Story #14: My Jennifer Garner story

When I was a junior in college, years before ALIAS would make her famous, I fell in love with Jen Garner. Keep in mind that I had NO game at this point in my life and was inept in any and all areas of romantic intention. I suppose I was a somewhat charmingly naive, dorky film major and she was a beautiful freshman theatre major with lots of moxie. I longed to be around her whenever I could, and would bend over backwards to make a workable shooting schedule that would allow for her theater rehearsal and performance duties in order to cast her in even the tiniest of parts in my student films.

I was also extremely jealous of a few fellow cinema majors who - in succession - became the object of her affections. It drove me nuts that they had somehow figured out how to win her over romantically and yet I could not. But still, I didn't relent. Every hug or touch on the arm or laugh from her I took as a sign that I should continue my wooing of her and never once did I let it dawn on me that she simply might not be attracted to me. To her credit, Jen saw what this was doing to me - and how it was affecting my friendships with the guys I was jealous of - and she decided to do something about it before I got downright stalker-y.

It was an afternoon during our annual spring Theatre/Cinema picnic where majors from both departments got together to socialize, and it was a somewhat odd grouping (since there was some notorious antagonizing between the 'stage' folk and the 'screen' folk that happened during most of the year). We were in the backyard of the Head of the Theater Department's house when Jen approached me and asked if we could talk for a few minutes. I eagerly accepted, stupidly thinking "This is the moment when all my persistence pays off."

She steered me over to a bench that sat in the shade below a huge oak tree and after we both sat she turned to me and said something like, "Kerry, I have to talk with you before this gets out of hand. You and I are friends and that's all we're ever going to be."

Now you would think that this news coming from her would have devastated me -- being so enamored with her as I was -- and you're right; normally it would have. My face would have fallen, my bottom lip would have begun to quiver, I might have even shed a few tears and desperately begged her to reconsider -- all within earshot of those friends and strangers that were scattered about the yard. In a word, it would have been PATHETIC.

But nope, I listened to what she had to say, nodded and said, "okay", then seemingly stalwart and staid, I excused myself.

I like to think that I must have come off as incredibly mature and took the news SO well that my reaction was nothing less than impressive. So impressive in fact, that we remained friends and I cast her again in another film the following school year.

But what Jen didn't know is this: As soon as we sat down on that bench..., and moments before the words "you and I are friends and that's all we're ever going to be" had reached my ears, a bird, high up in the branches of that enormous oak tree, took a shit which landed right on top of my head. Jen didn't see it happen but I sure as hell felt it, and -- as appropriate as it was for the situation which was currently playing itself out -- I knew I couldn't let her know what had just occured.

I stayed calm, the realization dawning on me that if I began to freak out, everyone at the picnic would soon hear that a bird had shit on my head. I would become "the Shit Head guy". It would be the joke of the day, the week, the semester and the following semester.... Hell, I might NEVER live it down.

So, I let her finish speaking and thanked her for taking the time to square me up, and then went to the bathroom to get some tissue and clean off my head. It wasn't until I was looking at myself in the mirror above the sink that what she'd actually said -- I mean the actual words -- registered in my brain. And when they did..., when I was alone in the bathroom and began to process exactly what those words meant..., well.... I was grateful for that fucking, little bird. Ironically, that bird shitting on my head allowed me to keep my dignity.

Comments

[The American Mastodon]

"Kerry, I have to talk with you before this gets out of hand. You and I are friends and that's all we're ever going to be."

Before what gets out of hand? Were you stalking her? What the hell? That's an amazingly pretensious, self-absorbed thing to say. I would have slapped her filthy little mouth.

"Hi, how are you. Before you get to know me better and discover that I am a beautiful person, and before I utterly destroy your heart, I want to let you know that I'm not attracted to you, and would rather continue our further relationship in a way that maintains this currently platonic tone. I hope you don't kill yourself, but I can understand if you do, as I am so fucking gorgeous and amazing. Goodbye!"

[Kerry]

Well... see there...? I think you would have been much better equipped to handle the news. Besides, I was sort of grasping at straws trying to hold onto the thought that I was straight. It was definitely about more than just her, so yeah, what with the desperation and all, she could have easily been fed up with the unwanted attention.
I think you're being a bit harsh... especially since I wrote that she said "something like".... I'd be amazed if I actually remembered word for word what she said to me fifteen years ago.

[Magnus]

I think it seems like a good thing to do of her. Y'know, spare you the trouble of becoming, like you said, stalkery. Very nice. And I can well imagine how desperate you must have seemed, what with not only being very infatuated with her, but also on the verge of homosexuality. It seems like "almost-gays" are even MORE heterosexual than most regular heteros. Or maybe I'm confused. I dunno.

Great story as always, though. Some good technique there, too. Holding out on the poo detail, for example. I know you're probably aware of this already, but I thought I'd mention it.