Crushed

Do you remember your first crush?

That's a stupid question, actually, because of course you do.

Personally, I was something of a crush-slut. I was in love with many, many boys, pretty much from the time I could walk. I fancied boys at school, on tv, from down the block. By the age of 4, my entire goal in life was to be 16.

[Specifically, my goal was to be Liesl from "The Sound of Music" so that I could be 16 going on 17 and dance in a gazebo with a twirly skirt and get kissed in the rain by a handsome Nazi.]

But my first real, amazing crush started when I was about 12 years old, and ended when...well, I'll let you know if it happens.

It is insanely ridiculous, but here I am, miles and years away from high school, and simply remembering him has brought all the awkward anxieties racing back and I'm suddenly cloaked in self-doubt and embarrassment over I don't even know what. But I will tell you, my gut reaction was to feel like I couldn't even write his name because...

...um?

...he might find out? His friends will laugh? The teacher will see my note?

Really, there is zero logic at play here.

Ah, adolescence. Will you ever leave me completely?


* * * * * * *

I first met him on a sledding expedition on a fortuitous snow day.

Actually, let me rephrase because that's redundant. All snow days when you're in grade school are fortuitous. Nothing was so sacred and special as an unexpected day off from school, when all your worldly responsibilities shifted. Instead of having to turn in homework and take vocabulary quizzes, suddenly your only accountability was to childhood: throwing snowballs and sledding and drinking cocoa and playing with your friends.

On that particular snow day, my sister's friend's mom agreed to shuttle a bunch of us to the local park. I had agreed to go even though I didn't usually "socialize" with my younger sister and her friend, Lang, in public (because that would have been totally uncool). I certainly did NOT know that Lang would be bringing her brother. Her OLDER brother, and his friends.

In fact, if I had known they were coming, I probably wouldn't have gone. While I would have liked the opportunity to hang out with older boys (as the oldest in the family, I rarely got to hang out with kids older than me, and certainly not BOYS), the thought of spending an afternoon with them may have been too much to handle. Preparations would have involved days of wardrobe planning and at least 42 hours of phone conversations. And instead of wearing the oversized coat and mussed-up hair of a "girl," I would have worn pink lip gloss and blue eyeliner and used mousse to properly scrunch my permed curls like a "teenager."

(By the way? How awesome was 1987?)

So there I was, a dorky little girl hanging out with her silly little sisters, while the boys behaved like boys, i.e., creatures from another planet.

Imagine being a 12-year-old-girl around real, live high-school boys for the first time. Compared to the boys I was dealing with on a daily basis at my school, these boys were practically men. Their voices were changing. They were tall, and had broadening shoulders. They were comparatively (comparatively being the operative word, of course) rugged and athletic. And when I saw him, the one, my Crush, I was instantly smitten. In my eyes, he was the biggest and cutest and most charming of them all. And he was wearing a football jacket. Be still my heart.

Of course, I didn't exchange a single word with him that day. I mean, how could I? I was a goofy-looking pre-teen, and what, exactly, would I have said? Voluntarily speaking to a group of teenaged boys was simply out of the question.

Instead, I did what every pre-teen girl does: I pined.

* * * * * * *
Over the next couple years, Lang's family and my family remained close friends, and seeing each other over holidays and vacations and family gatherings became more and more common. So as these things go, Lang's older brother met one of my girlfriends (who was already in high school) at my family's Christmas party in 1988, and eventually started dating.

Well. That changed everything.

Because when I got to high school a year later, my friend was still dating Lang's brother. And this meant that, through association, I was "allowed" to hang out with her brother and his group of friends, too. Which was a life-altering arrangement. I got to high school and had a whole new group of friends to be part of.

Erm, but I shouldn't make this sound more glamorous that it was. It was still high school, and I was still a freshman, and they were still seniors. I was acknowledged as part of the group, but I was -- at best -- on the periphery.

[As an aside, this situation impacted the rest of my high school experience, and not in a positive way. I abandoned the group of friends I had from middle school in exchange for this newer, older group. A group who never wholly adopted me, and who graduated years before I did. Ultimately, I found myself having a verrrrry small circle of "close" friends.]

For the purposes of this post, though, being on the periphery was just fine with me. Because among other cute boys who were suddenly, if only slightly, flirting with my existence, my Crush was there, too.

