I Never Hated a Man Enough to Give Him His Jewelry Back

You would think this would have been my mantra when I was dating. The truth was; I did give a guy his jewelry back – once. I never thought I’d be the type.

The truth was, even though I was a popular girl for dating – I didn’t score much jewelry. Why? Because I was always blowing guys off – rather rudely I’m afraid. And so unless his opening line went something like, “Please take this beautiful piece of metal” then there probably wasn’t time for him to warm up to giving me a shackle. However, it was one guy’s opening line once.

I love jewelry. That guy was really onto something. Seriously, if a guy waltzed up to me in the hall at my high school and said, “Yo Stephi-babe – I found this under the seat of my car. Want it?” And then he hung a pretty necklace in front of my face, I would have squealed with joy and thought happy things about him for weeks. I know I’m superficial. I get it. I also like articulate men, but in the face of something that sparkles, my ears would only hear, “This is for you.” I wouldn’t even have heard the bit about under the seat of his car or think about finding the real owner.

Anywoo – this one guy did do something like that. It was a bracelet and it wasn’t heart-stoppingly pretty, but it matched a necklace I wore all the time. He came up to me in the shop and asked me if I wanted it. I was like, ‘Gimme! Gimme!” Then a couple days went by and one of his friends came and asked me if I would go out with the guy who gave me the bracelet. I blinked. I was in grade ten and I had no idea why I was still being asked out via proxy. Wasn’t that for kids who were actually too young to date? So, I told the guy I wouldn’t participate in that kind of foolishness and if his friend wanted to date me he should ask me himself. The next day I was in a mood. So during shop class, I went up and gave it back. Zero ceremony.

You know, that must have been it. I must have enjoyed dumping boys more than waiting for the jewelry to come. I even dumped guys I liked. I know. I make myself sound wretched. It was just my belief that it was better to be brutally honest about my non-interest than string him along. I hate it when people get strung along. I’d rather be superficial.