A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

Standing in line to buy their movie tickets, the boy helplessly felt his pockets for his wallet as they neared the front of the line. He realized his wallet was not in his pocket after all. It was still sitting in his mom’s car that was now driving away. Annoyed, his date paid for everything. Then, just when he thought the night was turning around, he dropped both of their slushies. Her prized new shoes were no longer white. “So let’s just say after that day, we went our separate ways.”

LIGHTS, CAMERA, BUT NO ACTION

Taking a quick glance at the boy next to her, she wondered why she was so uncomfortable. They had been texting and Snapchatting the whole summer. They even went to the same junior high. Yet now sitting in the plush movie theater seats, both felt as rigid as a board. He had even splurged on a big tub of popcorn for their date. But by the end of the movie, it remained untouched as the credits rolled and the lights went on. “I just thought it was the funniest thing looking back on it because I love popcorn, so that was really hard for me. But I didn’t want to reach over him and get popcorn. And the whole time during the movie, I felt like he was reaching his hand towards mine to hold it, but I kept inching it away because I got scared.”

THREE’S A CROWD

It was Valentine’s Day and there she was, stuck third-wheeling on her friend’s date. They were supposed to meet another boy to come with them, but that friend never showed up. She sat there and tried not to notice as the boy repeatedly attempted to kiss her friend. Then, with twenty minutes left in the movie, her friend said she had to leave. “When she left I was thinking ‘I need to leave. I need to leave.’ But at the same time I’m like ‘I’m invested in this movie at this point.’ So I sat there, with her date, and awkwardly watched the rest of the movie after she left. They [my friend and the boy] ended up dating afterwards.”

THE CREEPY CAMPER

While a girl rode the bus back from summer camp, her friend’s camp boyfriend randomly started texting her. It started out pretty normal, but then he started flirting with her even though he was still dating her friend. Eventually it got so strange that he asked how much she liked him on a scale of 1 to 10. When she asked him if he meant like a friend he texted “No…and 5 is just like average.” “Then it got kind of creepy because he started texting me good night, trying to call me and it was just weird.”

WILL YOU BE HIS VALENTINE?

A freshman girl sat watching as the teacher wrote on the board in geometry class. She had known this sophomore boy and had talked to him before but was not expecting what happened next. Time was slowly ticking away when suddenly his sister burst into her geometry class. The sister proudly presented a cupcake to the freshman girl and asked if she would be her brother’s Valentine. All eyes were on the girl and it was as embarrassing as one could imagine. “Freshman year everyone is kind of awkward and the teacher was kind of awkward . . . Then [his sister] said ‘So will you be his Valentine?’ And I said ‘I guess?’ There was also a note from him. It’s just funny that he sent his sister, and he never talked to me about it after.”