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Friday, July 5, 2019

On The NJ Boardwalk (GIRLS)

On The NJ Boardwalk (GIRLS)
I stumbled over this post from July 2016, thought it a good time for a re-run.
As previously mentioned, the boardwalks on the Jersey Shore are full of games and rides.  They were super fun for young boys, until the age of around 13 when interest turned to girls.


The boardwalk was the perfect training ground for learning the boy girl romance dance, though clearly I never learned many steps.


Anyway.


At the shore the girls you meet are never from your home town, often not from the same state.  The participants in the dance are only around for a week or less, and age is not important, everyone lies about their age. If (when) you make a fool of yourself, there is no damage, you will never see the person you just embarrassed yourself with again.


Mostly this experience was all about posturing.  Put on your best cool duds, primp your hair, slap on way too much “English Leather,” hang around the rides, and wait. We waited a lot.  The thrill was in the expectation.  Easy anonymous girls looking for fun…we would find out what those condoms that every boy carried in his wallet were for.


Unfortunately most of us never got past the preening.  We never thought to actually approach a girl; we expected they would come to us.  I do remember one night when my friend and I magically “hooked up" with two really cute young ladies (at the shore, all the girls are really cute.)  We chatted for a few minutes but they had to go somewhere with their parents.  We would meet the next night at the “Tilt-a-whirl” and finally move past the preening stage...the talking and stuff stage!


The next night my friend and I got dizzy from “Tilt-a-whirl” rides.  Cute girls never showed up.  Apparently they were practicing their hook up skills and we were just an experiment.  I think that is as close to a random pick-up as I have ever gotten.


Years later I learned the real art to meeting girls on the boardwalk from my 13 year old son and his best friend. 


We rented a house by a boardwalk.  I could watch my own young son and his friend learn the dance.  While others simply preened and waited, these lads did the unexpected…they actually went up to the girls as they walked by and introduced themselves.  I watched them time after time talking with and walking away with cute young girls.  It seems that the young ladies parading the boardwalk are all hoping for anyone to approach them!

Who knew?
  
I believe these young players arranged meetings with several of the girls they met with their unique method of actually talking.  I don’t think any of these meetings ever actually occurred. 


Some things never change. 

19 comments:

  1. Some things never change indeed. This made me smile. I remember the preening and the dance.

    Have a fabulous day, Joe. ♪♫♪♫

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  2. This was wonderful. I always had a great time at the Jersey shore when I was young. We were there to meet boys and nothing else. However, it was a much more innocent time.

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  3. The closest I ever came to this was at a family conference camp on Lake Michigan. I vaguely remember meeting a cute boy and possibly making out behind a sand dune. It was the same week as the Lady Diana and Prince Charles wedding, so it's been a while!

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  4. It's too bad the preening and the dance isn't as innocent as it once was and anymore it's just dangerous. Too many crazies out there but it was fun when I was young. :)

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  5. Two or three more generations and things may actually work out as hoped for. Given time, all things change.

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  6. No shore here, but we had the roller-skating rink over in Bill-Paying Town. Not much preening was done by the boys there, though.

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  7. Don't think I ever did this, but I can picture my son and his friends doing similar and more than likely not being successful.

    betty

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  8. What a lovely evocative glimpse into a more innocent time. Those days were magic but I agree with Mimi's coment above, it's very different now and pretty dangerous for young people. The innocence has gone - condoms havent been a mystery to many young teens for quite some time (and yet unwanted teen pregnancies are common). You only have to look at music videos and listen to the lyrics to see where they are getting their 'education' from. It's very sad and I am very thankful we grew up in more innocent times when boys walked us home and MAYBE dared to ask for a goodnight kiss at the garden gate. Oh no - I sound like my mother!

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  9. Oh gosh, how I remember the days of heartbreak and indecision!

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  10. This reminds me of school dances where all the kids were grouped on opposite sides of the room, the boys hoping the girls would approach while the girls hoped the boys would approach. Neither wanted to be the first person to cross that wide empty floor. I'm glad your son got it worked out much earlier than we did.

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  11. That was a fun and worthy repost. We didn't have a beach so the county fair was our "dancing" ground. To make things easier on everyone, most of us bought hats with our name's stitched on the front.

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  12. Preening was part of the County Fair at our Illinois area. Girls clustered in groups and giggled. Guys tried to maintain their dignity, but I don't know about the preening.

    Memories indeed.

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  13. learning is pleasure specially when teacher is your own son dear Joe :)

    i think this is also a universal problem that girls want guys to approach them first

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  14. I was in the Army in 1971 and I was at Ft Monmouth. While there I went to Asbury Park a lot.
    It was a fun place for a hick from Alabama that hadn’t seen much in his life.

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  15. There was a lot of S&M everywhere. Stand and Model, calm down! Posing and preening like peacocks a plenty in my youth. Good post.

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  16. My sisters and brothers and friends didn't have a shore, but we had the local swimming hole just outside town. Ah, the heartbreak... ("Why didn't he look at ME but looked at HER instead?)

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