[HPFGU-OTChatter] Meeting Up(was Re: What's Love Got To Do With It? - the other perspective)

[Shaun Hately]

On 4 Oct 2003 at 13:22, linlou43 wrote:

>       OK. New topic. For those who have significiant others, how did 
> you meet them?

Well, for my girlfriend - who I've now been dating about 7 years (it's hard to be 
precise because we were 'fake dating' for 5 years or so before that) and who I 
may marry someday when we both feel grown up enough - we met properly under 
experimental conditions.

Both of us were 15, and students at 'elite' private schools in Melbourne. Both of us 
had been tested as having extremely high IQs and so we were selected for an 
experimental pilot-program for profoundly gifted children to be run at the 
University of Melbourne - at this time, it was incredibly non-PC to do anything for 
gifted kids in our state (the Minister for Education actively *despised* the idea of 
giftedness and set up anti-gifted policies) so this program was kept fairly quiet, 
and fairly small - the hope was to expand it over the years.

Anyway - we were forced together in that program - and because of its size, we 
were the only two kids our age in it and basically, it was hate at first sight. OK - 
I'm exagerating a bit there. But we didn't really get along. It's embarassing to 
mention what I was like at that age - but I was actually rather *scared* of girls. I 
wasn't a social butterfly, and I was in an environment where I could have relatively 
little contact with them. In fact, earlier that year, three girls had come into our 
school grounds and asked me the way to one of our theatres - I got so tongue tied 
just trying to answer that simple question that out of sheer embarassment, I fled. 
The story of how I ran away from girls went around the school pretty quickly (-8

Anyway - I had quite weird ideas of girls, they seemed *incredibly* different to me, 
and I wasn't that sure how to relate to them. And then I found myself forced into 
close proximity with one in the hope that we'd become friends. I felt threatened by 
her - I mean, I'd gone through all my schooling being far smarter than any other 
kid around me and suddenly I was up against a girl who I knew had been selected 
on the same criteria I had been. It was scary on so many levels. I didn't know how 
to relate to a girl. I didn't really like them (I was a fairly normal 15 year old boy in 
that I was *attracted* to females in some senses, but other parts of my psyche 
were still at the stage of being worried about catching girl germs). Emma (the girl) 
had rather the same opinions as me. We also had to deal with a woman in the 
program who seemed to be trying to act as a match maker.

Anyway - we basically didn't get along well to start with. Yeesh, we were 
competitive academically, and academics was a small part of this program. But we 
became competitive in everything else as well. But we also started talking - and 
actually realised we had met before when we were 13 in an inter-school debate 
(where I'd shredded her arguments to pieces! To be fair, I had the far easier case 
to argue, but I didn't concede that at the time), and we actually began to find each 
others company interesting and pleasing (and I learned the lesson that relating to 
girls wasn't that hard at all, once you realised that the trick was to relate to them 
as a person - which most of the time I could manage, but I had serious problems 
when I accidentally walked in on her when she was naked once - she was 
changing so we could go swimming. No way I could think of her as just another 
friend at that moment - she was hideously embarassed, and my (good faith, I 
swear) suggestion that if it made her feel better, she could see me naked, lead to 
a shoe hurled in my direction!)

We tried dating a couple of times (the car crash was one of those dates), but 
those were dates for the sake of dating - we were friends, and it was cool to date, 
but there wasn't really any romance going on. So we stopped 'dating' except for 
when one or the other of us needed a partner for something (we had school 
dances and things like that) - we called these 'fake dates'. Basically for a few 
years we just fake dated, and remained friends, but eventually it started to 
become a lot more than that.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia