If you couldn't tell by now, your father was never really a hit with the ladies. It's a miracle that I ended up getting married to your mother.

With that being said, I also considered it a miracle that a girl had decided to kiss me. Absolutely elated after it happened, I awkwardly said goodbye to Tanya and stumbled out of the house, my footsteps in motion with the drizzle of rain falling from above. Twirling around my umbrella in my right hand, my arms extended back and forth as my feet began to move faster and faster.

Once arriving at my house, my body raced towards the phone. Detaching it from its large cradle, my fingers glided along the smooth plastic keys, responding with a loud tone every time one was touched.

"Hello, Bookes' residence speaking. Who is this?" a deep, baritone voice replied. I assumed it was one of the many siblings Mike had, probably one of the older ones. But, I had no idea what his name was.

"Hi, it's Malik, could I please speak to Mike?"

"Yeah, sure, one second." A loud thud followed, soon dissipating to reveal a large consortium of voices. The voices were loud enough to be noticeable with the weak phone connection, yet quiet enough that it was very challenging to discern what any individual voice was saying.

Soon, a voice became dominant amongst the collection of background noise, it's nasally tone sounding jarring yet familiar to my ears. "Yo Malik, what's up?"

"You're not going to believe this, but I just made out with a chick!"

I wonder if he could tell how wide my smile was when those words were spoken. You know, if my life were a sitcom, that would have been the moment where the audience in the background would have applauded.

"Congrats, who was it?"

"Tanya."

"First off, thank god I didn't make that bet. But again, good job bro, I'm honestly proud of you. Time to ask the real questions, though. Does she have any hot friends?"

"What bet?"

Mike chuckled. "Nothing, don't worry about it."

Even though I had no idea about the bet he almost tried to make, it wasn't hard to let it slide. Come to think about it, Mike was the most supportive out of all of my friends back then when it came to my relationship with Tanya. Even though I knew the fact that he didn't really like her as a person, he at least tried to show some enthusiasm about the whole thing.

With that being said, that conversation was the best response I would receive when it came to telling my friends about what had happened. While Jason was alright with it as well – Allison and Zoey weren't.

I didn't really know the specifics behind the apparent rivalry between Tanya, Allison, and Zoey, and to this day, I still don't completely know the gist of it. As I told the entire group the events that had transpired, Allison and Zoey didn't really respond, opting to stay mostly silent the entire time.

With that cleared up, let's fast forward about a week in our story to Thursday, March 16, 2007. The day before Tanya and I went on our first date.

We had been low-key starting to talk more and hang out more, but nothing was technically official at the time. But, that was all about to change. And honestly, I was nervous as hell about that.

So, that afternoon, my fingers pressed against the hard plastic keys, making beeping sounds with each press. While Jason and I weren't exactly best friends, we had still become close. And, I thought he had a level of expertise in the realm of dating that Mike couldn't really offer at the time.

"Huh, so you're basically asking me for advice?" Jason said, as his voice echoed through my phone speaker.

"Yeah, basically," I replied.

"Alright. Well, you know how everyone tells you to be yourself? Don't. Don't get me wrong, you're a great guy, but you've got to be a bit more of a douchebag, a bad boy if you will, otherwise she'll end up walking all over you."

"But, she obviously liked me from before, so why would I need to change anything?"

"Well, uh, to start off, you didn't really come in expecting anything and look what happened. You've got to act distant to keep her interested. The first date sets what she'll expect for the rest of the relationship. If you go all out, she'll expect that for the rest of the relationship, making your job a million times harder."

"I don't know about this, man."

"Alright, fine. All I can say is I know from experience what works and what doesn't. Hell, this weekend I'm going out with both Tiffany and Michelle, so I think I know what I'm talking about."

"Okay, sorry, so anything else?"

"Yep. Take her to see a horror film, chicks dig that shit. Plus, in the middle of the movie, do the old yawn and grab. Make sure you yawn, stretch your arms and put one hand over her shoulder. Classic trick, it works around 90% of the time."

In retrospect, asking him for dating advice turned out to be a very bad decision, which teaches us many important lessons. One of which is that experience does not necessarily equate to results.

While I took his advice as gospel, it didn't really do much to comfort me, especially the part about acting differently in order to impress her. But, I thought he knew what he was talking about, so I figured it was best to just go with it.

The next day at school was somewhat surreal. It moved at a very fast pace, probably due to my apprehension towards the date in the evening. My mind was out of it – enough to even make Mrs. Chung concerned for my wellbeing. But, soon enough, the day was over, leading me to go home and begin getting ready for the date.

School ended at 2 o'clock every day, but the date wasn't until six. It was clear to me that playing shooting games on my computer would take my mind off of the whole situation.  The sound of hearing people get yelled at over the internet was oddly soothing, almost like cough medicine or white noise.

