When you’re an 11-year-old and a boy in your class asks you to go out and it’s the day before Valentine’s Day and he even gives you a rose, what’s a girl to do?
This was the situation yesterday for Liz.
Of course, it takes great courage for a boy to muster all it takes to ask a girl out at any age, and I told Liz this. Good for him.
It takes courage too for a girl to say no in a way that doesn’t break the poor guy’s heart, which Liz did. Good for her.
He must have known what was coming – he asked her to send her reply in an email.
And she did her duty gently, letting him know that they could still be, you know, “friends,” and that, quite simply, she was just too young to start dating.
There’s always a danger in this sort of gentle letdown, though, and I said this to Liz too. Some guys just don’t get the message when a girl is too polite.
I explained to her: “Liz, it’s like the guy who asked a girl what the chances were of them getting together. And she said ‘About one in 10 million.’ And his eyes got as big as saucers before he said with some excitement, ‘So you’re telling me that there’s a chance!!’ ”
+
But prayers with this sort of thing are eventually answered in one way or another. Earlier this week I shard about Dorothy, our long-time Ugandan friend, in this post and how today, Valentine’s Day, which also happens to be the day Jean and I got engaged, is the end of Dorothy’s long-time petition.
After many years of waiting, today Dorothy is getting married. On our front lawn. With a few hundred of her closest family and friends. I’m about to put on my best suit (I don’t wear one often) for it.
Here at this link, from the thomasfroese.com side of this blog, is something else for Valentine’s Day — Better than Wine. Stronger than Death — a recently published column on the Divine’s rather hot love for humanity, a piece where Dorothy also happens to be mentioned.
From the vault, if you want to learn more about Jean’s and my rather epic engagement, you can read more here.
+
Finally, apologies for the broken link from the most recent Daily Dad post, about a most interesting dinner guest, someone with a remarkable story of escape and loss and freedom of choice. That link is now repaired and also here.