She minces no words.

Dont Mince Words


Get your arms around this

Posted on August 31, 2003 by Marna

I encountered an action today that was so innocent and so unfamiliar to me, that I obsessed a day about it. I went on a movie date tonight with a guy who asked, “May I put my arm around you?”

What the fuck? I barely watched the movie because I was doing a lifetime of date playback in my head. OK, McFly, did I go back into some time travel here? Manners? Romance? What 19th century alien life form am I sitting next to?

This is nice. Then he held my hand too.

Sixty minutes into “Swimming Pool” I was still reviewing my former dating pool. I can not be 37 years old and not remember the last time a guy put his arm around me in a theatre, let alone asked permission!!! No, this is sad. I think I’ve dated some nice guys, in between the losers.

2000 decade. Nope, didn’t happen.

1990’s. Don’t remember and I don’t count a rental in bed as a theatre.

1980’s. Bar dates, no arm-around-me-movie dates.

Then I remembered.

Terry was the last guy that put his arm around me in a movie theater. He looked like Adam Rich from the series “Eight is Enough” with his straight bowl-cut hair with Sun-In highlights. I was a head taller than him. It was the summer of 1978 and we went to see “Grease” at the Loehmann Plaza theaters on Route 50. His parents dropped us off. And I distinctly remember him paying. When he put his arm around me, I spent the rest of the movie wondering when he was going to feel me up. He never did. So, was I Sandy or Rizzo?

That Fall, Terry and I were in eighth grade at Longfellow Middle. We drifted apart and he found a short girl to date.

What does all this mean? Is this is like a Mars sighting…. I’ll get an arm around me once every 25 years? Nope, it means what I’ve known all along: I’ve been dating the wrong boys.

I’m a little Sandra, and a little Rizzo. Simple pleasures are so satisfying. Yes, put your arm around me.

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  • About Marna

    Marna’s writing career started as a Pentagon intern. Early exposure to $500 toilet seat press releases made her appreciate creative nonfiction. Now she has more than 25 years of senior-level marketing and communications success working with Fortune 100 companies, government, nonprofits, small businesses, startups, and agencies.

    Stats: 378 Posts, 132 Comments

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