I posted this over a year ago in my now defunct blog. I thought it'd be fun to re-post it here since it does have something to do with adduhs95, however little.

My first bout with courtship happened in high school. It was like one of those movies that had pretty impressive trailers but then turned out to be a dud.

Her name was Julienne and the courtship officially started with me visiting her at home one afternoon armed with a flower I crafted out of Japanese paper, a cotton ball, and one of my mother's perfumes. It was very smartly done, if I should say so myself and she was quite impressed when I gave her that humble present. Years later, she would show me that rose, still taped right above the light switch in her room (I was very pleased with myself that day knowing that I'd made a pretty good impression on my first try).

Sadly though, that was my only commendable performance during that particular stint. In retrospect, I think all I did the rest of the time was smile at her, too shy and intimidated to do anything else.

Needless to say, after 3 months of smiling, she did not give me the answer I was looking for and it never became us. That's when it dawned on me: paper roses can only get you so far in a courtship.

I've learned since then that small gifts are only good for grabbing a girl's attention, and that you have to exert a whole lot more to keep it.

This is why I always make sure to bring a full brass band as backup these days.