“Just go speak to her, man!”

That’s what he said.

My buddy Johnny.

My 6 foot 5 muscular football teammate looked like Eric from Little Mermaid. I’m a 6 foot 1 guy who went bald at 20.

Me: That’s easy for you to say!

Johnny: C’mon man, don’t be a pussy; just go over there and offer to buy her a drink.

Me: Fuck it.

I walked over.

Before I could say anything, she uttered

“I have a boyfriend”.

I nodded and sat back down with my friends as they laughed at me.

What a time to be alive. When I was 14, I began to really like women. I began to form crushes and really started to formulate the type of woman I’d like to go for. The problem was I was a bumbling mess. I used to stumble over my words, and my lips would quiver with nervous distraction. This continued till I hit 18 years old. Adolescence is the art of transforming admiration for the fairer sex into an exhibition of verbal slapstick, where every attempt at charm unfolds like a novice juggler — enthusiastic but wildly uncoordinated.