The stupidest thing I ever did for love was when I was in high school, suffering from the two deadly traits of hopeless romanticism and staggering naivety. One day at school, I saw from afar this GORGEOUS brown-eyed, tanned, brunette whom I had never seen before. She was a new girl at our school and she was, in my eyes, the most beautiful girl that had ever been. But I was much too shy to simply go up to her and ask her out. I had a much better plan: secret admirer!

I had a newspaper route for the first few years of high school, so I was always up early in the morning before the world awoke. My plan was to place a series of gifts on her doorstep with a poem, keeping it anonymous until the big reveal when she would be swept off her feet.

I was able to snag her address from a mutual friend, and after finishing my paper route one early morning, went to the local 7-11 (only thing open at that hour), bought a bag of Hershey's Kisses and deposited them on her doorstep along with a heartfelt piece of bad, teen-aged poetry (I assume... I have no recollection of what I wrote exactly!).

I did this two times, the second time leaving a bag of Oreos (heh, yes, Oreos! Who doesn't like Oreos?!) and another treacly poem. Who knows how long this would have gone on (maybe forever, considering my shyness), but after the second sojourn, the gig was up. I never found out exactly how my anonymous veil was pierced (I suspect it was the mutual friend who had given me her address), but one of the girl's friends confronted me one day at school as the gift-giving Romeo. I denied everything, but I'm a bad liar and probably looked like a dog that has been caught digging into the garbage.

Unfortunately there is no happy ending to this story, as the target of my affections did not share my feelings and, in fact, was more bemused than struck by any Cupidian arrow. There was embarrassment galore, especially on the off occasion when I would see her or her friends in the halls (thankfully, we had no classes together!).

But on the positive side of the ledger, I learned some valuable lessons about how NOT to go about wooing a girl and I think this particular failure helped to spur me to overcome my shyness over time. If you met me now, you would never guess that I ever had a problem talking to girls! So, thank you, high school crush, for giving me a nice, firm push in the back along the path of self-development. I couldn't have done it without you!