Shades of the past

A situation has appeared in my house that reminded me of something that happened to me as a teenage girl. Even though I don't think any of the parties will read this I am going to changes names to protect the love sick.

Maddy is a very pretty and sweet girl. When she joined her new church group she caught the eye of a few boys. This is wonderful since this is not a social situation I can provide for her at home. We have dealt with boys vying for her attention during class, excessive teasing and tickling, and the scramble of who will sit next to her. All of this has been fine, sweet and cute until a new young man has appeared and upped the ante.

Last year for a few weeks I taught a social skills class for a small group of kids at church. (It was great fun and I will be doing it again this year.) In the first session of class a young man named Dave was going on and on about his girlfriend and showed her picture to everyone. He made sure to let me know that he was a "ladies man" and he always had a girl on his arm.

After a few weeks of class and a couple of church outings it became apparent that Dave's focus had shifted to Maddy. Maddy was excited at first about this attention as he is quick with the sweet nothings. He would always ask how she was and offer to carry her things.

He has now decided that he loves her madly and will call or text her daily. He went straight from friend to love and that freaked Maddy out a bit. Maddy has repeatedly told him that she is not his girlfriend and she does not want to go on a date. This has not deterred Dave at all, in fact this seems to make him want her more. He is determined to have Maddy be is girlfriend.

One day a while back I received a text from young Dave, who wanted to know how Maddy was, what was her favorite flower and other questions. If he texts her and she will not respond to him, I get a text asking if she is OK and would I have her text him. This situation has reminded me of a situation that happened to me.

I reminded Mom about my own "Dave" when I was in high school and we both had a good chuckle about his antics to win my heart.

I was Maddy's age and a boy decided I needed to be his girlfriend. Since the traditional courting did not work with me he decided to treat it like a business negotiation to win me over to his charms. He would at least once a week outline for me all the reasons he was the best boyfriend I could have. He would promise a certain amount of dinners out per month, shopping trips and flowers sent to me each week.

Each time I refused and he would go back to the drawing board to try to find the correct amount of dinner, shopping, flowers and movies to win my heart. He finally decided that if he could not convince me he would attempt to win me through my mother.

My mother and I lived in a large house that always needed something done. He would call my mom and offer to do things around the house if she would make me go out with him. He quickly found out that this was not the way to win either of our hearts.

Through all of this I did manage to stay friends with him in HS, but I have since lost touch with him. I hope he did find that perfect mix of dinners, movies and shopping to make some lady very happy.

In the meantime I am still fielding texts from Dave and anxiously await when he asks me how to get Maddy to be his girlfriend.