281st Post - The Time Bevboy Stood Up a Girl

"When are you going to tell the story about the time you stood a girl up?", people keep asking me.

"Come on. Just tell us about it!", people at coffee pleaded today.

OK. OK! O-Kay!

Here is the story. I still feel I did the right thing. Once you read the full details, you will agree with me. I just know you will.

This was about 20 years ago. I had just moved to the city from the Annapolis Valley. I was homesick, and kept in touch with people from back home a lot.

A friend of my older sister's had a daughter. I thought she was pretty cute, if you must know. The mother had always been friendly with me; in fact, she was friendly with me this weekend when I saw her at a village supper. She put her arms around me and gave me a big hug, much to Patricia's... surprise. This is the same mother who thought I had nice legs back then, too. But that is another story for another time.

I was involved with one of the political parties back then, and spoke with the mother about this. She indicated that her daughter might be persuaded to consider voting for that party in the much-rumoured general election. I got her number.

In speaking with the daughter, she was friendly enough. I wasn't having much luck meeting women in the city, so I took a chance and asked her out. She agreed, which made my day. We made arrangements to meet at such and such a place at such and such a time. Company picnic. A movie. Whatever it was, we made arrangements.

After we rang off, I began to think about what I had just done. I began to think about it all the way through to its logical conclusion. If I dated this girl, who was a couple of years younger than I was at the time (come to think of it: She would still be the same number of years younger than I am now! Imagine that!) , it might open me up to ridicule, to censure, to opprobrium. I realized that dating her, even once, could set a deadly precedent, one from which I could never recover, one that would dog me for the rest of my life. I would never be able to hold my head up high again, if I spent any time with this young lady.

"What if we got married?", I asked myself. "I could conceivably become so confused, so out of sorts, that I could get up and put on the wrong set of clothes and go off to the wrong job! How could I do that to myself, and to my family?".

I figured that if we spent... quality time together, knocked boots, did the funky chicken, or whatever you crazy kids call it these days, then perhaps our children would not be completely normal. They might have an extra toe on their right foot. They might perhaps be unable to distinguish a Chardonnay from a Merlot, a Shiraz from a Pinot Noir. The children might even grow up with a confused sense of identity and purpose.

There was only one course of action. Only one thing I could do to extricate myself from this horribly unfortunate series of events.

I didn't show up for the date.

Never spoke to her again.

I have never even laid eyes on her since.

She went on to become tangentially involved with the music business. Met a fella. Had a couple of kids. I am very happy for her. Really, I am.

In case you were wondering what earth shattering secret she possessed, what terrible malady afflicted her, what physical anomaly so disfigured her, that I would run, shrieking, for the hills, the answers are 1) nothing; 2) she was healthy as far as I knew; and 3) she was very attractive, if you recall from what I wrote above.

The problem was...

Can I say it after all these years?

Her name was Beverly.

I just couldn't bring myself to date someone with the same name as mine. Never mind that Beverly was a man's name for hundreds of years before women usurped it (or tried to). Never mind that she was easy on the eyes. Never mind that her mother was hot. The name thing just got in the way.

It was a show stopper.

I know you agree with me. I did the right thing.

Confession is good for the soul!

Bevboy