That Time Superman Destroyed My Hope of Finding True Love

aka: Superman vs. True Love

As the summer of 2019 wound down I found myself thinking about an incident that happened during the summer of 1983. It was actually a very minor incident, and to be honest, calling it an "incident" might be going a bit far. But even if it was in fact a very small and forgettable event, it has still managed to remain with me all these years (and even decades) later.

Starting a story by telling the reader just how "minor" and "forgettable" it is probably isn't a technique that would be recommended in a class called "Blog Writing 101". But this is going to be yet another of those little "slice of life" stories that, while not really seeming to be all that important or monumental, have nonetheless become a part of my history and my life. All these little things (along with the big ones of course) add up to equal who we are in life.

I've written about a few embarrassing moments from my youth recently. They've all been similarly "small" events, but ones that caused me some level of embarrassment and, like this story, have stayed with me throughout my life. There's no NEED to be sharing these stories. They've all happily remained in my own mind all this time and nobody has ever heard most of them until I decided to throw them out on the Internet. This story is like those; it's a small personal memory that never really seemed like it NEEDED to be shared. And in fact it wasn't shared. I had actually NEVER told this story to anyone until a couple months ago when I shared it with The Little Monster as we were talking about the summer. I thought she might find it interesting, and possibly kind of funny (maybe even somewhat relatable to her own teenaged life in some way). So what happened? And is it really worth spilling all these words over, or should I have just kept it to myself? I'll let the reader decide...

During the summer of 1983 I was 13 years old. Yup, a brand-new teenager--with all of the awkwardness and confusion that go along with that phase of life. It was a time when I was in an "evolutionary" phase, moving away from watching monster movies and playing in the backyard and toward listening to music on the radio and hanging out with my friends. And, oh yeah, I was also a LOT more interested in girls than I had previously been. That's kind of an important detail to mention for this story.

At thirteen I was still a kid of course, even if I didn't always feel like it. It's a strange time where you really do kind of find yourself stuck between two worlds--childhood and adulthood. I still liked to do a lot of the things I liked to do as a "kid". After all, I was only months or a couple of years removed from actually being a true kid. One of the things I liked doing as a kid--and have actually never grown out of--is swimming at the beach. It's the kind of thing that most people like all their life (if they like it at all). As a kid you're more interested in playing by the water and building sand castles. Later you get more into the actual swimming, laying out in the sun and girl-watching (or boy-watching, depending on your preference).

On this particular summer day in June of 1983 my sister took me and a couple of my nephews to a beach area at a lake near our hometown. I don't really recall specific details about most of the day. I'm sure it was a nice day that included enjoying the warmth of the sun, playing in the water and having a picnic lunch. Pretty standard fare for a nice summer day for a small town kid. If that were all that had happened that day it would most likely have simply faded into the recesses of my memory and probably would have become a generalized event, remembered more as part of a "typical" beach day rather than for anything specific. So what made this beach day different from all the other ones that came before and after it? Well, to put it simply, I fell in love that day.

Before explaining further I need to remind the reader that I was just thirteen at the time, and not really very experienced in all things love. Heck, I'm now fifty and I STILL find love to be quite a mystery. But toward the end of our day at the beach something happened that has remained with me all these decades later. I believe it was kind of late in the afternoon and the sun was getting lower in the sky. It would be cool to be able to say it was setting over the water to really set up the romantic mood, but seeing as how it was around the time of the summer solstice I doubt we were still at the beach late enough for that to be the case. As we were preparing to leave, a girl in a black one-piece bathing suit showed up. She seemed to be all by herself. As everyone else I came with was busy picking up all our stuff and preparing to head back to our car, I kind of felt like I was there all by myself (even though I obviously wasn't). The girl was about the same age as me, so it should have been obvious that she wasn't actually by herself. But in the mind of a teenager strange things can happen and strange things can be imagined. For a brief time it really felt like this girl and I really WERE there on our own. It almost felt like we were the only ones on the beach. Maybe even just a little bit like we were the only ones in the whole world! Okay, that's going a bit far, but I'm just trying to get across the kind of feeling that my pubescent mind was experiencing at that moment. I suppose it felt like a case of love at first sight, seeing as how this girl simply walked onto the beach and I simply decided that I was hopelessly in love with her.

Summer 2019, The Wife unwittingly and unknowingly recreating the scene from June 1983

Considering how strong the feeling was and the fact that I still remember it to this day it seems kind of strange to admit to this fact: I don't actually remember what she looked like. I don't recall even seeing her face at all. I think I did as she walked by, but I can't actually REMEMBER what she looked like. What's imprinted on my mind is that she walked into the nearly empty lake and stood alone with the water about up to her knees. She was facing away from me, with the lowering sun in front of her. It was an image I thought was so beautiful that I had a spontaneous fantasy where I was sitting near the shore with an easel, drawing a picture of this perfect being--a drawing that she of course would appreciate so much that she would simply have to fall as deeply in love with me as I was with her. I was trying to figure out some way that I could talk to her (knowing that I'd probably never actually have the nerve). Those few moments seemed to last a lot longer than they actually did, and I wished they could have lasted forever.

