Hey guys, Brent here, welcome to the first Friday Failboat, where I share with you a story about one of my life’s failures. Today’s failure is the story of how I talked with a girl every day on the phone for two weeks and then abruptly stopped calling her.

But first, a poll.

[poll id=”3″]

And now, the story.

She Thinks I’m The Nicest Guy

So in high school I went to my JROTC banquet with a chick in ROTC. She asked me so I went, I didn’t really talk to her and didn’t know what it meant to go to a banquet with a girl. So I go there wearing the greens and all that bullshit and we have dinner and I dance with her. THEN. THEN. THEN. I see this chick there wearing some punk rock black dress and striped socks and a lip ring. She was a classmate’s friend, not date. I ask him who she is and he introduces us and pushes us to dance together. We’re both real shy but I think mutually interested? She seemed to enjoy dancing with me but we didn’t really make a whole lot of eye contact and while she was interested in talking with me we weren’t terribly good at making conversation.

Couldn’t tell you what happened to my date to the JROTC banquet. Probably hated my fucking guts after I ditched her.

I find the cute punk rock chick at lunch a few days later and say, “Hey, I uh it was – I liked dancing with you at the – ”

“I LIKED IT TOO.”

” – I liked dancing with you at the banquet and I was uh I was wondering – ”

“Yeah?”

” – I was wondering if you maybe wanted to uh give me your number?”

“Sure, yeah.”

So I get this chick’s number. My friends counsel me and tell me, don’t call her right away. Wait two days. Make her wonder. So I wait two days and it feels like I’m on a fucking countdown to a catastrophic event. I’m pretty stressed about it. I haven’t talked on the phone with a girl before. Is this what being a man feels like?

On Thursday I call her and the conversation could not be more awkward. BRB long periods of silences BRB what’s your favorite movie BRB well I gotta go but I liked talking with you so ttyl?

This continues more or less everyday for a week or two. She never called me. I was always calling her. Probably every day. I probably called her more than once when she didn’t pick up. … Probably left a few voicemails. She seemed OK with it? This was back before cellphones by the way. So I was leaving voicemails on her family’s answering machine hey it’s Brent just wanted to call and talk, call me back.

She was an artist (she drew anime, be still my heart).

One fateful day I call her and we have a typical awkward conversation where we hear each other breathing because we’re both on the verge of having anxiety attacks. I’ve compeletely run out of things to say. Desperate to say something I ask, so what’s your dream house?

“… my dream house?”

“Yeah like, do you have an idea of the house you’d like to live in when you’ve got a grown up job and stuff?” But I already know the damage has been done. There’s no coming back from this. There’s awkward and then there’s moderately high on the autism spectrum. And then there’s me. Setting world records on the autism scale.

I consult with my friends about this devastating operational failure. They agree that this is a failed mission. I’m not gonna make it through selection. This is me washing out. Just fucking pack my shit up and don’t apply again. Have fun shoveling shit in regular infantry. Making E-3 might be in my future? At best?

So I never call her again.

Later in college we meet again through a mutual friend (who she is now dating) and she thinks I am the nicest guy.

* * *

The only thing I want to talk about re: training is I pressed the 70lbs dumbbells for 5. That’s literally all I want to share. Fuck everything else.

Last night I worked on tack-and-stretching my anterior hip structures with the PVC pipe, focusing on extension of the hip + internal rotation. Was unpleasant, but seemed beneficial. I’m still trying to improve my hip internal rotation + extension (i.e. split jerk) and the only things I’ve done for the anterior hip are couch stretch and joint approximation with a band. Seems like addressing soft tissue relationships would be a good move for me. I’ve also tried tacking-and-stretching my tris on the PVC pipe and I think I prefer this to using the lacrosse ball now. My IT bands and gastrocs don’t hurt as much to roll on the pipe since I do them pretty regularly. Post your mob progress/experimentation to comments.

Today I walked into the gym wearing my gay attire and a female trainer there who isn’t on anabolic steroids and seems pretty nice happened to be entering at the same time and held the door open for me. She makes eye contact with me and says,

“Hey man I’ve been meaning to ask, do you lift with a team?”

“Oh I uh hrm derherp — I lift on my own but I do compete.” Then without warning I veer into the bathroom (it is right next to the entrance/exit).

I wasn’t trying to avoid conversation. I was fixated on going to the bathroom so I just went into the bathroom.

Neither of us pursued further contact.

I missed some snatches and some dude who is being trained by a guy on steroids says, “HEY MAN THAT’S PRETTY GOOD.” Confusingly, he wasn’t being sarcastic.

Unsure how to respond to positive reinforcement for sucking at lifting I say my typical “thanks…” and pretend to be busy drinking water. BRB can’t feel normal sitting/standing still and have several nervous habits/behavioral patterns to mask that fact.

Later during my clean-and-jerks he says “SO HEY MAN YOU GOING TO THE OLYMPICS OR WHAT?”

“I’m not gonna go to the Olympics but I do like competing.”

“Why aren’t you going to the Olympics?”

“… because I’m not on enough steroids?” <– his trainer loled at this.

Mark writes:

Seeing as you ignored me on facebook, I’ll ask again here.
How do feel about Real Dolls?

I can think of cooler industries to support.

stankrom writes:

glad to see you look like christian fucking bale in the machinist peesus titty fucking christ how much do you weigh?????

Oh look a libertarian history teacher who doesn’t lift commenting on my bodyweight you don’t happen to post on startingstrength.com do you? Tell me about homeownership Pete do you take umbrance with any of the taxes you pay in relation to it?

Derek writes:

Whoa whoa whoa…since when do you have a gf? Is this perhaps VPVG?

For all you know she might be fucking imaginary.

B writes:

what does your gf think of your log and your legion of devoted betas?

She follows it and gets some low-grade entertainment out of it, same as the rest of you guys.

VPVG writes:

heyy brent,
was wonderingg when you are gonna come overr and let me fuckk you with a strapp on like the littlee beta you aree.

live.laugh.love

Legit story, she agreed to do a short video where I interviewed her but we haven’t gotten around to it. It seems like a bad idea so I’ll discuss with her the disadvantages of doing an interview but if she still agrees thisgunbegood.gif.