Summer is a fantastic time of year for residents of South
Provo, particularly the Deerhaven community.
There is almost always some ward activity, pickup game, or party to
attend, and more often than not, your problem is choosing what to do, not
finding something to do. I took advantage
of this, and made it a point to invite Taylor to many activities. Of course, I continued to encourage and hope
he would attend FHE on Mondays, Ultimate Frisbee at Bicentennial Park on
Tuesdays followed by Stake Softball league games, Stake Institute on
Wednesdays, and pickup basketball at a nearby church on Thursdays. Friday and Saturday evenings were usually
occupied by some random party or outing.
To my delight, Taylor did decide to attend several of these
activities over the following weeks. At
frisbee and basketball, I was happy to learn that Taylor was quite athletic. I wasn’t able to track him down at Institute,
but he was fairly vigilant in attending church activities at the ward level. I didn’t see him very often at any of the
random Friday or Saturday evening events.
Clearly I needed to step up my game!
I had conveniently run out of ink, and took my empty ink
cartridge to the Think Ink store at the University Mall during a lunch break at
work. I made sure my hair, makeup, and
clothes were just right. Unfortunately,
Taylor was not at work that particular day.
I asked the young man work there if he knew when Taylor would be
in. I was informed he would be in the
next day and I resolved to try again tomorrow.
The next day, I repeated the same process of making sure that everything
was just right with my hair, makeup, and clothes and once again made my way to
the mall. He was there this time, and we
had a short, but positive interaction. I
felt like I was finally starting to make a bit of an impact and I felt
confident enough to try and expand our interactions to something a little more
personal. At a ward FHE the following
Monday, I suggested that Taylor, his roommate, Thomas, and I go see X-Men First
Class on Friday. I had already seen it, but seeing a movie with
Taylor was well worth the price of admission (not to mention that it’s one of
my favorite movies).
Friday finally arrived and I was very excited for some one
on (almost) one time with Taylor. The
evening went great with one exception.
For all the time I spent primping and grooming, you would think I would
notice that one of the buttons of my shirt was undone, but alas I did not. Taylor did, however, and he was kind enough
to tell me about it. He was very polite,
but I was still very embarrassed. I did
my best not to let it affect my demeanor for the rest of the evening.
Undeterred, Taylor and I saw each other very casually
several times over the following weeks.
Most notably was my birthday.
Although there was a larger party planned for the Friday following my
birthday, a group of friends and I went out for ice cream to celebrate on my
actual birthday. Naturally, I made sure
that both Taylor and Thomas knew they were invited. I was even able to somehow finagle my way
into getting a ride with the two of them in Thomas’ truck. First, we went to Sammy's, a hole-in-the-wall
restaurant off Center Street in Provo.
Living up to its reputation for being a popular hangout spot, the wait
to order was easily 45 minutes. Not
wanting to wait that long for ice cream, our group moved to Dairy Queen –
slightly more commercial, but certainly capable of filling our ice cream
cravings.
I was very busy playing host, and making sure that I got to
sit and visit with each of my friends who were kind enough to take time out of
their schedules to celebrate my birthday.
I didn’t get to spend nearly as much time talking to Taylor as I wanted
to – probably a good thing as I didn’t want to appear too eager. Even so, I was not very pleased with the
amount of time he spent talking to one particular female friend, Christina
Laymen. To make matters worse, he opted
to drive home with her and not Thomas and, in turn, not me.
A few days later there was a more official birthday
celebration hosted by my friend Tracy (check out Tracy's blog post for all the details).
It was a joint birthday venture with another ward member whose birthday
was the day after mine. It was a Michael
Jackson theme, and the main form of entertainment was the popular Wii game The
Michael Jackson experience on a projector.
Many people came to the party, but Taylor was not among the attendees. He did text me a few times, wherein I learned
that he was at a play in support of a friend was participating in. Of course I assumed that said friend was a
girl (later on, Taylor would admit that this was true and that he had been out
with this girl a few times).
Nevertheless, the party was great fun.
On both nights, I went home slightly defeated, but not
overwhelmingly crushed. He was just a
silly boy, and I shouldn’t let myself get too interested or disappointed too
quickly.
