That time I secretly met up with a boy from the internet

That’s right, long time readers, it’s a SEAN STORY! 

I know I’ve talked about this before. The day I revealed this tale, with a deep shame, to my parents was also the day I talked about it on my old collab channel TheseFolk. But I’ve never really gone into detail about the dumbest single thing I’ve ever done, which is also incidentally one of my best stories.

*featured photo on this post is me at the age this story took place*

Let’s set the stage, because it’s been a while since I broke out a good Sean story. Sean is a boy I met on Facebook back when Facebook had “apps.” We met on “Are You Interested,” a proto-Tinder dating app of sorts when I was 16 and he was 17. We both lived in Colorado, at opposite ends of I-70, and we had a very dramatic, very tumultuous two year long something that ended multiple times, all worse than the last. I’ve gotten to the point where, due to the upsettingly long time we spend being awful to each other, I refer to him as an “ex,” full stop. We were never “labelled,” but we had a relationship that consumed me for years, and “ex” feels easier to say than “boy I met on the internet who I had a two year on and off long distance sort of relationship with where we told each other we loved each other but also only met in person four times.” Anyways.

Today we’re going to talk about the first time I met Sean, because it marks the one and only rebellious thing I ever did, the one and only time I lied to my parents about where I was, and truly the dumbest, funniest story in my arsenal.

Sean was the drum leader or drum captain or drum lieutenant or whatever for his high school’s marching  band, and the whole crew was coming to my home town one weekend for a marching band competition. This was a year or so after we’d met online, after… two “break-ups”? Three? Who can keep count. Anyways, we’d been talking again, nothing serious, when he brought it up. He asked if there was any way we could meet up, since it would be the first time we’d be in the same city. I said of course, I’d make it work. The planning commenced.

They were getting into town on a Friday, as the competition was during the school day, and then later that night the band was going Bananas Fun Park, a small amusement park in town with go-carts, laser tag, mini golf, arcade games, and batting cages. The patently insane plan went like this:

