A Girl Named Liz

It was the summer of 2001, I'm 17 and just in a great place in life. I'm working lots of hours at Canadian Tire on weekends and evenings and working at St Lawrence cement as a summer student.

I really liked working at CT, always had a good boss, always worked with great people and looked forward to going to work.

One day, I'm asked to pick up some returns for the seasonal department, it's a pretty standard task and I head over to grab the cart. A girl I don't recognize says hello and let's me know which cart was mine. Her name tag said Liz and she had a smile that could light up a room. I'm fairly introverted so I gave her a quick hello with a slight nod and thanked her for letting me know about the pickup mid day instead of at the end of the day and then was on my way.

When I got back to the seasonal area, I asked my other coworkers if they had met/seen Liz yet and the whole department was in awe of her beauty. I guess she was the talk of the department for a few days when she first got hired.

I got to see Liz a few more times that week and I was starting to get a little more comfortable around her. We'd have a quick 1 minute chat about random stuff while I looked through the carts.

Fast forward a month and I see her in the lunch room. On weekends I'd go to the Longo's nearby, grab a slice of pizza and a bottle of water and then head back to the CT lunch room for some peace and quiet. Breaks were sporadic on weekends and I'd often be in there by myself or with 1 other person. Well this time it was just me and Liz and I'm a pretty shy person so I just said hello then sat down eating my pizza.

To my surprise, Liz gets up from her chair and walks over and sits at my little table and just starts asking questions about my life. I was a little in shock but really happy to have her sit at my table. I clearly had a huge crush on her but I wasn't the type to go out and actively seek out a girl for a date. I was 17 turning 18, didn't have much experience with women and like most individuals really afraid of rejection. I wasn't an ugly kid but at the time I'd consider myself a 6-7 out of 10 in the looks and build department but Liz was a 9 or more. I didn't have the self confidence to even think about asking out a 9/10 girl.

Break is only a half hour and I spent a good 10 minutes of it getting the pizza slice so our chat only lasted maybe 10 or so minutes. She started her break slightly before mine so she left 5 minutes before my break was over. Upon leaving, she reached out and touched my shoulders which gave me goosebumps.

I couldn't wait to tell all my co-workers in the seasonal department about my little chat. To my surprise they all laughed at me. I guess most of the store was aware that Liz had a crush on me and I was the only one unaware of her flirting. I guess she asked a bunch of my coworkers about me and why I wasn't asking her out. At that very moment, my self confidence must have tripled.

The rest of the summer goes by and I don't see Liz very much at work, our schedules just didn't line up well in August but I managed to have one last decent convo with her before school started in September. I asked it if it would be cool if I could get her number and maybe hang out outside of work. She smiled and said yes and I went back to work with the biggest smile on my face.

We never did end up meeting up outside of work after that. Her hours at CT were reduced, I was busy with school and work and as much as I liked her, I was really afraid of rejection. We saw each other maybe once every other week at CT and we'd flirt with each other but besides that, nothing really progressed past that.

I'm now in OAC and with the pressure of University admission on my doorstep, I start going into a very dark place mentally. In five years, I'll be done school and I'll have to grind out life to achieve my very ambitious goals and this really terrified me. I was really putting a ton of pressure on myself to succeed quickly in life.

Along comes a new girl who somehow just falls into my life. I find her attractive but she's not a 9 or a 10 and I'm not crushing on her like I was on Liz, I'm just happy to talk to her and be around her but it just feels different. This girl makes me happy, she makes me laugh, she laughs at all my jokes, I feel this new rush of confidence, I can't stop thinking about her and eventually I start crushing on her hard. I'm excited to share this with all my co-workers and eventually this news makes it to Liz. After that, things are weird between us and we just kind of fizzled out. I didn't feel bad because she had guys asking her out all the time and she went on dates with other guys while I was in OAC. She was a very smart and attractive girl and she could get any guy she wanted.

I sometimes wondered what would have happened if I had asked her out. Would it have been a 1 date type scenario? Would it lead to other dates? Would we eventually start being boyfriend/girlfriend? I never had those thoughts back then because she was just so gorgeous and I thought never in a million years would a girl like that want to be with a guy like me. As I matured, I realized looks aren't everything but that wasn't something that dawned on me till I hit university. A mutual attraction needs to exist at first, but much more needs to be in play for a healthy relationship/marriage to last/exist.

So Liz, I hope your life is everything you expected it to be.