By Sheri White

At some point in a girl’s life, she will date a creep.  She may not realize that the guy was a creep until well after they’ve broken up, but trust me – every girl dates one.

My creep was Ivan.  I dated him in between first-love Kevin and Marine Kevin.  I met him while Marybeth and I worked at Wild World; he was a security guard. Ivan was Hispanic, had a moustache, and looked great in his uniform (uniforms are a weakness of mine, apparently).  But he was twenty-two, and I was sixteen.  I thought it was so cool an older guy would want to go out with me.

Now I know it was definitely NOT cool.

Of course, I didn’t tell my mom his real age. She wasn’t thrilled when I told her he was nineteen, almost twenty; she would’ve flipped if she had known he was actually twenty-two.  I don’t have to think too hard now about what an older guy wanted with a teenage girl, but suffice it to say, he moved on when he realized this teenager just wanted a boyfriend who could buy beer.

But we had a couple of good times, and one of those times was seeing Pink Floyd The Wall.  I didn’t really know anything about Pink Floyd except that they sang that cool song about not needing “no education.” My friends and I loved that song; what high schooler didn’t?  It was the teenage anthem at the time.

The movie was cool – lots of intense scenes, neat animation and of course, incredible music.  But then, as now, I have absolutely no idea what the movie was about.  Was there a plot? I could probably figure everything out if I watched it again, but the opportunity really hasn’t presented itself.  I didn’t really care what the movie was about – I was out with an older guy, he was cute and again, he provided the alcohol for a few parties I went to.

However, the talking vagina was a bit much to see with a guy I didn’t know very well.  Ivan thought it was funny, but I was uncomfortable, being a proper Catholic school girl and all that (well, I was a school girl, anyway).

Ivan also introduced me to some music I hadn’t heard of before – Tom Tom Club, Wall of Voodoo, and a few others who were popular at the time but turned out to be mostly one-hit wonder bands.  But it was always cool to be turned onto new music, especially in the early 80s.

After a while, though, Ivan started getting creepy, even to me, and I realized he was not the guy for me. But since I was terrible at confrontation and break-ups, I just avoided him and his calls until he finally got the hint and quit calling. Hey, I was only sixteen.

It wasn’t long after that before Marybeth and I were at our favorite hangout, Faunsworth’s, a favorite because they didn’t card until after 9:00 and we made sure we were settled in long before that every Saturday night. It was a beautiful September night, and I was asked to dance by a cute, curly-haired guy who I’d fall in love with and then have to say good-bye to in a few short months when he left for Marine Corps boot camp.