Free My Awesome/Awful Popularity Plan by Seth Rudetsky

myself next to the rack of bowling shoes for the entire party and playing the electronic Uno game she had bought for me to give him.
    My point is, if I told her anything about being gay, she’d want to know who I had a crush on; then she and my dad would pull one of their signature “helping out/scarring me for life” schemes.
    “Becky?” she finally asked. “The girl?”
    “Yes,” I said, and offered nothing else. I figured the less information, the better. Let her and my dad hash out whether I was going through a phase. I went up to my room and tuned my violin.
    After I squeaked my way through the Mendelssohn Eminor concerto (my favorite), I hightailed it to Spencer’s house. I was so excited to tell him everything that had happened! Right when I turned onto his block, my phone vibrated.
    I looked and I had an email from … CHUCK!
    I couldn’t believe he was already asking me out! I opened the email and, not surprisingly, he wasn’t. BUT, he did write that he and Becky wanted to have dinner together and we should all meet at seven at the Japanese place in the mall.
    Must. Control. Panting.
    I’d never spent more than forty-five minutes (the length of a period at school) with him. This time, instead of being surrounded by other kids like we were at lunch today, it would be just him and me. (And Becky.) AH! This day was turning out to be the best of my life! I rang Spencer’s doorbell, and as soon as he opened it, I got the apology out of the way.
    “Spencer, I’m sorry I didn’t sit with you and Mary Ann at lunch today.”
    He smiled and said, “That’s OK.”
    I then stood back and waited for the “How did you get invited to sit at Cool U?” barrage of questions. Instead I got: “I’m going to make us something to drink,” and he went into the kitchen.
    Son of a—!
    I was left in the foyer with an amazing story to tell and no audience! Where was the curiosity that had to have been consuming him all day? I walked into the kitchen with a hurt look and saw him making some chamomile tea.
    “Oh, Justin, take off the sad face. I’m going to give you a chance to tell me how you got to sit with the so-called cool kids. I just felt I needed to be drinking something soothing while I listened.” He brought our mugs to the kitchen table and took a deep breath. “Go.”
    I immediately launched into the whole story, and he was silent throughout it all. Hmm. I chose to believe that was because he was giving me his full attention and not because he was completely judging my conniving ways. Unfortunately, it was the latter.
    “Justin,” he said with a sigh after I finished my story and he finished his tea, “you have to know that this will never work out. A life manipulated is a life
something something
. Trying to force something to happen is like
blah blah blah
. The universe has a natural rhythm that
jibber jabber …
”
    I successfully tuned out the bulk of what he was saying because I was not interested in him raining on my parade, even if that is my favorite song from
Funny Girl
(not the movie or
Glee
version—the original Broadway recording).
    He then did what I knew he was going to do: He suggested that I skip meeting Chuck and Becky and instead do a meditation DVD with him. Oy! If it wasn’t a DVD he was trying to get me to sit through, it was a book he wanted me to take home to read/do the exercises. FYI, any DVD that has a cover featuring a man with a white beard or any book that comes with a workbook should be avoided.
    He saw my expression and tried to convince me.“Meditation could be the key to finding out if you’re following your true path.”
    He didn’t get it! “I don’t want to meditate, Spencer. I want to medi-
date …
Chuck!”
    “Ow!” Spencer covered his ears. “That wasn’t even a pun.” I looked away, ashamed. “You see, Justin, even your amazing sense of humor is out of alignment because you’re trying to alter nature’s course.”
    That
was
a clunker, but I