Totally Awkward Tuesday

Once again, I am participating in this week's Totally Awkward Tuesday, hosted (as always) by Tova Darling. Her story for today is hilarious (and possibly the cliff-notes story of my life from ages 7 - 17) so go check it out.

My story for today is about ex-boyfriends. You'll find that most of my Totally Awkward stories are about ex-boys or room mates (or maybe you won't if you're not a regular reader. hmm...)

As you know (or may not, first time reader) I'm one of my boss's favorites at work, which somehow gets twisted into having to work a lot more than the other swim instructors, ie whenever he/the managers can't/don't want to work. The night of this story, I'm home for the weekend from my first semester of college and there is a swim meet at the pool I work at. Neither my boss nor any of the other managers can make it in, so I'm sitting in the office, attempting to tell the lifeguards (who are all older than me at this point, I might add) what to do, when who should I see but one of my exes walking around on the pool deck. (That's the pool I'm talking about to the left -- with a mechanical shark fin in the water! Not at a swim meet, though. I digress..)

We'll call this one Boy C (yes, there are Boys A & B). Boy C is not technically an ex as much as he is someone I went on a few dates with the summer after my senior year of high school. He decided we should see other people through an email while he was at work one day -- as you can tell, it was love at first sight.

Now, Boy C was very clearly out of place. Mostly because he was wearing a sweater in a sweltering hot indoor pool (there's no air conditioning so the swimmers don't freeze), but also because he was carrying a really nice Nikon or Canon camera near a giant body of water. So, being suspicious of what exactly is going on, I walk out on deck to question him. He commences to tell me that he's snapping photos for the yearbook. We make small talk for a few moments and I inform him that a ceremony honoring the senior swimmers will start soon and he probably wants to get out of the way -- it's not exactly photo-worthy anyways.

So, taking me up on my offer (maybe, I don't remember if I actually told him to join me in the office) he follows me into the office, sits across from me and we start to talk about how his senior year is going. Then, a lifeguard that works there walks into the office. I never really went on a date with this one, but he liked me a lot and had made that very clear on more than one occasion. He also knows who Boy C is (though Boy C doesn't know this when they're introduced.) So he's kind of flirting with me when all of sudden there's a knock on the window to the office. Who should be there but Boy A? Of course.

(For those who don't know, Boy A and I dated for a year and a half in high school and basically broke up because I was going off to college. I began dating Boy C soon after.)

So, now I have Boy A -- the ex that at that point I would have still gotten back together with --, Boy C -- who to this day I like the idea of, but was over him by the time he sat in my office --, and Lifeguard all sitting in the office with me and I have no way to escape because I'm required to be in there and I'm not mean enough to kick them out. Boy C and Boy A know who the other is and when they're introduced there's a very obvious though brief moment of sizing each other up. Lifeguard has realized what's going on by this point and is either openly amused or competitive, I've never really been able to tell, and I'm sinking down slowly in my chair as they start to talk to each other, then all turn to me at the same time and ask who I'm now dating.

Commence sinking lower in my chair (thankfully, I've never really been a blusher). I must have mumbled something about the 23-year-old ex-Marine I actually was dating because I'm asked about him occasionally to this day, but the rest of that conversation was a blur except the moment when another lifeguard (a girl this time, and a friend of mine) walked in, recognized every person in that room and their relation to me, looked at me and said, "Well...this is awkward..." and very quickly fled from the room. I could have pummeled her for not at least taking Lifeguard with her so I could maybe at least one of the ex-boy's to leave based on "needing to do work" but no such luck. She later laughed at me and asked how my evening had gone.

Needless to say, I've since worked up the courage to kick people out of the office when necessary.