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Home / Entertainment

How 'Weird Al' Yankovic reconnected with his high school crush in 2020

NZ Herald
24 Dec, 2020 12:49 AM3 mins to read

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'Weird Al' Yankovic shared the story as a reminder that there were a few moments of joy this year. Photo / Getty Images

'Weird Al' Yankovic shared the story as a reminder that there were a few moments of joy this year. Photo / Getty Images

"Weird Al" Yankovic has shared a touching story of reconnecting with an old crush, saying he wanted to remind people that, despite the horrors of 2020, most of us also had moments of joy.

The singer posted on Facebook about how, earlier this year, he reconnected with his high school crush, nearly 50 years since they had last spoken.

"Weird Al" recounted the time when he was 12 and tried to impress the girl he liked.

"I was 12 years old in the 9th grade - younger than my classmates, and (as you may possibly be able to imagine) pretty awkward, shy and nerdy. And I had a crush on Patrice Y, the girl who sat directly in front of me in math class (because the seats were all arranged in alphabetical order for some arbitrary reason)," the Grammy-winning singer wrote on Facebook.

"Of course, Patrice would never in a million years have suspected that I had a crush on her, because like I explained… painfully shy. But one day I decided I would make my big move - I decided to draw a picture of her and present her with it," he continued.

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"But because I didn't want to give her the impression that I LIKED her or anything, I also drew pictures of EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE CLASS and handed those out as well, just to throw her off the scent."

I was 12 years old in the 9th grade - younger than my classmates, and (as you may possibly be able to imagine) pretty...

Posted by "Weird Al" Yankovic on Tuesday, December 22, 2020

"(Full disclosure, I tried to make Patrice's picture a little bit better than everyone else's, just to be subtle about my feelings.) Anyway, everybody seemed to like their drawings, and, as you may have predicted, my love life remained completely dormant for the next several years."

The 61-year-old singer, who has been married to wife Suzanne for 19 years, said nothing came of the picture - or of any of his other romantic efforts for years to come.

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However, this year, by pure coincidence, he saw a woman on Twitter talk about how she used to sit in front of the boy who would grow up to become "Weird Al" in math class.

"Okay, fast forward nearly half a century later… I'm checking my Twitter feed and I see some woman on there talking about how she used to sit in front of me during 9th grade math class," he wrote.

"Being slightly less shy at my current advanced age, I decided to follow up on this: I DM'ed her and asked if by any chance her name was Patrice. Turns out, it was. It was her - my 9th grade crush."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by “Weird Al” Yankovic (@alfredyankovic)

When he then messaged the woman asking if she remembered him drawing pictures for everyone in class, he was surprised to find out she did remember.

What's more, she had kept her drawing all these years.

"I then followed up and asked, 'Hey, by any chance do you happen to remember that one time I drew pictures of everybody in class?' A minute later she sent me this photo. She had saved it all these years," he wrote.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by “Weird Al” Yankovic (@alfredyankovic)

"I just felt like telling this story because, well… 2020 was arguably a pretty sucky year overall, but there were some real moments of joy sprinkled in here and there - and for me, this was definitely one of them."

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