In 1973, the guy that I had gone with in high school decided to split with me, and I spent the rest of ’73 and ’74, and part of ’75 dating different people. Not shocking. I was in college and I went to Michigan State, of course. And the summer of ’74, I went home and I was working at the bookstore.
One day in the bookstore, a friend of mine from high school came in and he asked me out and I started dating him a little bit. I always had gone out on occasion with one of my childhood friends. He was the kind of friend of mine that on different parts of the year, we would do things together, and if neither of us had a date for an event that we needed an event, we would go with the others because we had been friends since third grade or something and our mothers knew each other. And it was one of those things where, “Yes, you can take [diarist’s name] to your grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary because she will behave appropriately,” or, “You can take [friend’s name] to your cousin’s wedding because he will, he will be fine,” and that kind of thing. So, we, we dated.
There was a guy that decided that — I had met him on our trip to Europe and he was in Detroit for something and he decided to come and visit me. So one Monday in the summer of 1974, the guy from my trip to Germany had made arrangements to come and see me, and the guy that I dated in — from high school that I had met at the bookstore, he decided to come over. My friend [same friend’s name] got off work and he decided that maybe we could go to a movie. So he came over, and of course, you know, there’s no cell phones, there’s no text messages, people just show up at your house. And the guy that I had gone out with at high school and in Michigan State who lived in Ypsi was over in the area, and he decided to come by my house. So there were four guys trying to see me in one afternoon that I didn’t work in July.
My mother looked at me, and she said, “What the heck is this?” And I said, “I don’t know.” So my mother said, “Well, I’ll take care of [same friend’s name].” She said, “I will tell [same friend’s name] that you’re obviously busy and he can come back later.” So my mother took care of [same friend’s name], and I took care of getting rid of the kid that I didn’t really like very much from Michigan State, and I got rid of him. So then I was left with the guy that had come from Germ- that I had traveled to Germany with, and the guy from high school. And they both ended up staying for dinner.