true story

In this section, I will describe a very special person who came into my life in 1990. Her name was Celta Camille Head. This was before I met Lynn but it is an important story about my development and the development of this larger story depicted in this book.

I mentioned in the previous chapter that I was able to find a way to ask a girl out and I had a date with a girl finally by my senior year. Yes, it took that long. I had not dated in high school and I had not had a date during the first four years of my college education. There might be an exception as I did go out with the cousin of one of my best friends. It's been many years and so I am not sure if that happened during my senior or junior year. I'll describe that below. 

I want to describe what I was learning with the help of my counselor. 

In the sessions with my counselor – my psychologist, I learned ways to speak to people and to listen. For example, I learned about "free information" – the weather, something a person might be wearing, a shared experience like something from class. Then to keep the conversation going, I learned about active listening. That could mean summarizing what someone just said, rephrasing it in different words to confirm that you understand... asking follow-up questions and the best questions are open-ended, that way you don't get a "yes or no" or short answer. An open-ended question invites the other person to speak at length.

In addition to being given reading material by my therapist and discussing things in therapy sessions, my counselor facilitated a therapy group. It turns out that a number of people have similar problems and needs. We used role-playing and other techniques to learn and practice different skills. 

I was learning social and communication skills. 

I also learned a technique for dealing with social anxiety. Suppose I want to meet someone or just be more friendly. I was challenging my fears as opposed to not trying or telling myself something will go wrong. I learned a three-column technique based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques. This is something I did all week actually. I had a pad of paper, a pen, or a pencil all the time.

I would imagine scenarios and ask myself "what is it that I fear if I acted instead of avoiding what I feared." It wasn't actually those words that I asked but there were so many examples that no single example can capture the essence of the fears. I mean if the fear is that I approach someone I don't know and say something foolish or incoherent, then avoiding the action avoids the negative emotions that might show up in the form of a racing heart.

That is just one of the countless examples and probably not a good one. Anyway, in column one, I write our automatic thought. He/she won't like me. She won't be interested in ME! Then in the middle column, I write the name of the "cognitive distortions that I can recognize. Maybe, for example, I am "predicting the future" which is a cognitive distortion, or I am "discounting the positive" – positive aspects of myself. There are common cognitive distortions that people use. In the third column, I wrote challenging statements. Depending on the situation, I might write about evidence of how I am liked by the friends that I have.

This is something I did every week, frequently, for years. See what I mean when I say that picking any one example might not convey the breadth of potential negative thoughts. To be clear, this happens to all kinds of people not just shy people. I was trying so hard. A simple way to figure out what the automatic thought was is to think about asking oneself, "what's the worst thing that can happen?"

Despite all the improvements I made, I never met girls directly at the parties at the fraternity house. What I mean is that I met girls that were friends with some of the guys that I knew. I did make friends with females in my classes and in other settings but they were just friends. 

My best friend Thomas could trust me completely to hang out with his girlfriend, fiancée, and later wife, Jo-Lee but she was one of my best friends and we spent a great deal of time together when Jo-Lee was here at Georgia Tech after Thomas graduated and moved up north. I had another male friend and I was friends with his girlfriend as well. In fact, she came down to Florida with me on a break between class quarters and we went with my sister to Disney World. 

I have no idea how Thomas got engaged. I cannot imagine him asking out Jo-Lee. This is heartening because, to me, it means that the entire burden doesn't lie upon the guy to ask out a girl. I grew up on shows like "Happy Days" where it was announced that it isn't proper for a girl to be calling a guy and asking the guy out, and etc. This spells certain serious problems for a shy guy. 

Who made up that rule anyway? I know, dear reader, you have heard me rant about this in other parts of this book and the topic will come up again. It has been a great source of incessant pain for me to notice that no female has asked me out. No matter how much the "rule" might make sense to you, that is no comfort to me. I still feel unattractive and undesirable when I think of this.

Oh, and all the things I was learning about social skills, dating skills, intimate connections... it seemed so artificial. I like it better where you just start talking to someone as a friend and find that you have some things in common and then you realize that you are also attracted to that person.

A Date With Jo-Lee's cousin Marleesa

This is my favorite part, next to the story about Donna liking me in 3rd grade. This is an instance where a girl was definitely interested in me and it was obvious.

