Halls - Girl Meets Boy: Because There Are Two Sides to Every Story

My name is John Smith, and though Im aware that an overwhelming number of men use my name to check in to motels they shouldnt be checking in to, I try to be a man of virtue. Okay, Im sixteen; a boy of virtue. On the surface, with one exception, I couldnt seem more average if I lived in Kansas and drove my Ford Taurus to my job at the John Deere dealership five days a week. Im five feet ten and a half inches tall with dark brown hair and light brown eyes. I weigh a hundred fifty-three pounds. My grade point average is a 2.5 out of a possible 4.0, and Ive never had a grade lower than a D+ or higher than a B. Average guys should be calling me average. But I said there was one exception, and this is it: My face is so handsome it hurts. If People magazine knew I existed, theyd swarm this town like bumblebees on a turned-over honey truck right before their Beautiful People issue came out.

It probably sounds like Im bragging, and if I were most guys, I probably would be, but this thing is a curse because it turns me into one lying son of a bitch. And I hate myself when I lie. I grew up going to Sunday school, learning the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule; got a snoot full of the wrath of God from the Old Testament and the kinder, but just-as-firm, teachings of Jesus from the New Testament. They taught me that bad things happen if you lie and you stand a better chance of getting to heaven if you dont. My sixth-grade teacher was also the pastor of our church, and he was one no-nonsense kind of dude, the kind of guy who knows the true meaning of the word smite. In church he called them commandments and in school he called them rules, but the bottom line was, whether they were prefaced by Thou Shalt Not or Youd Damn Well Better, they were written in stone and were to be followed.

I have no problem with that, seriously. Theres nothing in the Ten Commandments that, under most circumstances, wont make you a better person. Under most circumstances, you shouldnt be killing people and you shouldnt be taking their stuff, and it would probably be in your best interest if you werent having wet dreams about their wives or girlfriends, much less acting on those dreams. It probably doesnt help you much to covet their stuff, either. I admit its hard to get behind not taking the Lords name in vain; that one should probably be demoted from a commandment to a suggestion. I mean, if there is going to be hell to pay for breaking commandments, it doesnt seem right that a guy who cusses should pay the same hell as a rapist or murderer.

But I digress, because this isnt as much about my belief system as it is my integrity, which goes right out the window every time I get involved with a girl. As I said, I have learned that lying is a bad thing. I dont cheat on my homework anymore, and I dont shoplift like I did for about a month there in grade school, filling my pockets with SweeTarts and Tootsie Pops. If a cop stops me and asks if I know how fast I was going, I tell him. When my football coach asks if I followed the summer workout regimen, out comes the truth, whether it means running a mile after practice every day or not.

But when any of my old girlfriends asked if I was ever attracted to anyone else, I looked her right in the eye with an expression that said, ME?! and told her unequivocally she was the only one I ever thought of. I mean, I spoke in italics. Now, for reasons I may or may not go into here, I was a virgin each and every time I told that whopper, so while I wasnt breaking the adultery commandment, I was setting records alone in my room coveting to beat the band, and whatever else. At first that would be as far as it went, but then (and I hate to say it, but its because Im so darn good-looking) some girl who was also into coveting would come along and start telling me her problems, because I seem to have a sign on my flawless forehead that says Tell Me How Awful Your Life Is, and I Will Save You (which I have since been told comes from having an alcoholic mother), and I would set about saving her. Only the next thing Id know, wed make some secret unspoken agreement that the best way to save her was to have my hands all over her and my tongue in her mouth. I guess maybe my behavior around my current girlfriend would change because shed start asking more and more often if I ever thought about anyone else, and then it would turn into was I messing with anyone else and, well eventually, the girl followed my integrity right out that window. When I turned around to lick my self-inflicted wounds, guess what? There was another girl waiting. To my credit, I didnt jump right into a relationship with the first girl in line. Sometimes Id wait as much as a week.

So I wanted to do the next one differently. I figured there had to be some kind of science to it; the idea of random mate selection probably wasnt a good one. If I wanted to know about fish, Id see a marine biologist, right? If I wanted to know about space, as in the universe, Id ask an astrophysicist. So, I thought, who would be the scientists when it comes to this love thing?