Breaking the ice
(from Suburban Misfits)
Sure. It’s a lot to ask.
But you don’t know Rob like I do.
When he says he’ll go crazy without it, he means it.
He’s a nice enough fellow. Almost everybody admits that.
Yet he’s a little clumsy when he comes to social issues like this.
That’s because he’s always been a bit of an egghead, and fell in love with books instead of women.
I guess he figured he could get from books everything he ever needed to learn.
Most of us already did it by his age.
Not that he’s never fallen in love. I went to high school with him and remember him being pretty smitten once.
He just didn’t know what to say when he finally got to sit down in the same room with a girl.
He certainly didn’t know what to do with the girl, even though we all knew she was willing.
Of course, we talked to him and tried to lay out the facts of life for him.
Heck, we all felt sorry for him, and owed him a lot for him helping us get through our homework and algebra tests. We coached him just like he coached us. But the more he tried to talk to girls the less he could.
I wouldn’t call it a handicap.
He just seemed to have the Grand Canyon between him and any girl he was attracted to.
And he isn’t a dare devil like Alf, who’ll jump anyone anytime regardless of the consequences.
Sometimes, I think Rob was really someone from another planet – left here at birth, and couldn’t get a hang of our sexual customs.
Oh yeah, some girl a couple of years ago thought Rob was a challenge, and tried hit on him.
She wasn’t a nice girl either, just some bimbo who had just broken up with the captain of the football team and figured she could cheer herself up by teasing Rob.
God, you should have seen him, more pet dog than boyfriend, following her around doing everything she asked for from homework to laundry, but never getting rewarded with the one thing he needed and wanted most.
His allowance vanished the day he got it buying her anything she asked him for.
Then, one day, he overheard her with her slutty girlfriends saying how much she used him and didn’t have to put out like she would for any other boy.
Maybe some people thought he was stupid for him to think the best of people. But most of us knew kind souls like him had an invisible sign on their backs saying “kick me” and generally some mean son of a bitch always did.
That was the last time he came out of his shell – sticking to books he said would never hurt him.
He pretended like he didn’t need anybody. But we all knew he did, and knew that his need was building up in side of him like a bomb waiting to go off.
For Christ’s sake, the man’s not a priest.
And if others in the gang didn’t notice him suffering, I did – especially when he had to sit through the rest of us talking about who we’ve had, often describing our encounters in great detail.
I knew sooner or later he would freak out like he did.
Okay, so many he won’t kill himself.
But he confided in me and said he doesn’t want to die a virgin.
Yeah, I know, he’ll probably get over it and go back to living inside the covers of his books.
But it hurts to watch him. After all, he’s a friend.
And since he seemed so attracted to you at the party the other night, I was wondering – well, hoping you might do us a favor and help him out.
I know you don’t want to hurt Hank and Hank’s your boyfriend.
But you know as well as I that Hank’s probably over in the village bopping some teenybopper the way he does every weekend, and what’s good for the gander is good for the goose – or so people say.
So when can I bring Rob over? Is now too soon?