My friends Thomas and Jo-Lee got married when I was either a junior or senior. Thomas had moved to Massachusetts for a job but they had the wedding down in the metro-Atlanta area near Georgia Tech. 

I was the best man at their wedding. It was interesting. I have one more story to tell here. 

I mentioned earlier in this book the date with the girl I met at the post office. That was hard. I mentioned the subtle things that attracted me to that girl... but all I knew was that she didn't have a boyfriend and she seemed nice. I had no idea if she was into me, though. Yet, asking for something that you want is an important goal for someone like me seeking to overcome shyness, social phobia, and/or social anxiety.  

Around the time of their wedding, Jo-Lee asked her friend whose name I cannot remember, to show me how to dance for the required "dance" the best man would be forced to do. I felt sorry for Thomas who also had to engage in this ritual of a similar "dance" that he would hate as much as I did, I imagine. The only thing that stands out is the dresses that the brides' maids and maid-of-honor wore. The maid-of-honor held my attention though in the very revealing low-cut dress that made it hard to not notice her breasts.

So, here I am talking about Jo-Lee's maid of honor. 

She seemed friendly and kind as she tried to guide me, and she was acting considerate of my discomfort. Right now, I cannot even form an image of me trying to dance with the maid of honor. I suppose, now that I think of it, I had been making a parallel between the way I thought of her and that character Tommy from the movie "Carrie." Tommy asks out Carrie who is the shy scapegoat in high school. This isn't a perfect parallel since, at this time, I wasn't a scapegoat and I had done so much to come out of my shell by this point. 

Anyway, after the wedding, there was some event with many people over at the home of part of Jo-Lee's extended family. Jo-Lee was from the area. I was thinking about asking Jo-Lee about her bridesmaid, trying to find the courage to do this. I don't remember the details about how I came to find her attractive and I hate that the only thing that sticks in my mind is that she had nice breasts.

Anyway, then Jo-Lee pointed out how much her cousin Marleesa was interested in me. I noticed she was pretty too but don't ask me to describe her for this story. I just remember noticing that and I am considering what followed. At first, I was in denial, still doubting that any girl would be interested in me. I was a junior and this was before I asked the girl out from the post office, which I described in an earlier chapter.

Eventually, I started noticing everything that Marleesa was doing to be nice and show her concern. I remembered they had a dog at that house that was annoying. Marleesa noticed my annoyance and got the dog away from me. I then looked up at Thomas and Jo-Lee who had a look like "see, I told you she is interested in you."

Okay, so I started talking to Marleesa and she invited me to an Easter play in which she was acting through her church. Marleesa was definitely someone who was very forward. Who asked who out? I can't remember how it occurred. I am sure that I started making conversation with her and indicating that I was infested in her. 

She seemed sweet and pretty. 

For some reason, I am now thinking of the words "flirting" and "hitting on" someone. I wonder to this day if this is one of those ways that two people figure out in a less threatening way whether someone is interested in them so as to gather information before asking the person out. 

If I was flirting or she was flirting, I wasn't sure of that. I suppose I can concede that what I had observed indicated that she was infested in me. However, I needed the help of Thomas and Jo-Lee to make it known to me. I imagine that Jo-Lee explained what was happening in a private conversation with Thomas because I imagine he was similarly lacking in "dating," "flirting" and other skills. Again, I cannot imagine him asking Jo-Lee out.  

Anyway, getting back to Marleesa... It was interesting to be meeting the family for this first date after the performance. She seemed so interested that I thought I should kiss her.

She turned her head away and I was silent, and my face was red with shame. I had not done anything wrong other than read a signal wrong. The one time I had not invested hours doing my Cognitive Behavior Therapy homework with the three-column technique and I got it wrong. I felt like the air had been sucked out of me. I was frozen and silent.

For a while, I would reflect on this with shame as if I had done something wrong or broken a rule that I should have known. I had not been forceful at all and as soon as she turned away, I had shrunk within myself. I was just so confused.

She had been far more "aggressive" at the party with others around and here we were outside after dark where privacy might allow such things.

That was the last time I saw her. I wasn't mad - just confused. I don't want to give the impression that she owed it to me or that she was playing games. A girl can change her mind at any time. I just felt shame for MY mistake, like I needed to learn more about making a connection or how to deal with rejection.

