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Open Mic: Love in the Time of Acne

Norman Rockwell through Creative Commons

Seventh grade was not a good look for me. Physically, mentally, hormonally, and sartorially - I was a mess. My body was at war with itself: my voice cracked, my face was broken out, and my arms and legs felt like hand-me-downs from a much lankier, less coordinated, older sibling.

I wore plaid Tuff 'n Ruff pants. They would fit fine at the store, but by the time I wore them to school my sprouting body would turn them into capri pants, with 3 inches of white sock exposed beneath the hem. Snug capri pants. I complemented them with horizontal striped, earth-toned, crew neck shirts my mom bought at Hills department store, thick, tortoise-shell glasses, and greasy matted hair.

In retrospect, I think I was actually a hipster. Before it was cool.

Had it not been for my acne, and imbedded-shrapnel-of-today's-lunch braces, I could have easily fit in as the keyboard player for some self-important indie band with a name like "Goat Hoof" or "Swaddled Sonnets", but as a semi-pubescent seventh grader, none of this was good.

Fortunately/unfortunately I was blessed/cursed with the gift of having absolutely no self-awareness. Sure, I was wracked with insecurity and self-doubt, but I had no idea what a mess I truly was, and how I came across to others. This, I'm sure,was mainly a defense mechanism, but also because my mind was focused elsewhere. It was because, for the first time in my life, I was in love.

Jenny Stewart was a new transfer in seventh grade. There were only 40 people in my grade, and most of us had been together since kindergarten, so to get any new student was a pretty big deal. But to get Jenny- this blue-eyed, blonde-haired, high-cheekboned goddess, this elegant fountain of gasoline that cascaded upon my sparking pubescence- this was the greatest thing that had ever happened.

I tried to befriend her, but whenever I was around her, or even staring at her from across the room, my face would flush and my stomach would feel all tingly and gooey, like I was filled with warm honey and jellyfish. My nervousness, awkwardness, physical attributes, and my sense of humor (in which gross=funny), all somehow failed to win her over to Team Tommy. I suffered from a common malady of seventh grade boys: thinking that the more disgusting something was, the more hysterical it was. Boogers, farts, dead babies, and starvation in Africa were all rich veins of humor, and nobody mined them more deeply or frequently, or crossed the boundaries of good taste farther, than I did.  I was determined to be the funniest/grossest boy she had ever met. I succeeded, but only halfway. It seemed that seventh grade girls did not share the same sense of humor as seventh grade boys. Jenny thought I was disgusting. She was not wrong. But her low opinion of me only made me want to win her over more desperately, which made me more nervous, which made me more obnoxious, which made me more unlikable. It was a vicious circle and I knew it, I just didn't know how to stop it. How was I ever going to win her heart?

In February, the 7th grade girls were doing a fundraiser for the Spring Dance. It was announced that for $1.00 you could buy a "Love-Gram". The 10 or so girls in our class that were in Music Club were going to sing six songs on Valentine's Day, and for a dollar you could dedicate one of the songs to someone. Before each song they would announce the dedications, and the recipient would receive a heart-shaped, paper memento. This, in my hormone-addled brain, was perfect. This was how I was going to break the cycle and show her the REAL me.

My plan was to buy a song for Jenny, but send it anonymously. A song that not only expressed how deeply I felt about her, but that also captured my sensitivity, my non-grossness. She would get the Love-Gram and be curious. Intrigued. "Who is this mysterious, caring person that feels hopelessly devoted to me?" she would ponder for hours each night before falling asleep. My plan was to let her wonder, filled with gnawing, tingling curiosity, until I would finally confess that yes, it was I. Then, as pleasure and gratitude washed across her face, I would ask her to be my date to the dance. It seemed like a perfect plan, but I was still a little worried. What if she still said no? What if I was still too gross? I had to make myself even more desirable. But how? Being polite and showering regularly somehow never crossed my mind. But what if I was desired by someone else? That was it! My plan was now foolproof. I was going to buy TWO Love-Grams, and send one to myself.

The Love-Gram was a dark red page of construction paper, cut into a heart shape, and decorated with doilies. There was calligraphic writing, and blanks to fill in the particulars of the dedication. I was considering buying myself a few different songs- to make me seem extra desirable- but the way all the girls got quiet when I asked for two stopped me from being greedy. At home that night I filled them out.

SONG: Hopelessly Devoted To You

TO: Jenny Stewart

FROM: Anomynous

SONG: Hopelessly Devoted To You

TO: Tommy Sarvay

FROM: Anomynous

I filled out the one to Jenny with block letters, and the one to myself I wrote with overly girly, curly-cue letters, and all the "A"s were heart-shaped. But, yes, in my haste and nervousness, I misspelled Anonymous.

Twice. Using the same pen. On the same song.

Blissfully unaware of this,  the next day I slipped the Love-Grams into the "Love Mailbox" - a shoe box the girls had painted. I was really nervous, but also exhilarated. The greatest plan of my life had been set in motion.

