SmileNod predicaments.

A SmileNod predicament.

In 7th grade, I was waiting outside to be picked up from the school dance. A classmate walked up to me and started talking. I couldn't understand most of what he said so I just did the SmileNod behavior with the occasional, "I don't know..." as I looked down at my feet. He misinterpreted this as being shy. I thought nothing more of this encounter that evening.

The next day, he came up to me and sat down at lunch, started talking and later gave me a hug goodbye. I quickly figured out exactly what had happened after the school dance: I said YES to a question I didn't know he asked: "Would you like to go out with me?" In middle school language, that means boyfriend-girlfriend. At lunch, my best friend at the time shot me a glare and said, "You didn't tell me you had a boyfriend!" Well, I found out at the same time she did.

It wasn't uncommon to send friends-of-friends to verify if someone liked you. At 12, you're still learning how to interact and handle your attractions to people. This classmate had enough courage to do it on his own--only to mistakenly get answers to questions I didn't know were being asked. It worked out fine, I never told him of the mistake and he later ended up being my first kiss during the middle of band class while everyone surrounded us.

Although I don't usually notice when I'm pretending to understand what people are saying, sometimes the SmileNod gets me into awkward situations. I can look back and laugh about it, but it sure was an odd situation at the time.