Rollerblading

As a child I was not particularly clumsy, I took dance lessons and played sports, however I never really excelled at these things. I didn't learn to ride a bike until I was ten—and I only learned then because I was humiliated into it.  My younger brother had learned to ride a bike without training wheels—and no way was I going to be outdone by him.

My brother tried learning how to roller blade a few years later. This hobby I decided I did not need to learn.

This childhood decision never haunted me until I was a freshman in college.  All throughout my teenage years up to this point I had religiously avoided anything with wheels or skates that attached to my feet.  I had never been ice-skating, rollerblading, rollerskating, or even stood on a snowboard.  I'm not sure why I had such a passionate aversion to trying these things, but I did.  Of course the first time I decided to try rollerskating out it was with a large group of friends.  We all went to the rollerskating arena, we all got our skates, and we all set out to have a blast rolling around.  I think somehow in my mind I thought I would just magically be able to keep my balance, or perhaps I'd even discover that skating was one of my unknown talents and I'd be able to magically glide across the floor. —While this worked well in my mind, the skating did not actually work quite as immaculately in practice.



I fell an innumerable amount of times (while being held up by friends).  If I learned nothing else that day, I learned how to fall in such a way that I gave myself the least amount of bruises—I like to say that I can fall "gracefully."  I took turns all night clinging to the arm of my roommate and feeling bad that I was hording all her skating time and insisting that she go a few laps without me. When I was left alone I would (when I was being sensible) sit and watch other people skate, when I was not being sensible I would continue to attempt moving on my own.  I clung to the wall, I clung to railing, I attempted learning how to crawl with wheels attached to my feet.

Being myself, I still fell down when I was on my own—getting up off the ground with skates is not one of my many talents. I think people started helping me up because I was a hazard, at least when I was standing I had a smaller area of people that I could trip on my flailing body parts.

I fell so often and had so many different people help me up that some of my friends began accusing me of just pretending to be bad.

In my defense—even I realized that falling all over myself and screaming while I catapulted towards walls was not the most attractive approach to flirtation that I could have taken.

There was hand holding involved, but it is somewhat less exhilarating when it is caused because I can't stand straight on my feet for more than a quarter of a second at a time. 

It gets worse.

 My friends and I all rented out rollerskates—because they were cheaper. A few more expert friends who were really serious about their sport rented out rollerblades, which were a little more expensive. I figured I shouldn't waste the extra money, I'd just end up bruising my knees either way—so why not spend a little less money giving myself a concussion?

During one of my many breaks (in which I sat on the curb so my friends could actually go rollerskating instead of babysitting) an employee approached me.

Employee: So . . . you've kind of been having a rough time on the rink today.

Me, shrugging nonchalantly: yah, I guess I haven't been rollerskating in a while.

Employee:

Me: Alright, so maybe I haven't been rollerskating in ever.

Employee: Me and my boss have been watching you. (awkward pause) My boss says that if you want to try the rollerblades he'll let you use them with no extra charge—sometimes they're a little easier for beginners.

I should have been grateful, what I was was humiliated. The employee had to talk me into the owner's generosity. 

Did this improve my skating abilities in the least?

No.

I have not been rollerblading since. Perhaps the moral you should be taking from this story is to begin learning sports when you are young, or to find flirtatious ways to interact with people that don't involve being a poor version of a damsel in distress, or perhaps just never put on shoes that have wheels on them.