He was taller and broader-shouldered than I'd remembered him, and better looking than ever. He was also funny and sweet and terribly popular. And captain of the football team. And while it's not like he went out of his way to say hi to me in the hallways (yeah, no), we started seeing each other at many social gatherings.

Then, for Thanksgiving of my freshman year of high school, we all went away together. My family and Lang's family and various cousins and friends. I brought my friend (still dating Lang's brother), and her brother brought my Crush. I spent the entire time we were away alternating between being giddy, swooning, and trying to play it cool.

It was a great vacation, and I got to spend lots of quality time with my Crush, relishing in how many girls would have killed to be in my position.

You know how it is. You have a crush on someone -- let's just say George Clooney for the sake of argument -- and you think: if only he could get to know the real me. If somehow the planets aligned and then George and I were alone together on a desert island or even in a stuck elevator for a few hours, surely he'd get to see how amazing I am and want to marry me.

And that is precisely what I assumed would happen on this trip. My Crush would get to spend all kinds of quality, private time with me, away from the prying and judgmental eyes of jealous high school girls and dudes who can't take freshman girls seriously. He would find me charming and funny and realize how hot I am. He would be so moved, so delighted by me that he'd spurn society and its "ways" and return to high school with me by his side.

Or at least make out with me.

Except none of that happened. His interest in me was mild and platonic, and instead of whisking me off for handheld walks on the snowy beaches, he and Lang's brother mostly watched football and told jokes about farts.

Later that year, in a strange turn of events, my Crush decided -- much to the entire school's shock -- that he would audition for our big high school musical. He'd never shown any interest in music, much less singing, much much less MUSICAL THEATRE before, but he was serious about it. And I was the only one of his acquaintances who knew much about music. So he asked if he could come over.

To my house.

To my room.

To SING for me.

Invisible Internet Friends. My Crush asking (asking!) to come over to my house to sing for me was the most amazing thing in the whole world. It was the high-school equivalent of George Clooney calling me up right now and asking if I'm free for dinner. You know, so I can give him pointers on directing.

It was an epic moment in my life, that evening when my Crush came to my house to sing. Nothing romantic happened, but it didn't matter. The Love Of My Life had come to my room to hear my thoughts on his performance. And you know? He was good. He was totally charming and cute and bashful because he was inexperienced. But the musical was Little Shop of Horrors, and the lead role is that of Seymour (played in the movie by Rick Moranis) and so my Crush's inexperience totally worked in his favor.

I gave him what little feedback I could muster, because mostly I just wanted to yell I LOVE YOU VERY MUCH every time he sang a new note. Regardless, my feedback notwithstanding, he got the lead.

* * * * * *

Over the next couple years, I remained peripheral to my Crush's circle of friends. He went off to college where he remained active in theatre.

And then we all lost touch. Everyone moved away.

I heard that after he graduated college, my Crush moved to Japan to do some musical there. But I don't know where or for how long or if he liked it.

* * * * * *

A few years after that, in the spring/summer of 1995, I was in the best shape of my life. I was living at home with my parents and going to college locally. One day, I was at a corner gas station, and noticed a super hot guy across the way. I noticed him noticing me, too. So we flirted, if that's even possible at A GAS STATION. And when he eventually had to cross in front of my car, I realized it was him. And he realized it was me.

We spoke. He gave me the requisite "OH MY GOD"s and "You look so good"s that follow when you've gone from being a loopy teenager to being 20. And dropping a good 45 lbs in the process. We chatted briefly about what we were up to. I explained that I was in town, going to school and working. He explained that he'd just moved back, too, and was bartending at a local place.

We should get a drink sometime.

I don't know if I offered or if he did, but the drink was mentioned. Our phone numbers were exchanged.

I called him.

And when he did not call me back, I finally gave up. I'd carried a torch since that snow day as a 12-year-old, harboring vague but undeniable hopes that we'd run into each other again someday and then he would fall in love with me. But if years and pounds and experience and everything in the world being different didn't change his level of interest in me, nothing would.

* * * * * *

And then it got to be more than ten years later, somehow.

A few weeks ago, my sister Sam called me.

"Oh, hey. Guess who just opened up a new restaurant!" She told me there was a big to-do about it in town, and that she and her fiance, Mike, had gone to see the place. And say hi to my Crush.

"He asked about you," she said.