The next section and chapters will describe my first experience of feeling "love." 

When I think about this time, I realize how little preperation was offered to us as high school students. I was choosing to enter an engineering school without any idea about whether that was a good match for me... I had not thought about the activities performed by an engineer. I had not considered alternative activities available in other professions that would better match my personality, my interests, desires, goals, values or motivations. 

Growing up, I always knew that I was going to go off to college one day. I surely knew this as far back as Elementary school. My parents encouraged me, beginning in 6th or 7th grade to join the band so that I would have extra-curricular activities which would help me get into a good college.
 

I think that being in the band was seen as an extra-curricular activity that even a shy person like me could do. I'm not sure what the thinking was on that. I had been retreating into the proverbial shell that characterizes the life of a shy person. I was becoming something of a ghost or invisible. I wasn't very assertive.

It's interesting that the most valuable things that I learned in college came from psychology. I was an engineering major. That was all I knew when I set off for college. Unfortunately, at my high school, they did not offer anyone any guidance in high school to help them decide what is a good match for them to study in college. That would have been possible and in many TV shows, I have seen this happening.

My father was an engineer but as much as I wanted to impress my parents and be recognized, I don't think I was trying to emulate my father in terms of a career direction. I did want to and expected that someday I would live in a nice home like we had growing up and I would have a wife and children.

It's also interesting to note that I never remembered my parents telling me what they thought would be a good career direction for me or what they expected... just that I would go to college.

I had no idea how that was going to happen for me. I had trouble meeting people, making friends, I never dated.

I selected the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in Atlanta because I thought I wanted to be an engineer and I had heard that Georgia Tech was a prestigious engineering school. All the colleges to which I was accepted were far from where I grew up and had been living. This caused me some concern because I would be leaving behind a place that was familiar to me and where I had friends and an extended family.

I felt comfortable with my extended family, including my aunt and cousins. I liked them. I liked seeing them as often as possible.

I wasn't sure I would be able to make friends far away at college.

I had virtually no social skills and I was very shy.

I would end up building a career around helping others with problems or issues like shyness as well as emotional and psychological issues or problems.

I didn't want to leave and go so far away. My friend Paul had moved out of the neighborhood and I wasn't hanging out with him as much. So, the only sense of comfort came from my extended family.

Paul and I had been best friends but when he had to move we drifted apart. It seemed like nothing lasts in life.

I felt lonely when I went off to college.

It was late August when we drove from Southington, Connecticut all the way to Atlanta, Georgia, and the campus of Georgia Tech. We were arriving early for orientation before classes begin.

Parents are invited to join the students for orientation.

The south overall is much less populated than the north but Georgia Tech is situated nearly in the center of the city of Atlanta, GA. I had grown up in a town that had a population of roughly 30,000 and now I was in a city with a metropolitan population of about 5 million. To call this a culture shock would be an understatement.

I felt a mixture of pride and fear as we turn into the campus. Dad was driving and Mom was sitting in the front seat next to him. My sister, Carrie, and brother John were at home back in Southington. Carrie was in high school now.

We were looking for the Student Center. The first things we saw were some athletic fields and the Basketball stadium. Then we came across the fraternity houses - I just knew that was what we were seeing. They all had three Greek letters on the outside.

There were a few sororities too, but I know that males outnumber females by a ratio of more than two to one at engineering schools. That's okay, I was too shy to date.

Maybe I would get to know some girls. Maybe college would be different. I guess I wasn't thinking that it would be far more challenging to meet a girl and to date when one attends a university where males outnumber females by a ratio of two to one.

In the back of my mind, I had been thinking that as an adult, I would also want to form a family and so that would involve dating. That was part of the life plan that I had.

I noticed how Georgia Tech fits into downtown Atlanta like a small hidden or forbidden community within a larger city that was filled with traffic, skyscrapers, and a huge metropolitan area.

Yep, this was going to be a very new experience for me.

For the most part, as part of "orientation", they separated the parents from the new kids, the incoming freshmen. I'm not sure what the thinking was on that. The parents were about to leave and go back home. I was thinking that having parents attend "orientation" was pointless – they would be going back home soon.