At 5:10, I figured it was time to get ready. At this point, you probably know how your grandmother was about this stuff. Thankfully, I told her a few days ago that I was going to the library to work on a school project.

As I left the house, I surely didn't forget to throw on a white t-shirt, a leather jacket, and some deodorant. The cotton interior of the jacket provided a nice shield against the chilly wind, which attacked my body like a storm of tiny daggers.

One thing I hated about living in the suburbs was taking public transit. The dark ages of transportation were certainly the times when I couldn't drive and didn't have access to a car. As my feet tapped against the concrete surface of the bus platform, the grating sound of pop punk music blared from the earphones of the guy standing next to me.

Almost twenty minutes after arriving at the bus stop, a tall vehicle with a bright LED sign on its front approached us. A faint robotic voice inside the vehicle could be heard as the bus came to a stop. As I stepped on the bus, my uncovered face greeted its toasty interior with open arms.

Do you ever have those moments where you look back at what you've done in a particular moment of time and just begin to cringe? Well, this is one of those moments for me, so I apologize in advance for the awkwardness and idiocy that you're about to see take place.

Anyways, getting off at the bus terminal, I walked towards the direction of the theatre, its size becoming more massive as my body inched closer to the red and blue building.

After looking at my watch, a quick mental high-five followed. But, it was naive of me to think that Tanya wouldn't also be early. As my feet swerved, twisted and turned to avoid hitting the cars that were littered over the parking lot, my eyes focused towards a hand waving back and forth near the entrance.

Initially, I was going to wave back to be polite, but I quickly remembered Jason's advice. Instead, my feet walked towards in the direction of the extended hand. Focusing on the figure, I started to ignore the rest of my surroundings, almost bumping into some old guy as a result.

Eventually, the rest of the figure came into focus, and as suspected, it was none other than Tanya Webster. Her hair had changed drastically, with each strand looking as straight as an ironing board. Her hair, while once frizzy, now flowed down her shoulders and arms. Some glittery blue film appeared to be covering her eyelids, and her once noticeable acne now appeared to have faded away.

She looked gorgeous, which only amped up my overwhelming feelings of nervousness and tension. Looking up at the sky, I couldn't help but think that the day was going to be a long one.

"Hi, Malik!" Tanya said. As her glossy lips curved upwards, small dimples revealed themselves on both ends of her smile.

"Hi," I replied. It was tough to maintain a monotone voice, but not saying much was a good way to keep up the facade of indifference.

"You look handsome."

"I know," I responded. Taking out my trusty old iPod, my eyes centered on its dimly lit screen. The music player wasn't really playing anything, it was just a ruse to make me seem distant and not really into the whole thing. Throwing the thing in my back pocket a few seconds later, my field of vision turned towards her face.

Her formerly curved lips now looked as straight as a table. As her eyebrows arched upwards, a million different thoughts raced through my mind. Most of all, I really hoped that this whole plan worked.

Simply shrugging at her in response, we both headed inside the theatre. Like Jason said, I initially suggested a horror film, in spite of the fact that they scare the bejeebers out of me. Thankfully, Tanya shut that down, citing her concerns over seeing a scary movie.

She suggested some generic romantic-comedy flick instead. While the name of it seems to be out of my memory, it doesn't really matter anyways as most of them tended to follow the exact same plot.

As we walked towards the section of the movie theatre showing Generic Romantic Comedy 2, my eyes darted towards her dress – the white pattern etched in the blue fabric made the whole article of clothing look like a shimmering waterfall as she moved.

Looking back, it would have been a smart move for me to hold her hand as we walked towards the movie. Actually, there were a lot of things I could have done differently on that date. But, she was already a few steps ahead of me, shifting lone strands of her straight hair.

So, we saw the movie. It wasn't really anything special, to be honest. The movie was nothing more than your average, forgettable romantic comedy. It would have been wise for me to try the whole yawning-arm trick thingy more than once. The one time I went for it, the move failed horrendously. She reached down to pick something that she dropped as my hand was trying to land a comfortable position on her shoulder.

By the end of the movie, we had made pretty much no physical contact with each other, which didn't help anything but accelerate my own sense of nervousness. The whole ordeal was rough and fairly awkward, but the day wasn't over yet. There was a dinner portion to this whole thing.

The once blue sky was now painted over with a dark coat of paint, and the only things illuminating our path were streetlights across the parking lot, and lights from LED signs around the plaza.

There was yellow light spilling into the sidewalk from a neon sign, hinged on the front of the restaurant we were going to. While the next thing I did was really silly and rude, I truly was dedicated to my false persona. By slowing down and letting her take the lead, she was forced to open the door for me.