Sam knew I had been in crush-love with him. I think probably everyone did. He'd been at our house and hung out with our family and was one of those guys who touches your life just enough, just for a while. So that when it's decades later and you're going through old photo albums with someone you don't even stop to identify him. Except maybe to say, "Oh, that's just a guy I had a crush on."

Even though you know that when left to yourself, and you look at those photos alone, you do not turn the page too quickly. You touch his face in the photo first, and sigh, and laugh at your own heart's ridiculousness.

I replied to Sam immediately and without hesitation, "Was he wearing a wedding ring?"

No, adolescence. You will never leave me.


* * * * * * * *

So tell me. Who was yours?



He and his restaurant partner apparently posed for this poster for the local public library,
encouraging the community to Read. How cute is THAT?
(He's on the right.)
(Heart you, Google.)

Comments

  1. Steven Peterson. 2nd grade. Blond hair, blue eyes. ::Sigh:: He still has a special place in my heart. We're facebook friends now.

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  2. oh, Jeffrey Harris... 1st grade, brown hair, blue eyes... and the dimples. Oh, the dimples. Adorable at 7, less so at 17. Pretty sure he did ok with the girls in HS, though. Not that i had anything to do with it.

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  3. Oh, also - this post is great. I would have been just as interested about the wedding ring no matter how serious the relationship is that i'm in. It doesn't matter - stupid adolescent pining rules over all.

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  4. Didn't everyone have a crush on... well, you know who. I asked the wedding ring question too!
    I didn't know about the voice lesson though. So Cool.

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  5. What a lovely story!

    I actually got to date my first crush! I was in 8th grade and he was a senior in high school when I met him - he sort of knew my older brother. Then he was off to college many hours away, and somehow, when I was a sophomore in college, I ended up on his email because of one of those many many annoying forwards sent out by out mutual friends. We wrote every day.
    His brother was a year younger than me - dorky kid with braces and big feet. We were in marching band together and we would occasionally chat about how his brother was doing. He (little brother) used to have a crush on me.
    Senior year, little brother got extremely cute and lost the braces and learned how to dress, and I dated him for 8 months.
    Crush got engaged. We fell out of touch. Years later, after I got unengaged and he got unengaged, we ended up back on the email lists and he came to see his family (and me) and Christmas.
    We dated for about 6 months and while to this day I will never say anything bad about him, I must tell you that dating the Crush can be very disappointing after all the Prince Charming dreams. Sigh.

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  6. Shawn... From grade 3 to grade 9. I went away to another school in grade 7 but had my old school friends leave him heart-shaped notes I'd sprayed my perfume on. I never signed them, and I don't think he ever knew I'd bike-stalked his house every summer. That is, until we became friends in highschool and I thought it'd be fun to tell him, in a drunken haze, that it had been me all these years. We still laugh about it. I still have the little valentine that started it all.

    Seriously, best high school crush read ever, Winter Dreams, Christmas Love, one of those rinky-dink teenage romance novels you get from the Book Bus or Scholastic. I still read it from time to time, and it still makes me giggle like a 14 year old.

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  7. oh man. i had a huge crush on the son of my parent's friends, his nickname was "Mucke". he was 4 years older and that was soooooooo much older in teenage years. i did pathetic things to try to be near him, like learning how to play the piano part for the piano concerto the school orchestra was playing...he was one of the violinists.... i never managed to overcome my stage-fright to actually audition, but i knew every note he played during the concert..... on extra-bold days i walked a half mile to "run into him" at his school bus stop.... and whenever my stars were extremely lucky and he sat next to me on the school bus ride (!!!!) i was so terrified to talk to him i would pretend to be asleep the entire time.... making sure i held my head just right so he could see my long neck (which at the time i thought was my best feature). he actually invited me to a party at his house once (i was the only freshman there and then he showed me his room and put on slow-dance music...then we were interrupted by some girl who he ended up dating later...grrrrr) and i invited him to mine (and he actually came!), but i guess the age gap was too great and he just never saw me for more than the awkward 13-year old that i was. :o) i hear he is happily married and running a hotel now. *siiigh*.....
    i am also happily married and my husband thinks the pretending-to-be-asleep-on-the-bus and showing my neck thing is just about the cutest thing ever. i'll very happily settle for that. :o)

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  8. When I was in grade 7 I had a crush on a beautiful blond God whom I bagged with a line drive during gym class. That was pretty much the end of that dream.

