Awkward!

I think the most appropriate adjective for me with regard to the males of our desperately flawed species is “awkward.” There really isn’t a social exchange, with our penised pals, that I can’t transform into an utterly graceless, embarrassing and klutzified event.

For who the fuck knows what reason, the name Andy Archibald came into my head when I woke at zero dark thirty. Who the hell is/was Andy Archibald? He was my first little crush. We were 12 years old and living in Indiana University’s wickedly cramped married student housing apartments in Bloomington, Indiana. His family was on the first floor, mine on the 8th (though I always remember it as the 13th floor. Now that I think on it, though, the building only had 12 floors).

The college ran a K-12 school system, conveniently located near our kiddle infested building. On one occasion, the teachers threw a dance party for the 7th grade class. Did they do this because they needed a good laugh? Were the teachers all actually anthropology PhD candidates trying to collect supporting evidence for their theory that embarrassment can, in fact, be terminal?

At one point there was about 20 of us pathetic adolescents dancing in a circle – all holding hands. By the by, this HAD to have been the researcher’s…I mean teacher’s idea. Honestly, there we were in a semi darkened gymnasium with loud music playing and 20 of us pubescent Mortification Machines were doing some kind of a circle dance WHILE holding hands!?

I’d never held a boy’s hand before and there I was gripping fins with a boy who most of the girls in my class had a thing for. He was so outta my league that I was sure we belonged to the different species. I would've needed to be blond with a cute (versus interesting) personality for him to pay me any attention at all.

Me at 12 with little sis, Celeste.

In any case, as with everything, I over thought this whole “holding hands with a boy” thing and kept adjusting my hold, my clasp, in an attempt to get the right feel – casual, thoughtless even, but present.

At some point he dropped hands (mine as well as the person on his other side), stopped dancing and started yelling at me. Luckily the music was loud so I really only caught a snippet of his diatribe. He, understandably, mistook my hand holding nervosa for some kind of flirtation or something (and was horrified that I'd dared?). All I recall now, 48 years later, is him oafishly shouting “what are you doing!” as though I’d just whizzed all over his new loafers or some such.

I reacted as any deeply horrified, face saving kid, being yelled out by the class studling IN A CROWD OF OUR CLASSMATES no less, would have. I looked at him like he was nuts and yelled back that I had no idea what he was talking about. And then legged it for home.

This suave-free future frat asshole of America wasn’t Andy though and I’ve no idea why Andy's name came into my bean at 2:30.  Maybe because my humiliating little incident happened around the same time? Maybe I’d been wishing it was his hand I’d been holding instead?

Naturally, I unleashed a little google-foo.

Is he the head of the UK’s National Crime Agency’s (NCA) cyber crime unit?

Is he the "affiliative and spirited IT Leader committed to achieving exceptional outcomes through shrewdly applied technology”of Shared Technology Services?

I don’t recall what Andy looked like (apart from brilliant red hair) but either of these gents could maybe be him. Of course I hope it’s Cyber Crime Man – that’s SO much sexier and scads less dweeby!