Dating : I Got Asked Out As a Joke

But it definitely wasn’t funny.

The very first time someone asked me out, it was as a joke.

In sixth grade, I was sitting alone at the lunch table, minding my own business. A boy I had never spoken to approached me and asked if I would like to go on a date with him.

Before I could even react, the boy busted out laughing. He walked away, still laughing his head off. Aif the idea of anyone going on a date with me was just plain ridiculous.

Maybe if that had been a one-time incident, it wouldn’t have been that big a deal. But it happened multiple times throughout my adolescence.

At every dance I attended in middle school, some boy would ask me to dance, and then, as soon as I started getting up, promptly declare that it was a joke.

Obviously, no one wanted to dance with me. That much was clear from the multitude of boys who treated it as the most preposterous idea ever.

Usually, this only happened with boys I hardly knew, boys who enjoyed making fun of the fat girls in my grade. But one time, it happened with someone I thought I was in love with.

It was one of my closest friends. Let’s call him Jack.

At the time, Jack and I were so close that people already thought we were dating. I had a major crush on him, and I was pretty sure he felt the same way.

We were in marching band, both of us on the trombone. So, we spent a lot of time together: at practice, in band class, at football games and competitions.

On homecoming night, Jack and I were sitting together on the bus ride back home from a football game. Adrenaline was running high. So was the rank odor of sweat emanating from thirty-odd high-schoolers, mostly boys, on that bus.

Still, I thought Jack was beautiful.

People had been trying to push us together for weeks now. They thought we were basically a couple already.

That night, everything changed.

I was talking about how everyone assumed we were dating already.

“Do you want to go out for real, though?” Jack asked.

My heart soared. I could only nod.

For that moment, I was on top of the world.

Then Jack spoke again. “Oh, just kidding!” He started laughing like crazy.

At the time, I didn’t have the emotional maturity to call him out. I simply pretended to go along with the joke.

Some joke.

I remember spending that entire following winter fighting heartache. I could barely look at Jack without a pang in my chest.

To this day, he and I are still friends. But back then, I only pretended that everything was alright.

I’m not sure how long it took to get over what had happened. And I hardly told anyone about it. I do know that maybe a year or two later, Jack apologized. I guessed he finally realized what an asshole move he had pulled.

My point is, don’t ask people out as a joke. Especially not teenage girls, whose self-esteem is already at a massively critical stage. One wrong move and she could suffer from self-esteem problems for the remainder of her life.

We need to instill this message in teen boys, who are the main culprits of this crime.

We need to teach our sons that women deserve just as much respect as they are awarded simply for being men.

We need to teach young men that, simply put, women are people too.