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  9. my college crush was on the football team and i worked for the athletic dept.... i watched him from the sidelines for the 2 years our schedules overlapped. i pulled a sixteen candles moment the one time he approached me and tried to talk to me by basically being too cool for school... playing hard to get got me nowhere. i refered to him as my pretend boyfriend, for my entire college career and kept tabs on his nfl career, getting married, his euro football career, getting divorced, etc.

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  10. SO, WAS he wearing a wedding ring?
    I am 41 and very happily married,is it possible to be crushing on someone that works for me right at this very minute? Damn, he is so hot.

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  11. My big crush was Brad. I met him through one of my best friends, Chad (they lived in the same townhouse complex) in grade 6 and I had a crush on him for years. I moved away from my neighbourhood at the end of grade 7, but I would go back to the old neighbourhood to visit my friends quite often.

    The end of my crush came when a girl I went to jr high with wanted to come with me on one of my return trips. I brought her with me. The old neighbourhood was far enough away that when ever I went back I always stayed over (I'd been friends with the same guys since grade 2. My mum didn't worry about me sleeping over at all). Well Amy took advantage of the situation and decided to sleep with my crush.

    Needless to say I stopped having a crush on Brad, and stopped being friends with Amy. Come to think of it, that was the beginning of the end of the friendships I had with my old best friends. I stopped going back as often and eventually just stopped.

    I moved away from that city long ago, moved on from those friends long ago, but I recently found out Brad has moved to my city. I have no idea what I would do if I ran into him. I think I would want to barf.

    Adolescents really does stick with you forever.

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  12. Joe....Pattengill....he rocked some wranglers and a tractor all summer long....and had a college girlfriend...and I was in the 8th grade and my parents let me sit with him in church... **sigh...those were the days..** and he never even knew I existed...lol...

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  13. great crush story. mine was james in first grade and it last up to 5th grade. i saw him about 7 years ago and he has two kids... still a nice guy.

    but reading your story about the crush wearing a football jacket and dating your friend it reminded me of the movie "lucas". oh how i loved watching that movie only to watch a hot, young charlie sheen. that scene with him washing the clothes after home ec class did it for me!

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  14. I crushed so much growing up it was ridiculous! Sadly, I still crush! (a lot) When I think of "the" crush... the one that still haunts me I think of 2 guys. They both haunt me the same, but for different reasons. I met them both when I was 5 years old. Crazy that I still remember this. We went to the same elementary school. I used to stare at Robby from across the playground. My crush on Matt didn't start till later in life. One year (still in elementary school) Robby and I were both invited to the birthday party of our friend. We were playing basketball at the party and I got hurt (someone was crouched down and stood up right under my jaw and I ended up cutting my lip). While I sat on the sidelines with an icepack to my face, Robby came up and say next to me and talked with me so I wouldn't feel left out of the fun. *swoons* He ended up leaving the school (I don't know if he moved or became home school), but I never saw him again. I always imagined that he grew up into a hot number... :) I still think of him and wonder... if only we were older...

    The other is Matt. My crush on him didn't start until I was 11... but I'd know him since I was 5. We were never "friends" growing up, but we were always in the same class and we had the same friends. When I wised up to his "hotness" I was smitten. I was heartbroken when his friend asked me out... why couldn't it be you that asked me? Well... I got my chance in 7th grade. He asked me out!!! We had hung out during the summer and... *sigh*... I was sure I was in love. We dated and had our frist kiss at school (my first kiss ever)... imagine that, you're first kiss being with your crush! I was in heaven. We were so young and cheesy that for my birthday he was going to give me... a *gasp* french kiss. But we both were too chicken and it didn't happen. It was a great relationship. We'd stay on the phone and talk for hours and hours. We both had out phone privelages removed for a while which made my heart pine for him even more. He got me great gifts too! (well... his mom got me great gifts)... but I knew it wasn't meant to be. I was given a sign. He had given me a gorgeous bracelet with two doves on it that were face-to face, their beaks touching. I had a sleepover at my house and a balloon... a balloon hit the bracelet on my wrist and it broke. The doves split apart right where their beaks matched... this happend while Mariah Carey's song was playing. The exact moment was "You want to be free. So, I'm letting you fly. Cuz I know in my heart babe, our love will never die, no!" I knew it was a sign and I cried that night.