Valentine's Day arrived, finally, a week later. By the time we were taking our seats in the auditorium much of my confidence had atrophied. I had had time to think about what I was doing, to overthink about what I was doing. I realized I was never going to have the nerve to ask her to the dance, and I wondered how I ever thought any of this was going to work. But I tried to remain a little hopeful. I would no doubt see her at the dance- maybe I would bump into her on the dance floor, both of us a little breathless and a little sweaty, and I would tell her then. Right before they announced "Slow dance, couples only." I tried to focus on this, and not my mounting anxiety, as the girls took the stage.

Hopelessly Devoted To You was the third song they sang. As Gwen read out the dedications I discovered I wasn't so uniquely sensitive- four of them were called before she got to either one of mine.

Finally "To Jenny, from..." she paused. "AnoMyNous."

"Anomynous"? That's not even a word! Don't you know how to say anonymous? Wait. There have been several dedications from "anonymous" already, and all of those were pronounced correctly. Why are you screwing up MY DEDICATION?!

"To Tommy Sarvay, from..." She more than paused. She completely stopped, leaving everyone hanging.

When she spoke again, it was in slow motion, over-enunciating. "AhNAHHMINNous." For a few brief, beautiful seconds, I was just confused. Then, the sickening realization hit.

I had to walk down to the stage to receive my Love-Gram, and with each step I took the more horrifying and concrete and dizzying reality became. I had been found out. I was the boy that sent himself a love song. A really sappy love song. I couldn't imagine how this was all going to play out, but I knew it was horrible, and I knew that I was tainted for life.

There were six of us walking toward the stage, but all eyes in that auditorium were on me. When I got to the front Jenny was standing only a few feet away, but I was afraid to look at her. "Tommy, here's yours," Gwen called to me from the stage. As she handed it to me she grinned. "We're pretty sure we know who sent this to you."

I knew that I was totally busted, but I tried to sound innocent. "Really?! Who?!"

All the girls started laughing. All the girls except Jenny. "Jenny, here's yours." Gwen handed her hers. I tried to sneak a surreptitious glance to see her reaction, but she was staring directly at me, a glacial death stare.

She hated me.

I tried to force a nervous, please-don't-kill-me smile at her. Somehow, this made my voice crack. She kept her eyes on me, and right then, right there, in front of the whole auditorium, in front of all the girls on the stage, in front of a greasy, sweaty boy with horn-rimmed glasses and tight plaid coulottes, she ripped her Love-Gram in half and let it drop to the floor. Then she turned and walked back to her seat: defiant and empty-handed. I slowly started walking back to mine: head lowered, clutching a scarlet construction paper reminder that I would never, ever, have a girlfriend.

The ridiculously overt symbolism of getting my heart ripped in half in front of everyone was completely lost on me. At the time it happened she was adding insult to injury, but she was not, in fact, breaking my heart. At that moment the desire for Jenny to love me was but a tiny blip on my Maslow Hierarchy of Needs. I was a laughingstock, about to be the butt of a thousand jokes, a fool. My school was small and tight-knit, and that meant there was nowhere to hide and this was never going to go away.

Years from now people would see me and say "Hey! Aren't you Hopelessly Devoted To Yourself Sarvay?" My impending life as a pariah far outweighed any sense of loss that the prettiest-girl-ever didn't love me. But, it all sucked. The girls on the stage were kind enough to make sure I was back in my seat before they started singing the song that haunts me to this day.

The money I spent on those Love-Grams was the worst two dollars I, or anyone else in history, have ever spent.

The ripped heart symbolism was not, fortunately, lost on my classmates. What Jenny had done was harsh. Too harsh. It ended up changing the whole conversation. What people remembered about that day became much less about my shallow, narcissistic idiocy, and much more about the public humiliation I had suffered. Many people were actually sympathetic. Jenny, not so much. We didn't speak for a long time. But as the weeks passed her anger faded into indifference, her constant glares stopped, and she just ignored me. My shame around her faded into just insecurity, not knowing how to break the icy silence, or how to ever begin to speak to her again. I didn't mind that she wasn't speaking to me, that didn't really matter, but I was really frustrated that I couldn't express myself to her. I had a LOT to say, and it seemed unfair that I wasn't "allowed" to. I decided the best thing to do would be to write her a note.

When I finally sat down and started writing I pretty much just emotionally vomited on the page. There was quite a lot pent up in me at that point, and I just let it all go. I started off by apologizing to her- I felt terrible for her embarrassment at being dragged into the center of my Love-Gram fiasco.

I thanked her for ripping it up- she had unknowingly done me a huge favor, it was the best possible thing she could have done. And I told her how magnificent I still thought she was. I laid it on pretty thick, thinking that if she saw how much I still cared about her after all that had happened she would have to know that I- that we- were special.

When I finished I dropped my pencil, and took a deep breath. Then I read what I had just written. As I read I started shaking my head, knowing immediately that it was no good. I crumpled it up, threw it in the trash, and started again. This time I made sure to include some dead baby and fart jokes, just in case she had forgotten that I was hysterical.

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