Last Saturday night (ok fine, Sunday morning at around 3am), while dancing in a circle with my friends to the new Justin Bieber song, a stranger tapped me on the shoulder.
"Zoë Weiner?"
....... Yes?
"From Camp Mataponi?"
....... Yes?
"It's me! Mike* from Camp Wildwood."
Holy shit: it was the Summer Camp Hottie.
When we were 12, this kid was the dreamiest of the dreamy; The Freddie Prinze Jr./Shane West/2002 Paul Walker of camp socials. I was freaking out. The camp hottie had recognized ME?! Swoon. (He's still super cute, by the way).
I went to an all girl's camp, but we used to have dances a few times every summer with the boy's camp across the lake. They were the highlight of the season, and we would spend HOURS (and hours and hours and hours and hours) straightening our hair and picking out the perfect Juicy Couture logo tee and Abercrombie jean skirt to wear. We literally skipped activities, that our parents were paying an embarrassing amount of money for, to do these things.
Then, when we got there, we would stand in a corner and whisper to each other about which boys we were going to try to flirt with. They would stand in opposite corner and whisper about sports. We naturally thought they were talking about us, but they never were. None of us had learned how to straighten the back of our hair yet (I only found out about that like, Junior year of high school) and the braces/jewish-girl-unibrow years were in full swing. It wasn't cute.
The "cool" boys wore backwards hats and Abercrombie polo shirts (Abercrombie was SO big back then. I don't get what happened.) and really developed reputations for themselves over the 5 summers we socialized with them. Before the socials, while we applied Limited Too blue eyeshadow and Smackers lipgloss, we made bets over who was going to get to dance with Mike/Jacob/Zachary/Isaac/Aaron (did I mention it was Jewish camp?). There were two really hot blonde girls (seriously — they actually were super hot when we were 11) who usually ended up pairing off with the best guys pretty early in the night, but year after year us Unibrows still remained optimistic.
The good news was, I usually got asked to dance (and "hooked up" as we so eloquently called french kissing next to the dining hall bathroom) because, as Mike so kindly reminded me the other night, I was "the first girl at summer camp with boobs!"
Mike was my best friend's first kiss circa 2004, and his best friend was mine circa 2002 (like I said, I was an early bloomer). We were standing in the slow dance line— literally, we all just lined up and tightly held each other and swayed to Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" — when our lips locked. It was magical, and I'm pretty sure I got in a lot of trouble for it the next day.
Things worked out, though. Two months later, my summer camp first kiss turned into my real-life first boyfriend — even back then, I was a pro at locking it down. One of the girls from camp Mataponi started at his school that fall, and he asked her for my phone number on their first day. She gave him the number to my private line on my home phone (I was a douchey 11 year old kid, I admit it), they three -way-called me that night, and the rest, shall we say, was history.
We spent one beautiful year in the most successful long distance relationship I've ever been in (I've weirdly been in a lot). We talked on the phone all night, every night (thank goodness for the private line, amiright?), and spent a solid half an hour doing the whole "no you hang up first!" thing.
Every other weekend, I made my mom drive me 4 hours to visit him in Westchester, and bought a new full Abercrombie outfit before each trip. I also made her blow out my hair before I saw him (Mom, you are a saint) and drop me off at the Chappaqua Cosi so we could hold hands over a Squagle and then go makeout in the back row of the movie theatre. I don't know why I never asked her to pluck my eyebrows before these meetings, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.
The highlight of our year together was when he took me to Bermuda for the weekend with his family on their private plane (I KNOW. I WAS A DOUCHEY 11 YEAR OLD KID), which was awesome. I wouldn't kiss him the whole time because my mom said I wasn't allowed. Ha.
Looking back on it, I actually can't remember why we broke up. I think it was because he wanted to go to 2nd base and I "wasn't ready," so he found a blonde girl at school who was. Babe, if you're reading this and still interested, my phone number hasn't changed.
