My BFF (the very charitable person) is in love these days. The bad kind. The longing kind before you know whether you’re requited. I told him last night that every day I wake up so happy that I’m not him! Not helpful friend advice. Well. I mean it. Falling in love is one of my least favorite things. Usually I am the one besotted and my BFF is the one who has to listen and be sensible. I love listening and being sensible. I feel terrible for him: he just learned that the object of his affections plays the dulcimer. He overheard him saying: “But now I mostly just play it at Christmas!” What? Christmas dulcimer? I don’t know but I do know that if I were already inclined toward someone, learning that they played the dulcimer would just about kill me.
We’ve been talking about love a lot recently, the two of us, and I’ve been thinking about my romantic life, wondering “was I born crazy or did my life make me this way?” like you do. I remembered my first “romantic” experience: I was in fourth grade and I had a huge crush on a boy who I will call Luke Courville. (It was a lot like that, and I thought it was a very romantic name.) I remember absolutely nothing about why I liked this boy other than his name. I remember what he looked like, but remembering that as an adult doesn’t really help me know whether or not I found him physically attractive, because I’m remembering a 9-year old boy. He looked fine enough, I guess. He had curly brown hair and brown freckles.
I liked him so much that on the day when we had to make construction paper heart-shaped bags to hold our valentines, I snuck into the classroom at recess and tore his up. I don’t know why I did this. I don’t think I knew at the time. That is, I didn’t have any rationale: he hadn’t rejected me. I didn’t want to punish him or prevent him from celebrating Valentine’s Day. I guess I was just overwhelmed with emotion! I had to do something. When we came back to class, Luke discovered that someone had torn up his project, and it was a Big Deal. The teacher gave a menacing speech. I felt like a criminal. I knew I wouldn’t be suspected, because I was good: being good was my entire goal in life and at school I generally achieved it. But I felt hot and guilty and confessed. I remember the teacher was so surprised and I had to make up a story about how Luke had teased me and I wanted to get back at him. I didn’t know what else to say. I certainly didn’t have the words to say that I was overcome with frustrated passion. My teacher was so surprised, I don’t think I was even punished, other than by having to apologize to Luke, which I felt I ought to do anyway. Luke, I’m sure, was just as confused as my teacher was and I was.
This is my first memory of love, I guess. Tearing up a big construction paper heart without any idea why I was doing it. Definitely evidence in favor of the “I was always a crazy one” hypothesis. (Though, I don’t know, maybe that’s not an uncommon way for kids to behave when they have strong adult emotions.) I had a boyfriend in seventh grade and that was completely innocent and uneventful: we passed notes, held hands, and went to a dance together. No one’s property was destroyed. We were just nice suburban kids of approximately the same social standing with skin that was approximately equally bad who both enjoyed not paying attention in class. I think it ended completely organically at the end of the school year when one of us went to camp. So there! Evidence in favor of the “later life made me crazy” hypothesis. I even remember some mean girls tried to make fun of me for liking this boy, and though I was incredibly shy and afraid of most everyone, I still knew there wasn’t anything shameful about it: I wasn’t reaching for the stars! I had a boyfriend in ninth grade, too, and we went to one dance and we went on one date and I decided he was decidedly creepy (we went to see ‘Pleasantville’ and he claimed that I fell asleep, which I did not, and then he starting chewing on my hair) (we are facebook friends: he is a prosperous and almost staggeringly handsome psychiatrist now! I should’ve tried to work through that creepiness!) and told him that I was not ready for a relationship but we could be friends. Which was true.
I believe these are all of my pre-sexual experiences. Let us therefore mention the fact, for it seems to us worthy of record. I am off to watch football by myself for hours in an empty bar. (Likely).
dora random 