue paper I had ever seen in my life. He put the green and yellow corsage on my wrist where it clashed spectacularly with my red dress. I handed his boutonniere over to his mother, knowing that I was much too nervous to be handling sharp pins anywhere near a living creature, let alone the boy I had to spend the next five hours with. We took pictures near the rosebush in front of my house. It was then that I discovered that while wearing the heels that had been so carefully picked out to compliment my dress I was nearly an inch taller than my date. Trying to slouch enough to be shorter than my date (without falling out of my dress or into the rosebushes) turned out to be very painful experience, and I was more than relieved when the camera flashes were brought to a close. Then it was time to discover the meaning behind the blindingly purple package. Looking back, this is where "Mr. Geek-Date" scored his first credit as a good date. Handling the violent purpleness very gently, he unwrapped the top of the paper to reveal a beautiful orange rose and gave it to my mother, folowing nicely with a handshake to my father, thanking him for allowing him to take me on a date. In order to keep my jaw-dropping from being too obvious, I looked down at the flowers on my wrist and decided that yellow and green didn't really clash all that badly with red, and who cared if I was taller than him? I would end up taking off my heels to dance anyway, so what was my deal?
          I was pleasantly surprised to find that dinner wasn't awkward at all, at least it didn't seem to be for everyone around me. We'd made reservations with two of our mutual friends, so we had other people to talk to besides each other. I was a little embarassed to find that I was seemingly the only one who felt uneasy. When the waiter asked me what I wanted to drink, I responded with "yes," and when we got our food I forgot to put my napkin on my lap until we were halfway finished. Besides my small faux pas, the evening went quite well. My immortal aid had been paying attention like I had hoped.
          I had also expected my date to be the clingy type, the type that follows you around all night, but again I was wrong. He asked me to dance when slow songs came on, and was close at hand the whole night, but he wasn't ever pushy or annoying. He offered to hold my camera and things when I went to the restroom, and he even remembered to ask me if I wanted punch or cake, resulting in "good date credit" numbers two and three. By the end of the night I wasn't feeling nearly as self-conscious as I had when  he picked me up, and I was actually having fun. My friends and I all marveled at how bizarre it was for this nerdy, straight-out-of-the-dictionary geek to be so gentlemanly and kind.
         Before the dance that year I was upset because no one had asked me to go as their date. Then when someone finally asked me, I was upset because he wasn't the stereotyped "gold-medal" date that all my friends had. I had been expecting it to be the worst school dance experience of my high school career, but in reality it was one of the most memorable. While they speak the truth when they say "All that glitters isn't gold," my geek date taught me that even though it isn't gold, it can still glitter.