    We didn't break up for a while later, but we did break up. I made him promise to not date that b*tch of a girl he used to date and he promised. A month later they were dating. Me and Matt were still friends, so I asked him about it and he said he was pressured into it by her and her friends (he was a little bit of a wuss back then)... we didn't talk much after that... but I still swooned after him. We talked a little in high school, but nothing really worth mentioning. Then one day, I came home on vacation from college and saw him at a party. We hung out all night, he actually walked me home, and we just stayed up and chatted. He was always in a relationship and I was always swooning over him. He was a musician, trying to make it work with his new heavy metal band... but he was clean-cut and worked at Frys Electronics. He was the prefect mash of everything, he was rugged and rough, but sensitive and caring and he was my friend again. I saw him and hung out with him the next couple times I came home from school... but we started to lose touch and then nothing... for years. I would still stalk his band online and look at their website reveling when I saw him name at the end of their band blog. I'm friends with his band's myspace group... but when I tried to send him a message to his myspace, he never responded... that's the end of that dream.

    He also grew out his hair really long to fit the heavy-metal image which does NOT look good on him, but I can still see his kind caring side in his eyes in his pictures. He's not the hottest thing anymore, but I still wonder what if. He's dating a girl I knew in high school, but we were never friends and I can't help but think... would he ever date me again?

    omg. I just wrote a novel. Sorry! :(

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  15. William. Was completely in love with him from 2nd to 6th grade. (My mental image of all the boy heroes in the books I read back then, like Narnia, was William.) Once, this girl was making fun of me, and he told her to shut the hell up. It was the romantic highlight of my pre-adolescence, even though I knew he didn't like me back.

    Ran into him in a supermarket a little while ago. Somehow, googling me, he found my email address afterwards and sent me an email. I was so excited...but. It was obvious we weren't right for each other. We didn't mesh well. It's a shame - it killed my ability to imagine that I'd run into him one day and something magical would happen and we'd get married and live happily ever after, because I did run into him and something very mundane happened. Anyway. I still wish him the best, and he's still my mental image of Peter Pevensie.

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  16. My first crush? The big important one? 1986, I was a freshman in high school, he was a junior. His name was Josh Pennington and he was kind of a bad boy. He and his friends listened to alt music, read bizarre books and it was rumored, went all the way. In a small Christian school, this was a big deal. He was nice and flirted with me just a little, to be nice. He also wrote that I was cute in my yearbook that year. I still look back at that and sigh.

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  17. Unfortunately, my high school crush became my boyfriend, who then became my ex-boyfriend, so that when I look at pictures of him now I do not so much have fond memories as I think, I wish I had never seen you naked.

    Your story ending is much, much better.

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  18. Chip. I had a crush on Chip starting in 5th grade and continuing all through high school. We were friends, we fought, we flirted, but he was never really interested in me. Until I got a real boyfriend late sophomore year, then I became infinitely more interesting. All through Junior year when I was "going with" my boyfriend, Chip had nothing good to say about the boyfriend. Then he transferred to a fancy-schmancy boarding school just as boyfriend broke up with me. Sometimes I wonder what might have been had he not gone to boarding school.

    I ran into him at a bar years later and he was smoking. SMOKING! That killed any interest I might have had.

    Oh well.

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  19. Michael...I was in 7th grade and he was a sophomore...got to date him my freshman year (his senior year), but my dad was a maneater, so it didn't last long. I would still pay money to find out where/how he is. Even if it would be awkward now, he was my first crush, my first boyfriend, and my first kiss. Trying to finagle ways to inconspicuously hold his hand, or wear his letter jacket...

    Nothing beats that. Ever.

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  20. I *still* want to be Liesl and have that pretty dress, and I'm 31.

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  21. Kevin. From 7th grade to 12th grade and perhaps a bit beyond. I had just started going to boarding school and Kevin was in 7th grade with me but in a different section. His section and mine had a couple of classes together so I got to know him and he was rather full of himself but I was already head over heels for him and he knew it. I knew there was never a chance but couldn't help myself. He had that adorable baby face that is just irresistable. We moved to high school and both joined choir and theatre. We had all the same friends so I saw him all the time. Then, I think it was in 10th grade, my BFF slept with him and all our friends knew but no one told me because everyone knew it would break my heart. My BFF and Kevin had a lot of sex and as much as she was in love with him I always knew it wouldn't work out and it didn't. That BFF is STILL my BFF even after stealing one of my boyfriends as well as my crush. I'd much rather have her in my life than the boys that threatened to pull us apart.

