-311
I had a boyfriend at the middle/end of sophomore year that I more or less liked. He was a junior, and so he was going to take me to prom. I also competed for him with another girl and won, which was, at the time, very satisfying. Anyways, he made me listen to Led Zepplin III and watch sports, but since he was older, I didn't really mind. He had a good sense of humor, and I liked his friends, so we coexisted. It was cool for him to date a hot younger chick, and it was cool for me that his friends drove me around. But there lacked a certain amount of OOMPH in the relationship. It was like, oh, cool, this is dating. My friends were single, and I was kind of jealous. But I really wanted to go to prom.
My best friend and I went to this battle of the band thing at our school, ostensibly to see some guys we were friends with play. Instead of watching them, we were mesmerized by a band that sounded JUST LIKE 311 comprised of cute boys with flippy hair and hemp necklaces. We were hooked. We danced directly in front of the stage and I perfected what would become my signature move with boys in bands: the eyefuck. I can eyefuck the shit out of someone. We approached them after their set in what was my first official groupie moment. What shocks me now is the complete and utter confidence we had. I couldn't even tell you my weight at the time, and I am sure I had no thoughts of whether or not my thighs looked fat in my jeans. I know for a fact we hadn't been drinking. At no point in my life after that have I had such complete, utter, sober confidence. My friend quickly paired off with one of them in the back of the auditorium to make out (because she had, and still has, mad game), while I sat on their amp and flirted.
We went back to my house at the end of the show, on a complete high. We were obsessed. Nowadays, it would have been simple enough to find them online, but the time, I didn't even have a cell phone, let alone a Facebook or Myspace. Somehow though, through multiple Google searches, we found a random email address on a random web page linked to their band name. So we did the only thing we could do: sent them an email from my Hotmail account. We included Maddie's cell phone number (a boxy Nokia all four of my best friends used when we were calling boys) and, on a whim, I boldly added something about “the cute guitarist”. Yeah, I had a boyfriend, but come on. These guys were rockstars. (Uhh, kind of).
They responded, and it turned out they lived about 20 minutes away on the highway. They were older than us, juniors, and they smoked pot and partied. They invited us to their next show. So we went. The boy my friend had made out with turned out to be a huge player, but apparently, the “cute guitarist” (Chris, if you haven't figured it out) was both sensitive and emotional, and he pursued me. Whoops. Soon enough, I started dating Chris. While having a boyfriend.
I totally got away with it. Now, that seems completely ridiculous. Not only did my boyfriend not figure it out, but my hyper-attentive mother didn't either. Chris would pick Maddie, Steph, Debbie and I up at dusk in one of our driveways, and we'd tell our parents we were going to the movies. Then Chris would drive us to Needham, where we would drink in someone's basement until ten forty, when he would drive us home. For referance, we saw “Shrek Two” like three time that year.
But when I broke up with my Acton boyfriend after prom, Chris's novelty wore off. I was getting tired of talking to him on the phone while he was high, and him dragging me to Walden Pond to look at nature. Now that I was single in my own town again, I was free to hook up with boys there, and I didn't have sneak out to do so. Now, I don't remember how I broke up with him, I seem to have blocked that part out. It's possible I was drunk, and I think I was probably pretty rude. He got over it pretty quickly, dating this girl who had liked him before that he had ditched for me. According to his Facebook and Myspace, he dated her for quite some time after that. She smoked pot and wore hemp, too. I feel guilty, a little, particularly because my Acton boyfriend was nice to me, and liked me, and was basically everything a boyfriend should be. But, hey, I was fifteen. Would you have turned down a guitarist who gave you free alcohol and told you 311's cover of “Love Song” should be “your song”? Ok, maybe you would have. But that's the only time in my life I've cheated on a boyfriend like that. Like straight up, two relationships at once, kind of thing. Honestly, my friends played a part in this too, because they liked the other boys in the band, and wanted me to keep dating Chris so we could hang out with them. Peer pressure, and all that. What's interesting is that both relationships were sexually innocuous. Neither one went below the waist. I'm not sure why my Acton boyfriend didn't make a move (I think he was inexperienced), but I think that Chris was a gentleman. Or he was too high/drunk to get it up.
Oh, this is his band's web page:http://www.myspace.com/pandafied . Don't judge me too hard. It was cool back then! God, I'm old.
He's the back left.
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