the boyfriends who never were...

At the risk of making myself sound SUPER OLD, I just celebrated my 19th anniversary. How is this possible, you ask, when I am still so fresh and dewy? A) I drink lots of water, B) I use moisturizer with sunscreen, and C) I got married at 19 to a man I met when I was 16. So you can probably guess there was not a looonnnngg dating life, to say the least. Nonetheless, I did manage to work in some romantic dramas and one actual going-steady (for one month) boyfriend before I met The One. Most of all there were the Boys Who Might Have Been, but for various reasons, weren't. Here were a few of the landmarks:

Let's Call Him Pete: Sixth grade. Someone said, "Pete wants to go with you." "Oh." Then Pete and a few friends cornered me near some lockers and said, "You're going with Pete." And I said, "I don't want to." And then they walked away. Ah, sixth grade!

Let's Call Him The Senior: When I was a freshman in high school, I had a killing crush on The Senior. He was totally tall, and sweet, and didn't seem to have a girlfriend. We were in the school play. A bunch of junior and senior girls knew I had a crush on The Senior and thought it was cute and tried to manipulate something into happening despite my protests. One day at rehearsal I was helping him do his Spanish homework, and he said, "Would you like to come to my grandmother's house for dinner?" Me: "YES!" Him: "Oh, no, that's the sentence I have to say in Spanish." In the end, he did ask me to the winter dance, a situation that I'm sure was helped along by the junior girls. The day of the dance...HE WAS NOT AT SCHOOL! As you well know, if you expect to go to the dance, you darn well better show up to school. My mother called me at school. So I'm in the school office, receiving a call from my mother telling me that The Senior's mother called her, and TS has mono. Mono! Of course I'm thinking, "Riiiight. He totally made that up to get out of going to the dance with me." And I cried all day. But then he didn't come to school for like a month, and I guess that would be a lot to go through to avoid me. We had a make-up date going to the ballet with my sister chaperoning, but apparently no sparks were flying for him. Well, maybe between him and my sister.

Let's Call Him JJ: He was a sophomore, I was a junior. We hit it off and hung out ALL THE TIME. Basically we were best friends that year and played hooky a couple of times in my 78 Datsun, driving off to Ocean Beach to smoke* and listen to music. Between the school plays and community theater and hanging out, we had a lot of adventures. I met my future husband around this time, too, and JJ got a girlfriend and we drifted apart. Later I found out that JJ liked me In That Way at least for part of our friendship. We did have a joking deal that if neither of us were married by the time we were 30, we'd marry each other, but I hadn't realized there was more there. (Also, why did we think 30 was so old?) My friendship with JJ remains one of the highlights of my non-adult life. [Edited to add something I just remembered: he was the first male and non-family member to tell me I was beautiful. That moment has always stuck with me.]

Let's Call Him Echo: Makeout session at a cast party. The end.

So I guess all of these guys could have been my boyfriends, but life always stepped in. It's a good thing, too, because I couldn't have handled the breakups. How about you and the almosts? Regrets or relief?

*P.S. DON'T SMOKE! IT'S GROSS AND TERRIBLE!

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