Cheering The Underdog

“The underdog often starts the fight, and occasionally the upper dog deserves to win.”~ E.W. Howe

I was pondering last night that there are a lot of situations in life that there is an underdog.

In my first year of college, the group of friends that I made there was no exception.

There was one who was kind of an underdog. I’ll refer to him as “Brian”.

Brian was actually the stereotypical shy guy. But he was also one of the nicest people on the planet.

During the times when we were not in class we would hang out a lot. We’d play cards, eat in the cafeteria together and so on. Eventually getting to know him was quite interesting.

He was the kind of person that would give you, not only the shirt off his back, but his pants as well. He and I took several road trips and logged in lots of miles on his own vehicle. And he never once expected or asked for gas money. Even though at times, I would give him some.

Like many young men starting their college career, it would be kind of a culture shock. We all were away from home, in a world where we made our own rules, and had nobody there to tell us what to do. His life up to that point was kind of structured in that manner. But now that he was in college, all bets and rules were off.

Brian and I eventually developed in our friendship to the point where we were there for each other. When one of us would either be homesick or have some kind of problems, we would listen to one another. Especially him. He was always willing to stop whatever it was he was doing to listen.

The group of friends would eventually come up with our own code, our own language. It was our way of being able to talk about certain things and certain people without anyone knowing about it. It got to the point where Brian would always talk about how much he had a crush on a girl who was in a lot of his classes.

But because of his shyness, he just didn’t have it within him to tell her that he liked her. He wanted to ask her out on a date but was too shy and too scared.

The code and language that we developed actually sounded like a foreign language. We probably would have made really good spies. Brian would eventually talk in that way all of the time.

The girl that he had a crush on was tiny redhead with deep dark blue eyes and very pale white skin. And because of those physical characteristics (red hair, white skin, blue eyes), we would begin to refer to her as The Patriot.

But even those characteristics of her would have certain code words. Her eyes were deep blue, so they were called “sapphires”. Green eyes were “emeralds”, and so on.

Brian eventually began to talk to the girl more and more. He would be that friendly smile and that openness would allow them to begin a wonderful friendship. But he just couldn’t bring himself to tell her just how much he liked her.  

The Patriot would eventually come up for Homecoming Queen. I don’t remember anymore for sure, but I do not think that she won the title. And Brian was heartbroken that she didn’t win.

He stood by her side in all things, even in her shadow. This secret devotion that he had would only come out when he would speak in the code.

Towards the end of the school year, we all got together and we started to talk about what each of us was going to do in the next year. Some were going to transfer to other colleges, others were going to return for a second year.

Brian was coming back for a second year to earn his Associate’s Degree. But The Patriot was about to transfer to a state school to continue on in her education to enter a program that was going to take her six or seven years to earn her degree. I didn’t know it yet, but I would not return for a second year.

The end of the school year was coming near and Brian was actually running out of time if he had any chance at talking to The Patriot about how he was feeling.

Brian would end up having a conversation outside of her dormitory and he said to her, “I appreciate all of the times that you have smiled and made my life worth living. You are a terrific person. And pretty too. I could swim forever within your sapphires.”

The Patriot was totally confused. Brian would tell us that she smiled when he said that to her, but he just didn’t have enough within him to come out with the truth of his feelings. And it was something that he said to at least throw the hook into the water to see if she would bite.

Brian and The Patriot were such good friends by that time, that they traded phone numbers and addresses and became penpals over the summer.

The Patriot did go off to the state school and Brian returned. But they kept in touch. Brian never once used her phone number but never called. Instead, he wrote her.

As the next school year was in full swing, I would go back to the college to visit for a couple of days. Brian and the rest of the group of friends were so elated to see me again.

He still was talking about her as he always had. His crush never faded away even though she was gone. His one and only hope and connection was to write her while she was away at another college.

It just so happened that Brian admitted to me that he wrote her a very long letter and explained his feelings for her in a way that he knew that she would understand. And took that opportunity to ask her out on a date if she were to ever to be near.

That second day of me hanging out with the guys at the college dorm, he would receive a letter from The Patriot.

Nobody was really paying attention because it was common for her to write. But soon everyone was paying attention was Brian exclaimed “Damn! Damn!”.

Brian was a deeply religious person. He didn’t smoke, drink, do drugs, or even use profanity. We knew that from the obscenities coming from him that was something was horribly wrong.

Brian would eventually lock himself in the bathroom for twenty minutes. It was there that everyone heard him weeping.

When he emerged, he explained that The Patriot had turned him down. She had given him the “just friends” bit.

Women today are still notorious for that kind of crap. But for Brian, having never gone through a crush and then rejection before, his world was destroyed. He said that it would have gone over so much better if she had simply told him that she wasn’t interested or just a no.

Brian and I would fade in and out of communication. But I always knew that I could call his parents to see where he was at. The bonding friendship even had grown so much that I was seemingly “adopted” by his own mother as she would kiss me on my head when she saw me.

