There are a few special people who you come across in your life, a few who when you look back and remember, you smile until that smile falls to a slight frown which accompanies one, single thought: "What the hell was I thinking?" Stephanie is the first person who I felt like that about. We met in our AP World History class when we were seniors in high school and I have to say, it was pretty cute introduction. We were doing some random activity where we were using pipe cleaners and while we were playing around, doing nothing, I started to make something which looked like a lion, a Gryffindor lion to be exact. From the moment I commented on it and we realized we were both Harry Potter nerds, she quickly started to become one of my favorite people. I'm a bit of a closet geek, and whenever we talked all of our guilty pleasures seemed to come out...as did our laughs. Sometimes I would talk to her and literally start crying from laughing so hard. Sure it was partly because I was infatuated with her, but she is seriously one of the most entertaining people to be around, I highly suggest anyone reading this to have at least one conversation with her.
She and I had a series of running jokes while we were in class together, but my favorite was definitely the night we came up with our stripper names. I was watching some shitty teen drama, One Tree Hill maybe, and two of the characters were talking about how you combine your first pet with your mother's maiden name to create a stripper name. Naturally I brought it up to Stephanie, who goes by the name Licorice Bleu in stripper land, which, by the way, is a freaking awesome name. Anyway, so I brought this up, then the conversation escalated to the point where we started coming up with a porn film...it was so ridiculous. I enjoyed every minute of it, and it was they way I could talk to her about something as innocent as Harry Potter one moment then being a stripping porn star the next that made her so appealing to me.
I don't like to think I have regrets, but the way I went about things with Stephanie is probably the closest I have to one. She actually told me that I was her "nerd crush" one time, which to me was quite flattering. There was a period when Stephanie, a girl who is just about always in a relationship, was single for a few months, and I should have made a move. I didn't, and it was a mistake. The last time I saw her was around four years ago when I met her up for some putt-putt and coffee. We hung out for a few hours, and it was really nice talking to her, catching up on how her life was going. After that, our relationship pretty much faded out, and it's been years since I've heard about her. I hope she's doing well, and I hope she's with a man who can give her everything that she wants, because she deserves it.
Cheers.
Andrew
