All the Boys I've Loved Before--Part 1

Since Master Fob has been doing a series on his girl crushes, I decided to follow his lead, however painful it might be for me and the parties involved. I know I've already written on here about how my love life pre-Master Fob was a series of unrequited crushes and painfully awkward attempts at connection with guys. Now you get the full story with all the ugly details.

I don't remember having any crushes until fourth grade. When I was in first and second grade, my friend and I would spend recess "cockroaching" the boys--we would chase them around, and if we managed to touch one, they were "cockroached". Not sure where we came up with that one. In fourth grade I was living in Mountain Home, Idaho and I had a crush on a guy in my primary class. His first and last name started with the same letter and I loved the alliteration. Also his big sister taught me piano lessons, so every week I got the chance to sit in his house on his couch and even use his bathroom! Ooh, the thrill! I never did anything about this crush except think about how cute he was and how cool his name was.

By sixth grade I had moved back to California and I got a crush on a guy in my class. Again, absolutely no attempts on my part to do anything about it. His house was located along my paper route, and I would always pedal furiously past it lest he wake up at 5:30 AM and catch me in my pink sweat pants and dorky bike helmet. By junior high my crush on him was waning, but I continued to like him through most of seventh and eighth grades. I added a second boy to my crush list; his last name came right after mine alphabetically and we often ended up sitting by each other in classes we had together. This boy precipitated my first attempts to reach out and do something about my feelings. At the end of eighth grade we got to take a trip to Magic Mountain. This boy and I ended up sitting near each other on the bus and hung out for the first part of the night. Unfortunately we got in an argument about what ride to go on and parted ways. At the eighth grade graduation dance, I tried again by asking him to dance. He ignored me, so I persisted. He ended up hiding under a chair with me pulling on his arm trying to get him out. Finally I went outside for a while and his friends tried to talk him into coming out from under the chair. He did come out and dance with me for one dance, but I was so embarrassed that I could barely look at him or talk to him. I'm not sure what happened to him in high school, since we never saw each other or talked again.

In addition to my school crushes, I had a brief crush on a boy at church during this time. We had a little "etiquette dinner" for a combined YW/YM activity and he asked me to dance. It was fabulous; I even remember the song we danced to and for years would get excited when I heard it on the radio (totally cheesy song, by the way). My mom was Young Woman president at the time, so we have photos from that activity in our family album. There's one of us dancing together that I used to get giddy from looking at. Another time I ended up at this boy's house for a few hours before going to a church activity. I don't quite remember why I was at his house. I remember trying to look cool while jumping on his trampoline in a dress--trying to act flirty by showing a little leg, but not slutty by showing off my panties. That was kind of hard to do.

By the time I started ninth grade, I was pretty much down to one school crush and one church crush. My school crush was on a guy who ended up in most of my classes; his name starts with A. Unfortunately, by sophomore year A had a girlfriend. Her locker was right by mine. The entire school year I had to see them making out right in front of me every time I went to my locker. Sigh. The biggest thrill I got was one time my junior year when I was cleaning my glasses and A said "Hey, you look really good without those on". Sigh.

My sophomore year of school I fell in love with my best friend's little brother, which was kind of a combo of school crush and church crush. He was a freshman and we were both in marching band. It was the first time I really got to be good friends with a guy. We'd hang out at band practice and on band trips all the time. At church we'd act goofy by doing things like trading shoes with each other. I spent a lot of time with my friend anyway, so the three of us did lots of fun things together. When I was in my "crushing" phase with her brother I always felt weird sleeping over at her house and hanging out in my pajamas with him. By the end of my sophomore year things cooled off considerably with us. People teased us both for liking each other and I think he wanted to hang out with boys more than with his sister's dorky friend. But we keep in touch and I still consider him a good friend, without any of the lingering embarrassment that surrounds any of my other crushes. (Now I hope he's not reading my blog).

I guess I sort of had a crush in the guy I went to Prom with. He was really the only Mormon boy my age who went to my school and we had Spanish class together. He was very nice and reasonably cute; the only problem was that he wasn't very academically gifted. I know that's a horrible thing to say and I still feel bad about it. But I was a terrible academic snob in high school. I probably still am. The truth is, I really wanted to go to prom with my friend's brother, but he wasn't sixteen yet Not only was I an intellectual snob in high school, I was very uptight about following all the rules (I don't really regret that too much, though).We moved away before my senior year, so I didn't get a second chance at going to prom.

I spent my senior year missing my friends in California and occasionally crushing on the missionaries, but I don't remember any major romantic action on my part. When I left to go to BYU I was terrified of the predatory RMs that are said to stalk freshman girls. Little did I know that no one, RM or not, goes for the dorky freshman girls.

More about that next time...