Several years later I would still contact his mother to find out where he was at. He now is probably the happiest in life that he has ever been. He is now married to an incredibly gorgeous woman and has a son. Nobody really thought that Brian would come out to be the winner because he was so much of the underdog based on his shyness. And then it turned out that he would have the most beautiful spouse out of any of us guys who were in the group of friends.

Cheering for the underdog is not a bad thing. We all know that often times the underdog will win. And in this case, the underdog won BIG!!

My point here is never assume that you should count out the underdog. They do rise to the top from time to time. For Brian being the underdog, he went through hell and back. And then he won in the end and still is riding high.

 

Being The Secret Casanova

“I have always been an admirer. I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don’t know where I would be without it.”~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld 

For the second time in about a year and a half, I’ve been the object of someone’s secret admiration.

Oh the pressure!!

I had a note waiting on my front door last night. Expressing their deep and secret attraction to me. And throughout the night, I could not figure out on my own who this might have come from. I’ve been through it twice now.

However, I wouldn’t have to go and put on my Sherlock Holmes jacket because I had tossed the note aside last night and went to bed. When I showed my face this morning, a FEMALE came up to me and asked, “Did you get that note on your door last night?”

I think that I was feeling relieved as it could have been a man. But I got lucky, so to speak.

She gave herself away. However, in a weird and uncomfortable effort to not offend her, I told her that I had received no such note. I also reminded her that this was a “bad neighborhood” and even the residents here are quite in everyone’s business all of the time. So I explained that perhaps maybe someone took it so that they could know what was going on.

And yes I know, I probably should have confirmed it with her that she was the one. But because I told nobody about it… how would she know? And of course I know, I know… I should have told her that I was not interested. But the way I handled it was the way I handled it.  I will find the best way to tell her that I am not interested.

When she had left, I asked one of my neighbors if she had been talking about me a lot in recently in the past few days. And they had said that she had been. And that she would always smile and then get lost in her thoughts. That was also a clue for me to know that it was her.

So the secret was exposed. But the first time, it took much longer than overnight.

The last time I had a secret admirer write me a note, it took nearly two weeks to figure it out. I finally was able to when I was given a handwriting sample of a woman and I was able to match it.

But because of the language within the note, it had me guessing for a while. I had only told about four people about this first time, and I suppose it became a game for them (not for me) to see whether or not they could figure out the mystery and discover who it was.

Words like, “You are such an amazing man. You make me smile whenever you are in the room. I would ask you out, but I am from the old school and believe the man should ask me out, and I hope that you do one day. If not, I would love to be great friends.”

Certain words and phrases were clues as to who the person’s identity could have been. I had only two guesses of who it might have been. And of the initial two guesses, one of them was the right person. I even had gone up to her and teased about how it was HER that wrote the note. She was convincing when she was in full denial when I was accusing her of writing the note.

It had pieces of mint chocolate inside of an envelope inside of an envelope that was poorly sealed together.

But as I said, I finally figured out the person who had wrote it by comparing how the writing was similar. For the first person though, I never said a word to her. I never came up to her and said, “I KNOW you wrote the note. I know it was you.” No… I did not do anything. And I just laid low for about a week and kept quiet about it. 

It was a resident who lives here who is about twenty years my senior.

Not only did I figure it out in about two weeks who it was. I also figured out why she had written the note in the first place.

For those of you who do not know me on a personally, I use terms of endearment frequently. I had started to use them with the residents here…. JUST to get them to smile. Because you never know around here, someone might be feeling bad and sick or having a bad day, and a smile actually would make it all better.

So at the time, I had been notorious for greeting someone, for example: “Good Morning, GORGEOUS!”.. yeah, totally notorious for it. And yes, it was Mission Accomplished because in the end, it made people smile. And some of them even laugh about it.

The woman who wrote the first note is more of a shut-in neighbor. And she began to crawl out of her shell. Without really knowing what her story was as to why she always stayed indoors, I just was doing the same thing whenever I saw her in the community room. At the time it was either “GORGEOUS” or “GOOD LOOKING”. I recall several times that she would cover her face in embarrassment and just smile.

I believe that because of how I was treating her and the unintentional flirty nature of my speech, she probably was seeing something in me that didn’t really exist.

But that was a long time ago. At least for me it was. And yes I laugh my head off about it now. In these two cases, I do not believe that I had/have anything to worry about. It was a harmless crush.

And because of note #2, it reminded me of note #1- so I decided to share a laugh with you, the reader about note #1.

This most recent note you might be wondering about? It was plain and simple:

“I think you are funny. Are you with anyone? Check YES or NO.

Seriously! It was one of “those kinds”. Even if I checked YES or NO, who the heck would I give it to? I have no idea. But when the woman came up to me the following morning and inquired, she exposed herself and I knew. It was someone’s care giver. And I’m just not into that kind of thing.