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This ARSE is quite short; I only really posted it because it was the first time I ever had a crush on someone I knew was a drug user. As with most of these stories, I did not actually date the guy, which turned out a bloody relief in this case. Then again, an acid using high school drop out probably would have been better than the guy I did wind up dating. Oh well. It was my second day at my new high school. The day before, some guy I didn't know had taken me to lunch as part of some kind of welcoming committee, which I hadn't found very welcoming. The point of his student club was to show new students around and introduce them to people they might like to know, but when I pointed out a table of boys with long hair and Pink Floyd and Nirvana T-shirts, he pretended not to hear me and sat me down with a table full of letter jacketed preppy students. I politely declined the invitation to sit with them again the next day and sat by myself outside. Halfway through my sandwich, I felt somebody sit down across from me and heard, "Hi." I looked up, surprised, and my heart skipped a beat. Oh, he was cute. He had a dark complexion with black hair and shining black eyes, though I couldn't place the ethnicity. No matter. "Um, hi." "So are you new here?" "Yeah, it's my second day." "How are liking it?" "Uh . . . well . . . " I doubted that Acid Fiend (I later found out he was a drug addict) liked school at all, but I hesitated to be too harsh of my new surroundings. Our conversation did not delve further than small talk (riveting), and then he invited me inside to sit with his friends, the boys I'd eyed the day before. I was somewhat reluctant to gather up my things and move in the middle of lunch, but no matter. I moved indoors and sat at the end of the table. Acid Fiend's friends were not terribly welcoming, but at least I related to them. Their quietness was more due to shyness than snobbery; they were better than the awful letter jacketed kids. So I kept sitting with them every day, though only the Acid Fiend really talked to me. Inevitably, of course, the conversation turned to the boys' favorite hobby: Drug use. I suspected as much when I first met them all, but to hear them talk about it was something else. I backed away from conversations about it, resisting invitations to parties where I knew there would be marijuana, LSD, etc. I didn't want to be rude and tell them exactly what I thought of their illicit activities, so I cited my allergy to tobacco as an excuse to stay away. I strongly suspected my transparency, for Acid Fiend didn't give up easily. I delicately mentioned the ill effects of drug use to him once, and he responded with a paraphrased passage from the film Dazed and Confused: "But why worry so much about the future? We're going to die anyway, so shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves now?" Not catching the reference, I replied acerbically with, "Ask me that question in five years." I decided that, whether Acid Fiend liked me or not, I couldn't possibly date him because I wouldn't be involved with anyone who used any drugs. Then two things happened: I found out he had a girlfriend, and I met the Stalker and started dating him. I wondered why Acid Fiend had never told me he had a girlfriend. Perhaps they were no longer together; perhaps he didn't like her that much; perhaps he had a crush on me; perhaps he suspected my own crush on him and didn't want to hurt his feelings . . . No matter. At the end of the school year, Acid Fiend dropped out of high school, and I never saw or heard from him again. I wonder if he still likes Dazed and Confused. |