Warlock Week-Day 3

I never seriously dated in high school. I was interested in guys, well, one guy(and I'll never tell who it was), but I was just too practical to exclusively date anyone. Plus, my mom had used John Bytheway tapes on long road trips to drill into me that high school wasn't the time to be selecting a husband, but the time to develop friendships. I tried to follow John Bytheway's rule of not dating the same guy twice in a row. The ice cream analogy made a lot of sense to me at the time. Since there's not much selection in Montana (I was extremely picky), following that rule meant that I went on three dates during my high school years.

When I got to BYU I really didn't expect things to be much different, my Freshman year I was clueless, not flirtatious, and a nerd. I was taking Microbiology 130 my first semester, a 5 credit class that required much reading and much study. I spent most of my time at the library. I didn't care. I expected college to be a lot of work. But as I got to know the Warlock, he took it upon himself to try to save me from my woeful state of studying. He saw clearly that I was not even capable of having a good time. Now of course this was not true! I went to orchestra and choir performances and uh, hiked the Y, and I, uh, played volleyball several times each week, and I also did aerobics and went tunnel singing every Sunday. So I don't know why he thought I was a stick in the mud.

Now the Warlock, he's very sly, and somehow in his efforts to teach me to have a good time he managed to convince me to ask him to Preference (as friends, of course). But he didn't even use words, and I thought it was my own idea. In an effort to conform to the Utah cultural dating practices I asked him in a cutesy, but not terribly creative way. (I was a blank slate back then and Al Gore had not yet invented the Internet.) He answered in a creative, elaborate way that involved practically the whole ward. I should have written all the stuff he made me do down. I recall singing "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" in the WILK and being asked to praise the Utes in front of the Brigham Young statue. I got out of publicly praising the Utes because the bearer of the clue had mercy on me.

All along Freshman year we hung out on and off, not every really dating. I had lots of guy friends. He had gazillions of girlfriends. Some of his girlfriends were even kissing friends. I had no kissing friends. We had classes together, even wrote a paper about writer's block together. Actually I wrote the paper. I'm an expert on writer's block. The Warlock contributed a notable transition sentence.

(to be continued...)