    Kevin is now married to his high school sweetheart and they have 3 kids. He still has that damn baby face!

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  22. Ah, Stan. He was so beautiful! I fell for him hard in 5th grade, and my crush kinda continued all the way thru HS. We got close to being 'something' a few times, but, alas, it was never to be. I can actually still remember his phone # from 5th grade (and keep in mind I'm in my early 40s now!)

    I hear he's an officer out in Albuquerque now and he got married the same day I did!

    I wonder if he's happy! :)

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  23. Crush is so cute. So did he have a wedding ring? It doesn't look like it from the photo.
    Great post, such a fun read, and brought back memories of my first crush, MM. I'll always love him - or at least care about him...

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  24. All my early-in-life crushes have turned out to be gay. And, frankly, some of the later ones as well.

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  25. Ah, David Lane... I was madly in love with him from 1st through 4th grade, and since our last names are only a few letters apart, he sat behind me in every single class.

    Last winter, my mom cleaned out the attic and gathered all of our old pictures and memorablia. There was a school picture of David in one of the boxes, and on the back, I had written, "David Lane, my sweet Babou, I love you forever."

    I'm thirty one, and that is still totally mortifying.

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  26. Your second to last paragraph - oh my gosh, YES. I had a billion painful crushes - but there is one crush who I think will always give me the flutterflies, no matter how many years its been.

    I've been happily married for twelve years, but when my husband and I ran into the crush last year at Target I couldn't stop blushing. My husband thought it was amusing, but I was mortified.

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  27. He looks gay to me

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  28. I really thought when you said mentioned he got into musical theater that you're crush turned out to be gay. Not that I am promoting stereotypes--it's just that my crush, Bruce, sang and went into musical theater, too. And 5 years after he left for college, I run into he and his partner at a restaurant.

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  29. I can't admit the name, because I still see him occasionally (like he doesn't know!) but the crush lasted from age 4 to age 12 (supposedly) but off and on to the present day. The other day I dreamed he and I adopted a child together.

    You have done the best job of portraying a crush, and the 80s, that I can ever imagine. My God, how you have brought me back. I just love your blog! Love it love it love it.

    My crush was into musical theater, too, by the way, but in an effort to prove his masculinity went on to become a pilot. Ah.

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  30. Jared - I met him in 5th grade when our schools combined for leap day. That next year we moved and I ended up at the same school as him and in the same class. He was THE COOLEST guy EVER and everyone had a crush on him. I of course was the not quite cool enough girl in the background.

    We had a moment once when we were 14. I consider this a moment, for him it could have just been a passing conversation.

    Sadly, Jared was killed in a drunk driving accident when we were in sophmores in highschool. He died before I got the courage to really tell him how I felt. I will always carry this with me and to this day have been the most open and honest person with everyone and never holding back- no matter how scarry it is. I can't thank him enough for giving me that.

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  31. oh my god. i had two (or three really big ones). Oliver in elementary school, who was a gorgeous gorgeous little lad that I couldn't even look straight at without blushing. Then Kai, who was angry at the world and super smart and is now a fancy schmancy composer in NY. Last, Rob, who is now dating HIS high school crush, another girl in our class.

    sigh. needless to say nothing every happened with any of them, because I was not cool or hot, but man did I pine. hehe....

    I love my BF now but high school obsession can never be duplicated...

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  32. PS. YOUR CRUSH IS GORGEOUS AND DOES NOT HAVE A WEDDING RING ON~!!!

    well maybe I should not have allcapsed that one (Ish) :)

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  33. How much do I love that Lang commented?

    Also, to address a couple issues:

    1) He is not gay. That would almost be better.

    2) He IS married. And that story is coming up, because it's (sort of) related to the next story I am working on about my very first, very special, very ridiculous "relationship".

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  34. Oh, also? I LOVE your crush stories and am delighting in reading them.

