Two and a half hours or so ago, I sat down with my parents to watch American Idol, because I wanted to see who the two new finalists would be for this week.

I know, my life is fascinating.

And then the phone rang. My dad picked it up, and then passed it over to me. I completely expected it to be Lady Lucifer asking me to come babysit Satan's spawn every day of my week off, because she said she was working and would probably need me.

Fuck, was I surprised when a guy's voice came out of the receiver. It was the boy. He started talking about how he really likes me, but he has a complicated past (which he had already told me about briefly) and he wanted to come clean about a couple of things before anything ... happened.

Of course, here I was listening to him say this while my PARENTS were sitting no less than 3 feet away from me, so I decided to risk taking the call upstairs (where any one of my siblings could pick up the phone and listen, which is still better than my parents listening to my phone conversations)

So I called him back from upstairs, and he started talking. About pot. He said he had smoked, he said he had dealed. He said he used to go downtown a lot and hang out with the "pot crowd". This made me cringe a little. But he also said he wanted to stop going downtown, he wanted to stop getting high. For him, for his brother, for me. I congratulated him for that, because isn't the first step to healing admitting you have a problem?

He also told me he had a police record. Multiple police records, actually. Vandalism, mostly, one for "uttering threats", which he didn't really explain. But he told me that was a while ago, that it would all disappear in the next year or so, and that he never planned on doing anything that stupid again.

He told me about his past relationships. How he broke up with his first girlfriend because he was a stoner, and because he was too fast for her. How he broke up with his second girlfriend because she was too fast for him. (Which was slightly too much information, since I KNOW both of these people)

I told him about my depression months. Extensively. And he listened, all through it. He told me how happy he was that I hadn't done anything drastic, because once he had seen someone hung from a curtain rod, and it had basically scarred him.

He told me that despite the fact that he ragged on him all the time, he really cares about his little brother. He told me all kinds of cute things like that. He wants to take me to an amusement park. Someday he wishes he could take a trip to Greece with a girl he loves.

And then he let me speak.

I told him to stop worrying so much about me. Because I've had people telling me over and over that he's a bad influence, that I shouldn't hang around him, and I know what to expect. I mean, my life experiences don't even come close to measuring up to his or anyone else's in my grade, but I'm still a young woman, for chrissakes. I know what I know. I know that even though he is that way, he is never that way around ME. And I know that if he ever tried a damn thing like that with ME, that would be it. Finished. Finito. Nothing to see here. You don't have to go home, but you have to get the hell out of here.

By the way, if this relationship works out and we actually start dating, I want you guys to watch out for me. Because I know I can make decisions for myself, but I need a support system. My family, my friends, but especially you folks, because I'm most honest with you. Seriously, if I ever say anything along the lines of "I got high with the boy last night, it was so cool", please bitchslap me. I'll give you my adress, I'll buy you a plane ticket, but please slap me out of it!

So anyways ... I just wish people would stop worrying so much about me. I know I come across as the girl-next-door, brainiac, goody-two-shoes kinda person who's never had any drama in her life (to paraphrase mary j. blige), but I know how to deal. And it's not anyone's job to cushion me from making mistakes, because then I actually will be that girl-next-door, brainiac, goody-two-shoes kinda person.

Yeah. Anyway. Don't worry, be happy.