Risky Bus Ride

We recorded our first talk show podcast episode last week, focusing on the topic of taking risks. We still don’t quite know exactly what we want the podcast to become, so yeah, the podcast remains an unwieldy work in progress. We decided to take a risk, and plunge in head first by talking about risk.

We had a loose structure, and questions ready to discuss, such as what risks did we take in our youth? What risks should we have taken over the years? I’m still editing, but you can look forward to hearing stories about:

- faking the way into the start of an IT career

- learning the down side of racing full-speed downhill

- freaking out for no good reason after dropping a pen

We covered risks to our safety and financial risks, but we somehow missed the topic of emotional risk. So, I thought I would share a quick story of emotional risk in this forum.

I have quite a bit of experience with emotions - losing control of them, ignoring them, suppressing them, and sometimes challenging them to a fist fight, which never ends the way I expect. Essentially, I have worked hard to find clever ways to interact with my emotions, outside of simply feeling them.

When I think of emotional risk, I automatically think about the risk of rejection that comes with the pursuit of romantic interests. So, I want to share my very first experience in sixth grade, on one fateful bus ride after school.

At this time, I started hearing about boys and girls “going steady.” Apparently, everyone was participating in this “going steady” culture, except for me. I had developed a crush on a few girls, with one particular girl standing out as the magic combination of friendly, cute, and one block over.

I had no idea what it really meant to date in sixth grade, but it seemed like I needed to figure it out, and my young, undeveloped brain kept thinking about her for reasons I could not articulate at the time.

So, on that bus ride, I built up the courage, and just as the bus was stopping, and she stood at the exit, I rushed to stop her, asking her to “go steady.” She let me down with such great speed and skill, admitting she would rather stay friends.

As you might expect, I felt a catastrophic crash of humiliation and devastating disappointment. Oh, man. Maybe no one would ever like me? I should have seen it as a practice run, an opportunity for growth. Lucky for me, I faced many other chances to practice the same devastating disappointment of rejection over the years.

Actually, if that moment had gone the other way, and she agreed, I have not one single realistic clue of how we would even move forward to fulfill requirements of “going steady.” Would we go on dates to the park? Would we just see each other in the hallway at school more often? What can that possibly mean in middle school? I have no idea. At the time, I know I had no clear plans.

It’s obvious now that I never really developed a romantic or playful rapport with her before approaching her with this brilliant idea of mine. I had not developed a closer friendship with her. In fact, I’m sure my proposal came as a complete surprise to her, aside from the likelihood that she had no interest or desire to “go steady” with anyone in sixth grade.

If I really look at where I was in my development, I was anxious to look normal and find the acceptance everyone craves in grade school, even though I felt very far from normal. I carried fragile sensitivities, and most likely gave off vibes of an extremely needy, awkward, reactive, and insecure kid. In other words, a real catch.

After daily insecurity and terror in the cut-throat culture of middle school, I managed to salvage some semblance of redemption for a brief moment years later, at the mandatory 8th-grade dance. In the basement of the rustic hamburger pub known as Hackney’s, most of the boys decided to avoid the dance floor, leaving the girls to dance in a group on their own.

I suddenly realized I had prepared for this precise situation, after dancing with my mom, grandma, aunts, and cousins at countless polka parties. Why was I even afraid? I knew how to throw my body around the room like an idiot to the beat of the music. I let go of inhibitions and - I cringe to admit it - I really boogied.

Despite my historic Hackney’s victory, I continued to stumble my way through romance throughout high school and college. But, I never stopped struggling with that intense fear of rejection.

We cultivate a safe environment by nature, and so we don’t tend to take risks as a first choice. The podcast discussion made it clear that we all worked hard to make ourselves more comfortable, avoiding those risks of youth, instead doing whatever it takes to secure a better house or even a better mug collection. We enjoy the finer experiences, like eating gastro-burgers instead of your average hum-drum grease burgers, or as I call them, flap-greasies.

In the end, many of us find ourselves more often skipping all risks for a nice evening at home in front of the streaming box. Even though, we found that each risk we revisited either returned a surprising reward, or taught us something new.

So, why are we not taking more risk? Why are we even afraid? We know how to throw our body around the room like an idiot.