The interior of the restaurant appeared to share the same coat of yellow as the sign, helping illuminate Tanya's face. In that moment, I really couldn't stop thinking about how gorgeous she was, and how nervous that made me feel.

Thankfully, the restaurant wasn't too busy. Which was a bit weird, come to think about it, especially since we went out on a Friday night. It would have explained the – ahem – aftermath of that date, digestion wise. I'm almost positive that restaurant is probably closed now, but if it isn't, it's hard not to feel bad for the few brave souls that still go inside that place.

"The food is kinda terrible here, don't you think?" Tanya said as she chewed on a bit of chicken.

"Yeah," I responded. Cars filled the sea of parking spaces outside my window, their outlines only visible through the streetlights placed throughout the area, and the light from the occasional moving car passing by.

"I'm sorry for suggesting this, someone told me it was really cheap, though, so I figured you won't have to pay as much," she said. As my head turned back towards her, my eyes darted towards her hands. One of them was holding a cup next to her plate.

This next line took a bit of courage and idiocy to muster. Man, I really was a dumbass back then. Not being able to face her as this was said, my head just turned back towards the window.

"Who said I'm paying?"

In response to this statement, Tanya snapped. "What the hell is it with you?"

Turning once again to see her reaction, her nostrils were flaring and her eyes were bulging outwards. But, in spite of her reaction, I tried my best to remain calm.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh my god. Again, what the hell is wrong with you? We already agreed that we would split the bill before the date began! You wanted to pay for all of it back then, and I refused. Now, on the actual date, you expect me to pay for you?"

As her mouth began to quiver, and her hands were now clutched into two fists firmly planted on the table, the topic of damage control went to the forefront of my thoughts.

"I thought you wanted me to pay for you now even after we had agreed not to," I replied. Small beads of sweat were dripping down my head – the persona was breaking.

"But, it's not just that. You've been a total asshole this entire fucking date, and I've had it. First, you didn't even compliment me, then, you refused to make physical contact with me. Hell, you even slowed down just so that I would have to open the door for you."

"Did it work?" I replied as my quivering hand reached towards a glass of lemonade.

"Did what work?"

"I'll just come out and say it. A friend of mine gave me some advice. He told me to act like a jerk since that's what gets women. And, that if I did that, you would still be interested in me even after this whole thing."

Slouching back in her chair, she took a sip from a tall glass of Coke next to her. "First off, your friend is a fucking dumbass, and so are you for listening to him. Why couldn't you just be yourself? I didn't fall for you on that night because you were some bad boy douchebag who doesn't care about anything but himself. I fell for you because you were nice, sensitive, and sweet."

"Really?"

"Yes, but now, I'm not so sure."

At this point, the persona had been broken. It was clear that an apology was well overdue, considering how much of a jerk I was towards her. "Look, I'm sorry. Uh... I don't know, when I saw you, I was just thrown away by how beautiful you looked. You're uh, smart, and nice, and attractive, and I was, um, worried that you were out of my league."

"You think you're not in my league? I didn't think I was in yours. Do you know how much time I spent straightening this stupid hair, picking out this dress, putting on all this makeup?"

"I think you're gorgeous regardless of all that, which is one of the many reasons why I was so nervous. I, uh, really like you and I wanted to make this last longer than one single date. Again, I'm sorry. Please, please give me another chance."

"Fine, but you're paying for this," she said while pointing towards the litany of barely touched food that surrounded our table.

For the first time that night, I smiled. "Fair enough."

And so the date continued. We had a pretty good time towards the end, and it was relieving to act as myself, instead of a fake bad boy persona. We talked, laughed, criticized the god-awful food, and we even shared yet another kiss by the end.

A small ray of light illuminated my feet as I walked towards the bus stop, making them shine amongst the pitch black sky. I realized that light was from the windows of the bus coming towards the stop. My legs began to move, rushing to get to the stop before the bus would.

Thankfully, the driver waited for a few moments. With sweat dripping down my face, the soft cushion of the bus seat was certainly welcomed. My back embraced the contour of the chair's cotton-like surface.

Suddenly, it began to rain. Some raindrops stuck onto the windows, moving down the glass as slowly as a snail would. As the rain embraced a familiar environment, I found comfort in a new one.

Overall, if I were to give you some direct advice, something you can take away from this chapter, it would reside in the following paragraph.

Don't try to fit into someone else's idea of what makes you cool, or popular, and don't try to change who you are as a person to fit what you think some random guy (or girl) wants from you. Take it not only from this scenario but countless others you'll see in this book. In the end, it's not worth it.

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a/n: After the clearing of some painful and annoying writer's block, I have finally managed to complete this chapter. I'm sorry for the delay, but I hope you people enjoy!