I could feel how different this was from what I had known in life – It was unfamiliar. Don't get me wrong, growing up there were not many rules during high school. I can't think of a rule come to think of it. I didn't have a curfew. I just had to be home for dinner.

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I had known for many years I was going to go to college after high school. I was encouraged to save money for this but from a practical standpoint, it was obvious that most of the cost of my education would be paid for by Mom and Dad. That included tuition, books, and various living expenses.

The idea that one could be a full-time student at Georgia Tech and have a job didn't seem like something that would be expected of me.

Now, I would be completely on my own. I was about to discover how great that would be.

During orientation, there were daily activities (forced activities) like the first day we went rafting on the Chattahoochee River, and I suppose the goal was to help us to start to connect to others. When I say, we went rafting, I mean I went with other incoming freshmen. I don't know what the parents were doing.

You don't have to travel far to get out of the city with the skyscrapers and find yourself in the country where you could go rafting. That's where I really felt like a misfit. I tried so hard to connect. It seemed like the others were talking to each other and connecting but I could never think of anything to say – to anyone at any time. That left me with a constant feeling of being "different."

I am describing this so that you, dear reader, will understand what shyness is like for me.

I was thinking that if I appeared "different" then it would become increasingly more difficult to connect because I imagined there would be more time for people to notice that I was "different." I wasn't scared or nervous, but nothing was coming to mind to say. I felt a sense of urgency to speak – to seem "normal."

I wanted to make connections and make friends in this new environment. That meant I wanted to appear to be "normal" and just like everyone else. So, I felt an urgency to connect right away.

I didn't want much time to pass by where people might start thinking something like "what's wrong with that guy, he doesn't speak to anyone, he has nothing to say."

Yes, that was exactly what was going through my mind. I didn't want to stand out as a misfit, an outsider. It seemed like such a person is viewed negatively and it makes it harder to later appear to be normal and to "fit in."

As part of this "orientation", both parents and the incoming students were told a truth that everyone needed to understand - not everyone who gets admitted to Georgia Tech is going to graduate.

We were told to look at the person to our left then the person to our right. "One of you will graduate!" You didn't have to spell it out. Two out of three of us would flunk out.

Hearing this, I didn't feel any different. I felt like the weight of this challenge had been there in the back of my mind for some time. I felt a bit frightened, but it was about something more than the classes. I could not imagine what the classes would be like yet.

My fear was about appearing as an outsider and a misfit. In high school, I was invisible, like a ghost. I had come here and would be alone. I didn't want that to happen. I was scared of loneliness.

I wanted to connect. During these activities, everything seemed so much easier for everyone else. So often my thoughts were preoccupied with the fact that I couldn't find anything to say.

I watched others, observed and it seemed like things were easier for others. I didn't have social skills. That much was true.

I wondered if there is a way to get help for my problems. It was then that I realized something powerful and important. I was in control of things going forward! I could make things different for me! I was free.

It might be reasonable to wonder why I had not gotten counseling for my shyness and social anxiety long ago. Maybe it was too embarrassing for me to talk to Mom and Dad about it.
 

Even before I found out about services that might be available to students, I imagined that they must have some kind of counseling center. How did I know that?

Now, I was on my own and I wouldn't have to explain what I was doing or where I was going to Mom and Dad. They were not going to be present. I was on my own.
 

Ah, the freedom felt slightly soothing.

I couldn't share with my mother and father the shame that I had been feeling because of my shyness and lack of social skills. Just as it was when I was growing up, this was too embarrassing to discuss with Mom and Dad.

I didn't know what the experience was like for Mom and Dad, they didn't convey much of what they experienced. They said their goodbyes and good luck.

Now, during orientation, making friends, connecting seemed like a matter of survival.

I had a sense that failure academically, here at Georgia Tech, for me meant failure in life.

Evening fell hard each day with the weight of my isolation echoing through my mind. Everyone else was doing something. If anyone saw me all alone pacing the halls of the dorm, what would they think?

Growing up I had some friends and neighbors and felt somewhat comfortable with them. I had my cousins and my aunt.

Now I had to make connections.

On the second day after arrival, I was feeling an overwhelming need to do something. It felt like more than one day had passed and the weight of isolation had been so heavy. I couldn't face another night pacing the halls. Walking past the vending machines... the TV room. It was so quiet, and I felt so alone and scared.

