Better Late Than Never, Right?

Waaaay back in November, the wonderful Marni tagged me for a meme that she had been sent by her cousin, the R.E.M.-loving Beth. I am totally slack, and I have not gotten around to heeding Marni's call, but now that the ol' blog is beginning to collect cobwebs, and I'm reeeeally low on the creativity scale today -- a meme it is! Thanks to Marni for tagging me, and to Beth for the roundabout blog idea! (Of course, we won't even mention here that Marni has tagged me for another meme AFTER that one, and I think I remember Karyn tagging me for something before she was laid low with a nasty cold. Who knows? At this point, I'm lucky my brain hasn't exploded from all the assorted stress and general "stuff" happening in my life. Where was I? Oh, yes....the meme.)

Beth's (and Marni's) task was to talk about her past crushes. Oh, you lucky people. You are in for an angsty roller coaster ride!

I was always one of those girls that boys would love to partner up with for a writing assignment, but the actual social contact? Not so much. Most of these crushes were unrequited. The ones that developed into some type of relationship -- well, most of those ended badly as well.

*My first crush that I really remember was in middle school. His name was Joey, and he was THE cutest boy at Shoebox School. All the girls were head-over-heels mad about Joey, including my best friend. I felt really odd that we both liked the same boy, considering that he paid more attention to her. So, I just mooned over him a lot, and didn't really say anything to anyone. One day after school, I ran into him in the deserted hallway. I don't really remember how things devolved so fast but I *distinctly* remember him flashing his nether regions at me. Me, in all my witty glory said, "Put that thing away!" Oddly, I also remember thinking, "Is that the best pickup trick he has?" Things went aboslolutely nowhere, but I snickered like a grade schooler any time he got near me after that, thinking, "I've seen his wang!" I was about 11 or so -- what do I know of maturity at this point?

*Another crush was a boy named Michael G. We met in drama class. He was cute, but was "going out" with another girl in our group. (I say "going out" because dates (at this point) involved us sitting together during rehearsals and holding hands under our coats or scripts.) this other girl that he was "seeing" was a really snotty, manipulative girl, and she was constantly telling him what to do and what to say and wear. We were about 12! (It starts early, apparently.) After a while, he got sick of her, and he transferred his affection to me. That relationship lasted the duration of the play, and then I never saw him again. I heard he moved away some months later.

*In my long list of people named Michael that I dated, Michael M. was a real slice of something or another. This particular Michael I met through my best friend, and we dated for about six months. He seemed very sweet, even going so far as to tutor me in algebra and taking me on moonlit walks by a secluded lake. He was half-German, so he had a nice little accent that drove me bonkers. We had a great time together until he told me that he was only biding time until his old girlfriend came crawling back to him. Needless to say, that relationship ended shortly after that conversation.

*And there was Andy. Andy was a guy I met right after I arrived at Gigantic High School, and who kindly gave me a ride home every now and again. He was a year older than I was, so we didn't run with the same crowds anyway, and I had it bad for Andy, but he, sadly, never returned my feelings. At the half-term of the school year, he got transferred to another schedule, and we no longer ate lunch at the same time. Andy disappeared into Gigantic High, and we ran into each other very sporadically over the rest of the year. He finally faded from view during the summer.

*Chris* was a nice boy from the outskirts of the city whom I again met through friends. I went to a party one night, and Chris was there, and we struck up a conversation. We hung out the whole evening, and he got my phone number. We started talking on the phone, and met at a local bowling alley for "dates" while his father bowled. We dated for a few months, and then his father got transferred to Florida. We wrote for a while, and things sort of trickled to a stop. In college, I heard from him a few times -- he had joined the Navy, and was deployed to the Middle East during the Gulf War. We wrote letters for a while, and I sent care packages to him from the states, filled with cookies and little extras that he couldn't get on a ship in the middle of the ocean. After he returned from the war, we tried going out again, but he surprised me by telling me gently that he was gay. We stayed good friends, and he even later attended my wedding. I haven't talked to him in years, but I remember him fondly.

*I met JD in college. JD and I were both taking Theater Lab, and working on the current production that quarter. He was fun-loving and devil-may-care, and we struck up a friendship right away. He knew I was interested, and was way too polite to do something as mean as to brush me off. He let me down very gently, and began dating another member of our theater troupe, Melanie*. To their credit, we three often hung out together, and they never made me feel like a third wheel. I got to know his entire family, and we often spent lots of time at their home, gaming well into the wee hours of the morning. We were never anything more than "just friends" and I began to look for love elsewhere. We remained good friends for quite a few years, until he moved away. The last I heard, he married a lady from his church who had two children from a previous marriage, and he was as happy as could be being a husband and father. I still miss hanging out with him.

*Another crush I met through the theater was David. David was a deejay at a local radio station, I mooned over him from afar. He was also aware of my interest, but seemed completely uninterested in me. We hung out a few times, and I even crashed at his apartment one night after a late rehearsal. Nothing ever happened, but a co-worker of his who had the hots for David got highly agitated when she discovered that I had "spend the night" with David and threw a huge rock through my bedroom window. David faded from my radar after the perfomances concluded, and it's a good thing, since I was a poor college student -- I couldn't afford any more replacement windows!

*I met Jack* at another friend's party. I had come with JD and Melanie, and when they got ready to leave, Jack and I were still talking. Jack offered to drive me back to my car later that night, when I was ready to go. Jack swept me off my feet that night, and we spent a whirlwind six weeks together. Jack seemed like a deal too good to be true until he played me this song and dance story about how he really needed to focus on his "career" at that point. He said that it wasn't fair that he would have too spend less and less time with me, and more and more at work, and he really thought I deserved more than that. I would have taken this announcement more seriously if he hadn't been employed in the plumbing department at Home Depot. This break up really hurt because the relationship was still so new, and I wasn't expecting it at all. Hindsight being what it is, I got out when the gettin' was good. The skeeze went on to date my best friend. And from her, I heard he moved on to a girl I'd gone to Shoebox School with who was an even bigger skeeze than he was. Who knows -- they may even still be skeezy together today.

That's about all of the "crushes." I'm sure I had more, but these are the ones I remember really well. There were also some more serious relationships than "crushes", but those are for another time.

(* not their real names)