I first began attending Riverview Church in Bonsall, CA in June of 1995. It was after my sophomore year at UCSD, and I had come home to Fallbrook for the summer. At this unfortunate point in history, however, nearly all of my high school friends had left Fallbrook for greater things. Well, at least they'd left Fallbrook. Anyway, the only people left in Fallbrook for me to spend any time with were my parents, Eric Fadely and Jason Yetz. Naturally, I didn't want to spend the summer with my parents, and since I'd spent the previous summer with nobody around other than Eric, I decided it was time to broaden my horizons. Also, it'd been about two years since I'd set foot in a church and I decided it was time to start going again.

So, I began to attend Riverview. At that time, they had a small, fairly new college group that met at the home of David and Wilma Fandey, in Bonsall. There's an interesting thing that happens when one first starts attending a new church, or any such place of social interaction. In particular, it seems to happen to people like me who are not neccessarily socially outgoing. You tend to get what I call Louis friends. Louis is a particularly outgoing fellow, who makes it his job to get to know every person who walks through the door. That's all fine and dandy, and even to be admired, but when you are the type of person who has the personality that makes you hover in the corner and hope that nobody notices you, then it would stand to reason that Louis would not neccessarily be the best guy to hang out with. Indeed, you should be hanging out with the other folks who hover in the other corners hoping nobody else will notice them. However, since none of us are inclined to talk to people we don't know, it takes a while to get to meet these people. Ergo, I spent the summer of 1995 hanging out with Louis, et. al., in awkward social situations in to which I didn't really fit.

When the summer ended, I moved back to La Jolla to begin my junior year of college. For some reason, though, I kept driving back up to Bonsall every Sunday to attend Riverview. I think mostly I was just craving friendships with people who shared my worldview. Don't get me wrong, my friends from college (otherwise known as the Angry Men of Portola- but that's a story for another post) are absolutely great, and I have close friendships with them to this day. But I wanted...even needed...close friendships with other Christians. So, I kept attending Riverview.

Slowly but surely, I managed to make contact with the other "corner people." These included Erika Klicka, Shane Skinner, Amanda Cunagin and Tisra Cross. Rounding out the group, but not necessarily corner people themselves, were Adam Young, Eric Fadely and Jeremy Baker. It was around December of 1995 that I began to hang out with this group on a regular basis. (As a side note, Shane Skinner has since died a horrible, tragic death and has been replaced by Shane Bonham, who is a much more approachable, friendly sort.)

At any rate, at that time I had not had a girlfriend for quite some time. I think I was approaching the 4 year mark of being single, and so it was only natural that I would develop a crush on Erika Klicka. It was really only a crush- nothing of epic proportions that makes one lie awake at night thinking about what time it is in Tibet. At any rate, I pondered this for a few weeks and then, one day, innocently decided that I would ask my new friend Shane Skinner for advice on this matter. Since I decided this while I was studying in the UCSD Library (I highly recommend you click on that if you've never seen the Geisel Library- it's quite an impressive site), I felt that the best course of action would be to send him an e-mail. (For you fans of the Matthew Maroon Show, this is the part where Girlfriend in a Coma starts playing). In this e-mail, I simply told him that I liked Erika and was wondering if he had any insight into the matter.

Now, keep in mind that NOBODY for any reason at all EVER spent ANY TIME at Shane Skinner's house. Not to divulge too much about his family life, but it was mostly because the tension between Shane and his stepfather was entirely palpable. So, I sent this e-mail innocently assuming that Shane would be the only one who would read it. However, for some as yet unknown reason, that day Shane had a guest over at his home. When he and this guest decided it would be fun to check their e-mail, they saw a message from their new friend Matt, and gleefully opened it. So, Shane and Erika began to read the e-mail which I had sent to Shane, telling him all about my crush on and feelings for Erika. Once he realized what the e-mail said, Shane covered the screen with his hand, but a shout of "Oh my God!" from Erika told him that it was already too late. That, my friends, is "that one time."

As I'm sure you know, Shane and Erika have since gotten married, so obviously the feelings weren't returned by Erika and she cruelly ripped my heart out of my ribcage and threw it on the floor and stomped on it repeatedly. Actually, if memory serves me correctly she gave me the "it's just not a good time for me to get involved with anybody" speech. In other words..."it's not you, it's me." So now you all know what a cruel, heartless woman that Erika is.