But then the moment was broken. I was pulled back to reality by my sister telling me that it was time to go. Suddenly I was just an awkward thirteen-year-old leaving the beach without ever having a chance to find out if what I thought was true love could ever actually become something real. Suddenly I was leaving without even getting a chance to meet or talk to my dream girl. Suddenly my chance at finding true love was gone, like the sun setting over the horizon--as it would have done not too long after we left.

Okay, I suppose I've written enough to get the point across that these few moments were pretty special to me. Special and painful enough to have remained with me for the rest of my life. But the funny thing is that the object of my affection, the perfect girl in the black bathing suit, almost certainly doesn't share ANY of this memory with me. It was most definitely a one-way love affair. As far as I know this girl was not only not affected by this incident in any way even close to what I felt and experienced, I'm pretty sure that it's likely that she didn't even SEE me when she walked past me and into the water. I suppose the one good thing about an unrequited love like this is that I can always imagine that she DID see me and she DID feel something too--even if I'm pretty close to being sure that she DIDN'T.

So that's the story of how I found and lost the love of my life at nearly the same time in June 1983. I'd say the story is done, but obviously I'm leaving the reader with one extremely big question: what the heck does all of this have to do with Superman? And, how did Superman ruin my hope of finding true love?

Well, it's actually pretty simple. As I've mentioned, this incident happened in June of 1983. That seems like a pretty precise narrowing down of a date that I didn't record in a diary or anything like that. How could I remember with such confidence that it happened in June of 1983? Well, if it weren't for one thing I really wouldn't be able to remember the date. If it weren't for that one thing I would probably only be able to tell you that it happened during a summer in my youth. I might have guessed that it was when I was twelve, thirteen or fourteen. That means I could have (not terribly reliably) "narrowed it down" to the summer months of 1982, 1983 or 1984. That's not very specific at all. But, in fact, I can even narrow it down a bit more precisely than just the month. I can confidently say that it was during the second half of the month. What is it that makes me so certain of the small window that I can narrow this event down to? Well, that's where Superman finally comes into the story.

You see, the reason I know I couldn't talk my sister into letting me stay on the beach even a little bit longer (besides the fact that I'd probably have to explain to her the ridiculous notion that I had suddenly and spontaneously fallen in love with a girl whose face I may or may not have even seen) was because we had plans for later that evening. We had to leave because we were going to be making a real event out of it. After spending the day at the beach we were going to the movies! And we weren't going to just any movie. No, it was going to be something pretty special. We were going to see "Superman III"! "Superman III" opened on Friday, June 17, 1983. That's the reason I know when this incident happened right down to an approximately two-week window. It had to have been on or after June 17th. And that's also why I blame Superman for causing me to miss my opportunity to find the love of my life.

You have to remember that in 1983 comic book-based superhero movies weren't as plentiful (ubiquitous?) as they are now. I remember the release of "Superman" in 1978 as being a pretty major event. "Superman II" was also pretty special, and I had no reason to think that "Superman III" wouldn't be more of the same. Heck, they were even upping the ante by adding Richard Pryor into the mix! There was no way I could know that "Superman III" was actually going to be the beginning of the end for the franchise--to be sadly finished off a few years later with the poor excuse for a sequel that was "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace".

Being thirteen, I was pretty excited to see the film. I wasn't exactly a tough critic of movies at the time (or now for that matter). I vaguely remember it having a different feeling from the previous entries. It had a strange air of silliness that came along with having Richard Pryor added to the cast. But I also remember being very disturbed by the image of Superman getting all angry after being exposed to the synthetic kryptonite. Seeing him in his dirty costume sitting in a bar was something I never expected to see from the Man of Steel. The movie might not have been as good as the first two in the series, but it will always be remembered by me for a reason that has nothing to do with what happened on the screen. Instead I remember it because of the fact that it took me away from the promise of love that I thought I had at the beach that summer day so long ago.

To this day I have never seen "Superman III" again (though I think I might after ruminating about it so much while researching and writing this post), but I have always associated it with that beautiful summer day when the image of the mystery girl standing in the water at the lake was etched onto my mind. I wonder just who that girl was? I wonder what that girl is doing today? I wonder if she had any idea of the connection that I thought existed between the two of us that day? I wonder if she even saw me, or was even aware that I was on the beach when she walked by? I wonder if she has any memories of that day at all? I wonder if she ever saw "Superman III"?