Vignette - Chantal

If you haven't already, you should read the intro first. This colour indicates the text is directly excerpted from my journal.

Paula was a peripheral friend I kept loosely in contact with from elementary school; we saw each other at church and church functions (Bingo) throughout my high school years. So even though we hadn’t really spent a lot of time with each other since elementary school, she invited me to her 16th birthday party which took place on September 3rd, 1989. It was very thoughtful and kind of her that she invited me; I for sure could have been much nicer to her during that time.

It was a fun party; I reconnected with a handful of friends I had known in elementary school, and met a few new people too, one of whom was Chantal.

The party was to start at 2PM on a Sunday afternoon to the next day sometime. [...] Chantal did not expect to stay at Paula’s for the full duration, but at about 8 o’clock she decided she would and she asked a friend to drive her to her house that she could get her things. I asked if they could stop by my house that I could get a sweater, I had forgotten to bring one. I got to see the inside of Chantal’s house, and I got the general geography of her house that night.

It turned out that she lived ridiculously close to my own house:

I think that having gone to her house like this on a spur of the moment helped me to be more at ease. Back at the party I mixed with different people and by the early hours (5AM), there were just a handful of us who were still awake or still present, Chantal was one of them. We sat all together and were having delirious fun as we had all been awake for so long.

At about 8 o’clock Chantal and I left, she had expressed an interest in Yes, specifically 90125, and so I went directly to her house and she recorded it. After that I went home.

I had brought 90125 with me to the party. When I got home, I slept for a while, mowed someone’s lawn, then after lunch, I invited Chantal with me to Dairy Queen. [...] We went back to her house and listened to some music, and we sat and spoke for a while. Eventually we started a chess game.

I ended up losing the chess game and in my notes I felt pretty bad about that; reading it now it is a maturity issue. I spent about two hours at her house and didn’t see or speak to her again.
On a Bingo night in December ‘89, Paula was speaking with me and she told me that Chantal had told her that she (Chantal) thinks that I don’t like her at all because I haven’t called or anything.

That’s all there is in my diary about Chantal. What I should have asked at the end when I was leaving from our chess game: When can I see you again? I thought she was Murray's (a Loyola classmate of mine) GF, so this stopped me, but in retrospect, no matter, we could still have been friends. I could even have reached out to her after Paula told me in December what she did, but for whatever reason, I didn't. Mobile technology might have helped here; if I had gotten her mobile number; after that chess date, I could text her to get together again. Whether I actually would have texted her, I’m not sure.
I’ve included Chantal on this list as her very close proximity ought to have been a signal to me that if I was to try to overcome my inability to talk to/meet girls, I should have made an effort to become friends with her as we could have very easily seen each other often and/or spontaneously. If I had done this, it might have obviated the need I had for all of the writing I did that led to all of the next vignettes.

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