Now, that night, we were having a barbeque with hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. I had to try to socialize.

I noticed this guy who seemed approachable. There were only the two of them. I could handle that. Just move close and act calm.

I felt awkward and hoped it didn't show. They were talking about going to fraternity parties.

"Do you mind if join you?" I asked. "Good job," I thought. I was direct and I confronted my fear of rejection.

Before long, we were walking off to a few of the frat houses. We stopped at a couple of frat houses that night, and then the next night we did the same thing, ending up at Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT) fraternity.

This was Rush week when the fraternities recruit new members – new pledges.

I felt different here at ZBT. When we visited any frat house, they all tried to make us feel special, but I just liked this place. The guys that I came with had been socializing with different people at the house. I couldn't dance and did my best to avoid the big room where they did that. 

I would move about with surprising ease in other rooms and outside the frat house. Mainly, I was listening. I let the frat brothers do the talking. 

They did "love bombing." That's the word for it. I knew they were making us feel special as a recruitment strategy and yet it was helpful.

I met one person after another who sold me what we needed to do. Johnny was really friendly and relatable. Danny was cool in an unusual way. Stew was the cook and he looked, well, always like he was high. How the heck could he do that and be a Chemical engineer?

I had the idea that this is what I should do. I needed to make friends and a connection and nothing like this had happened to me in such a short period of time.

Every once in a while, they would ring a bell and cheer when someone declares their intent to pledge the fraternity.

It took so much effort for me to find the courage to tell someone that I would pledge. I was so dreading the event when I would be the center of attention. I realized that this wouldn't last for long before they move on to the next person. Still, I had NEVER made myself the center of attention.

Well, I had to get this over with, right? I put my mind to it and went with the flow. I told this guy named Pat who was standing next to Stew and they cheered and rang the bell. I knew that I didn't want this so I had to force myself to do it knowing that if I thought about it, I wouldn't do it.

It was amazing how fast things change. The moment when they are cheering and focused on me lasted only a few moments and then it was over.

Things changed after "Rush" and classes were getting started. Suddenly, you have been transformed from the person who was treated like they are so special to being treated like a lowly pledge. I don't mean they did anything bad. It's just that the dynamics changed. As a pledge, there are things you have to do. This will culminate in a final "initiation" when we finally become members of the fraternity.  

We were given a pledge paddle early and you are required to wear a suit or jacket and tie to classes for part of the period. You are expected to show up at the frat house every day and kneel down holding your paddle up to ask for permission to enter in a ritualistic fashion. It was out in the open, so it wasn't hazing or anything nefarious. It just felt embarrassing.

I didn't want to be the center of attention anywhere. So, I would dress normally for classes, not bring my paddle to classes like everyone else but I would get it at the end of the day when I was expected to show up at the frat house. I would be sneaky and break the "rules" or "expectations" about what we were supposed to do when I was going to class or otherwise on campus. I couldn't imagine any punishment if I was caught.

Growing up, the only rules or expectations had to do with the needs or desires of our parents.

We did all our studying and homework at the frat house unless we had to do something on the mainframe computer stations, or if there were reasons to be elsewhere for study groups or lab work.

Toward the end of the quarter, we had "initiation" where we would become full members of the fraternity. The fraternity made this somewhat mysterious, and we had assignments to complete in groups. It was actually good for team building and connecting as a group together.

You might have seen some movie that tries to depict a fraternity initiation. Take an oldie like "Animal House" where the pledges bend over and are hit with a paddle and they answer, "thank you, sir, may I have another." Nothing like that happened. We learned a "secret handshake."

Some might call my book a tell-all book – that term is popular these days. While I am not going to be evasive in this book about embarrassing or emotional matters, that doesn't mean I am going to tell you everything, dear reader. I am fine with keeping "innocent" secrets about matters that are unimportant to my story and that include details about the initiation.

So, that was an overview of a few things that characterized my first quarter at Georgia Tech. These were the first few months of my "adult" life on my own. 

Life already seemed better than I had known earlier in life. There are a few things that I left out. In the next chapter, where I use the cliché "Boy Meets Girl" in the name of the chapter, I will introduce some of the other things I was learning about how to make connections.