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  35. tony. i was a junior in hs he was a senior. we had known each other all thru jr high & high school but from sitting behind him in chemistry class, i developed a huge crush. he was funny, athletic, and attempted to be smart. by may, right before school ended, we started dating, i was bursting! he left for college on a soccer scholarship and we wrote letters back and forth in the early fall. by october the letters stopped and in november i got the dear heather letter. i was crushed by my crush! i always kept tabs on him thru college, he married and divorced and i always thought in the back of my mind, i would still be waiting... yes adolesence is hard to ditch. of course i ran into him about 5 months before i got married, he was freshly divorced. i almost had a panic attack in the bar, and when i finally thought he left, i went to use the bathroom, and ran into him on the way. oh the butterflies!
    tony: soooo, its been a long time
    heather: yes it has
    tony: good to see you
    heather: you too

    the end.

    i like to think we both didn't know what to say.

    ReplyDelete
  36. JessAaron. He was a one-of-a-kind guy. A super smart, funny, kind-of-a-jerk punk with spiked hair, safety pins, monkey boots and deep soulful brown eyes. Just to keep people guessing, he joined the wrestling team and got so buff that his ripped up t-shirts revealed the very first 6-pack that I'd ever seen. We were in Journalism class together and I totally invented a restaurant review column (Opinion: His and Hers) just so I could spend some time alone with him. We reviewed California Pizza Kitchen. His mom dropped us off. I wore way too much make-up, my thrift store burgundy velvet pants and black 20 hole Doc Marten's. The whole way there his mom smiled at me while I squirmed in the back seat and tried to check my lipstick in the rearview mirror for the thousanth time. Over dinner, I could barely talk. I must have just stared at him. Geez! We did discuss music, if I remember. Marilyn Manson, Cafe Tacvba, Type O Negative. I ordered the Peking Duck pizza because I wanted to seem like I'd try anything and I was exciting! Duck Pizza! Anyway, the pizza was gross and I ended up writing a snarky review. Surprisingly, his review was really nice. After our articles were published, the His & Hers column was passed on so the rest of the class could participate. I kept thinking, "If only he knew the REAL me, he'd just love me". He was beautiful though. For a guy who openly (proudly!) picked his nose in the 10th grade.

    ReplyDelete
  37. O.M.G! how awesome is it that Lang commented?

    Second, Freaking HOT! I would have crushed on him too.

    Third. Dallas Fox. 7th grade. Later I found out he had a crush on me. Who knew? By 9th grade I was 2 inches taller than him so it was never going to work out.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Brett Sanders.
    I was in 9th grade, he was a junior. He played drums. I was a cheerleader. We were friends.
    Sigh.
    We lived on a military base overseas, where we all had three-year tours. That meant one-third of us left every summer, and a new third came in.
    Brett came in a year after I did. And I was his first friend.
    I took him to dances. Showed him around. Introduced him to his first girlfriend overseas.
    Sigh.
    They dated for a long time. We never did.
    Sigh.
    I ran into him at a school reunion a few years ago. Sat next to him at dinner.
    "I had a huge crush on you in 9th grade," I told him after a few glasses of wine.
    "I remember you as the nicest person I've ever met," he replied.
    Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  39. He's on tv now (My Boys). Playing the character of who he was in college. I tune in every time, watch and wish it was me getting to kiss him. Oh man, he can change his last name (to Scott) but he can't change how freakin' cute he is. *sigh* he made colllege worthwhile.

    ReplyDelete
  40. just stumbled upon your blog... totally love this story! well told. made me think of todd. who was a loser. and not just because he didn't like me back. more because he just was.

    very, very funny!

    ReplyDelete
  41. I was 8, I had just transferred schools b/c my mom re-married. I was a "bad" girl because my parents were divorced, my mom was re-married now and that automatically made me an outcast in the Bible Belt. Then, my father was a teacher. My classmates parents for the most part never even went to college, even briefly.

    But, I was 8 and he cutest kid in the class? His name was Jerry. We were in the 3rd grade. His last name fell directly behind mine and so alphabetically assigned seats allowed me to sit by him all the time.

    His name is Jerry, mine is Jerri, we sat next to each other all day and I finally sent him a note saying, "will you be my boyfriend?" and the teacher caught got it before he did.....

    I know kind of where he is, kind of meaning very little...but I've always wondered if Jerri was suppose to marry Jerry

    ReplyDelete
  42. my name's Alex Feola from fofx run school, you were my crush Kristy from third to eight grade. I was too nervous to tell you, the i went to nhs for High school, where I joined the ROTC

    ReplyDelete

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