1. I would plan to spend the night at my best friend Rachel’s house
2. I would, in fact, go to Rachel’s house after my secret rendezvous, but the times of my expected arrival at her house differed between parental sets. My parents thought I was going straight there after school. Her parents thought I was coming much later, because I was “having dinner with a friend from out of town first” and then picking Rachel up from her own post-school plans for our sleepover
3. In order to give me time to “have dinner with a friend” and still keep up our story of arriving at her house at the same time, Rachel went on a date with a boy whose name I don’t remember. Because we were teenagers and broke, our options for late night dates were limited, so they went to a graveyard. This might be my favorite part of this story.
4. Our story set, after school I would go to Barnes and Nobles to kill time in between Sean’s band going to dinner and getting to Bananas. I read 2/3s of the latest Princess Diaries book before he texted they were on their way to the fun park.
5. I got into my 1999 Ford Ranger to head to Bananas. I can’t remember if I had a maps app on my phone at the time (2009, I think?), but I can remember that having never driven myself to Bananas, I got very lost.
6. As I drove a second time down the highway that cuts through Grand Junction, CO, I texted a friend for directions. He was unable to help. I then called my first ex-boyfriend, Mike, who up until about six months prior still wasn’t speaking to me because I’d broken up with him to date my second ex-boyfriend Cody, who I’d subsequently broken up with after a year of dating to have my weird long distance illicit Facebook love affair.
7. Mike, who for some reason at this time was not only speaking to me but also knew full well my secret rendezvous plans, was finally able to navigate me to the correct exit to get to Bananas. I thanked him, hung up, took a deep breath, and entered the fun park.
8. When I got there, I texted Sean, who was engaged in bumper boats. I wandered over to that part of the park and got my first IRL glimpse of this boy who would cause me so much heartache over the next few years. My first thought was “wow his head is really small in proportion to his body,” my second thought was “wow he’s cute,” my third thought was “it is way too cold and windy to do bumper boats,” and my fourth thought was “oh my god I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
9. He exited the bumper boats soaking wet and grinning, sauntering over to me and triggering a fifth thought- “holy shit he’s tall.”
10. My first words to him, regrettably, were “are you [offensive R word]?” I was referring, of course, to doing bumper boats in the freezing weather. It was a bad first in-person phrase for many reasons, but he just laughed, said “no!” and gave me a gangly hug. He introduced me to his friend Tim. Sup, Tim?
11. Since I was a broke high schooler with no income, I hadn’t bought a pass, so giant Sean and giant Tim wedged me between them to sneak me into laser tag. It worked. I was ecstatic. Rebelling, as it turns out, was quite the rush.
12. Sean, a member of ROTC who planned to go into the military after high school, took laser tag very seriously. It was charming at the time.
13. His school chaperones decided it was about time to leave after a second illicit laser tag game, so I retreated to my car to wait for them to load up the massive tour bus they’d rented to get all the kids from their hometown to here. For reasons I still don’t know, it took them upwards of 45 minutes, which I spent in my truck waiting, pretending to talk on the phone, and feeling hella awkward about sitting in my truck waiting.
14. Finally, the tour bus pulled out of Bananas, and I reversed my truck to follow at a safe distance. So young. So dumb. Night fell on the drive- it was now pitch black. Rachel texted, asking how things were going. I told her we still hadn’t been alone yet, and apologized it was taking longer than expected.
15. I parked across the street from their hotel, in an empty parking lot in front of a closed pizza place. Fifteen minutes after they’d unloaded, Sean texted me to pull around front and came bolting out of the front doors. Important piece of context: Sean had a bordering-on-unhealthy obsession with James Bond, so the sneaking out of his hotel to meet his secret kinda girlfriend was very exciting to him.
16. After he jumped in the car, laughing, I sped off and we tried to decide where we wanted to go. We were near the airport and it was after 8 or 9pm at this point, so not much was available to us. After some back and forth, we ended up driving back to my original darkened parking lot across the street from his hotel, and after some chatting, we flattened one of the seat backs and started making out as only two teenagers in a truck in a parking lot in the dead of Friday night can.
17. We made out more.
18. We made out even MORE.
19. Rachel texted again to let me know her graveyard date was basically done, because surprisingly, unless you’re performing a ritual or slaying vampires, graveyards are kind of boring. I asked for more time.
20. More making out. I decline to comment on anything else but it was at MOST PG-13, family-I-know-who-read-this-blog.
21. Around 11pm, Rachel, apologizing profusely, implores me to come pick her up, because for real, graveyards are super boring and her date was getting antsy. After another few minutes of procrastinate-by-kissing and Sean grumbling something about Bond never having a curfew, I readjusted my car seat so I could reach the pedals. He kissed me goodnight before heading back into the hotel and I raced to pick up Rachel, head spinning with the night’s adventure and how I was going to phrase my fake story to Rachel’s parents, if they asked.
22. I picked up Rachel from a movie theater (this detail I got from a college essay I wrote about this night, because I don’t remember this at all. I guess her date dropped her off somewhere central and not-graveyard-y so I could pick her up? Rachel, if you remember, feel free to correct the timeline/circumstances) and her parents, from what I can remember, didn’t ask or care. We were 17 and the least troublesome teenagers ever. Oh if they only knew [about this one and only time we ever did anything remotely rebellious]

And that was that. He left the next day with his band, and I went home post-sleepover feeling pretty dang proud of myself. After that, Sean and I met three more times. Once, for a brief couple of hours when my mom drove me to Denver the day before I flew to an out of state summer camp, once, when he stayed at my house overnight a few months later (something I still can’t believe my parents allowed to happen), and one final time, a year later, when my fellow newspaper editors went to a high school journalism conference at his new college campus. We were no longer “together” that last time I saw him, for a brief ten minutes outside of his cafeteria I managed to sneak away from my classmates. It was not nearly as exciting by then.

So that’s it. That’s what happened the time I met a boy from the internet in secret. Takeaways: if you play your cards right it’s super easy to lie to your parents, Rachel is a true ride or die best friend that I’m immeasurably lucky to have in my life, and boys with Bond fetishes are probably more excited by sneaking around than you actually want if looking for a real relationship. Despite how tumultuous that relationship was on both of us and on my mental health in particular, you can’t deny it’s a hell of a story.