"Zoë Weiner?"
....... Yes?
"From Camp Mataponi?"
....... Yes?
"It's me! Mike* from Camp Wildwood."
Holy shit: it was the Summer Camp Hottie.
When we were 12, this kid was the dreamiest of the dreamy; The Freddie Prinze Jr./Shane West/2002 Paul Walker of camp socials. I was freaking out. The camp hottie had recognized ME?! Swoon. (He's still super cute, by the way).
 |
| Boys came on 4th of July, too, so we put on makeup. |
I went to an all girl's camp, but we used to have dances a few times every summer with the boy's camp across the lake. They were the highlight of the season, and we would spend HOURS (and hours and hours and hours and hours) straightening our hair and picking out the perfect Juicy Couture logo tee and Abercrombie jean skirt to wear. We literally skipped activities, that our parents were paying an embarrassing amount of money for, to do these things.
Then, when we got there, we would stand in a corner and whisper to each other about which boys we were going to try to flirt with. They would stand in opposite corner and whisper about sports. We naturally thought they were talking about us, but they never were. None of us had learned how to straighten the back of our hair yet (I only found out about that like, Junior year of high school) and the braces/jewish-girl-unibrow years were in full swing. It wasn't cute.
The "cool" boys wore backwards hats and Abercrombie polo shirts (Abercrombie was SO big back then. I don't get what happened.) and really developed reputations for themselves over the 5 summers we socialized with them. Before the socials, while we applied Limited Too blue eyeshadow and Smackers lipgloss, we made bets over who was going to get to dance with Mike/Jacob/Zachary/Isaac/Aaron (did I mention it was Jewish camp?). There were two really hot blonde girls (seriously — they actually were super hot when we were 11) who usually ended up pairing off with the best guys pretty early in the night, but year after year us Unibrows still remained optimistic.
 |
| This was after me and high-school Billy started dating, so apparently I had stopped caring AT ALL what I looked like. |
Mike was my best friend's first kiss circa 2004, and his best friend was mine circa 2002 (like I said, I was an early bloomer). We were standing in the slow dance line— literally, we all just lined up and tightly held each other and swayed to Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" — when our lips locked. It was magical, and I'm pretty sure I got in a lot of trouble for it the next day.
Things worked out, though. Two months later, my summer camp first kiss turned into my real-life first boyfriend — even back then, I was a pro at locking it down. One of the girls from camp Mataponi started at his school that fall, and he asked her for my phone number on their first day. She gave him the number to my private line on my home phone (I was a douchey 11 year old kid, I admit it), they three -way-called me that night, and the rest, shall we say, was history.
We spent one beautiful year in the most successful long distance relationship I've ever been in (I've weirdly been in a lot). We talked on the phone all night, every night (thank goodness for the private line, amiright?), and spent a solid half an hour doing the whole "no you hang up first!" thing.
Every other weekend, I made my mom drive me 4 hours to visit him in Westchester, and bought a new full Abercrombie outfit before each trip. I also made her blow out my hair before I saw him (Mom, you are a saint) and drop me off at the Chappaqua Cosi so we could hold hands over a Squagle and then go makeout in the back row of the movie theatre. I don't know why I never asked her to pluck my eyebrows before these meetings, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.
The highlight of our year together was when he took me to Bermuda for the weekend with his family on their private plane (I KNOW. I WAS A DOUCHEY 11 YEAR OLD KID), which was awesome. I wouldn't kiss him the whole time because my mom said I wasn't allowed. Ha.
Looking back on it, I actually can't remember why we broke up. I think it was because he wanted to go to 2nd base and I "wasn't ready," so he found a blonde girl at school who was. Babe, if you're reading this and still interested, my phone number hasn't changed.
Side note: I actually went on a date with the "Summer Camp Hottie" the other night, and we ended up making out. Things really do come full circle.
*Names have been changed because real people actually apparently read this blog now
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