Boyfriend #1: Jon

I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to share all of my thoughts with you.   I promised I would be baring all, and I fully intend to.  The difficult part is coming up with a way of sharing without scaring.  I know that I am writing this for myself, mainly.  But if I'm being honest, which I usually am, I know this is the internet, and I know that someone out there is going to find this and read it and I would rather not have a bunch of strangers thinking I'm some sort of tramp, or lunatic.   

I guess I should start from the beginning.  That's really the only way to start anything.  I already skimmed over my childhood.  I had it pretty well.  Considering the state of the world, I had both my parents, who love each other and are still together to this day.  They set a good example of love, relationships, endurance etc...

My dad was a huge part of my life.  He supported me in my endeavors, loved me and taught me that not all men are pigs.  My mom was loving, kind and hard working.  Like most Southern women, she could really cook.  She wasn't afraid to knock some sense into you with her words, and make up for it with a steaming slice of apple pie to ease the sharpness. 

I think what I'm trying to say is, I don't have daddy issues, or divorce issues, or nobody loved me enough while I was young issues.

What I do remember is being fascinated by the idea of love and romance from a pretty young age.  This shouldn’t surprise anyone, because most of the things that little girls are exposed to are centered around the idea of true love, weddings, finding that perfect guy and beauty.  I remember watching those animated musicals and wondering when my life would get like that.  I read about other people’s love lives in books and magazines.  I watched romance after romance, where the same actresses fell in love with the same actors with varying story lines.  I spent my free time fantasizing about meeting my one true love and spending our lives happily together.  I think this is the case for most little girls, and even most pre-teens.

I think it was around high school that I started realizing that it just wasn’t like that in real life.  As much as I had dreamed about boys and what came with them, I was sorely out of touch with dating and the entire male sex.

Don’t get me wrong.  I suffered through the agony of first crushes.  I watched as everyone around me rushed head  first into adolescent love, only to be spit out the other end a few weeks later, hearts broken, vowing to never date again.  I was always interested in getting involved with someone, but was never put in a position to do so.

I didn’t even lose my virgin lips (as it was popular to say at the time) until my senior year.  That’s right.  This boy-crazy girl didn't even kiss anyone until she was 17!  Like most firsts, it’s still pretty cringe-worthy.

This brings me to my very first experience with relationships, and as it happens, my gateway into the world of men.  It was my first few steps on a journey that lead me to where I am now, and consequently where this whole lifestyle began to take form.

Boyfriend #1: Jon

To say that our relationship was dysfunctional is kind.  This was a time when texting and Facebook were in the peak of their fad, and sadly, that’s how most of our relationship took place---electronically.  Inevitably, that’s how it started and finished.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Jon and I knew each other through school and church.  He was tall, really thin and had dark hair.  He looked like a basketball player, and played it throughout high school.  As I recall, he was pretty obsessed with it.

I was actually a grade older than him.  Dating a younger guy isn’t as exciting as they make it seem.  At least in high school it’s not.  Maturity levels even from grade to grade vary extremely. 

Our relationships was, as I said before, mostly electronic.  That’s how he asked me to be his girlfriend, how we communicated daily, and how we had most of our conversations.  I was a senior, with a lot of things going on.  He was a junior with basketball, friends and other boyish things to do.  We never hung out at school, and since our lockers were in different places, really never saw each other.  We did, however, hang out a lot on weekends.  We pretty much made out and watched movies.

We dated my entire senior year.  We went to Prom together, hung out at football games, and made out in each other’s basements.  We never did anything physical beyond that.  We text about doing other things a lot, but nothing ever came of it.  We were both too inexperienced in that realm and it made us shy away from it. 

He did cop a feel once while we were in my basement.  It was past midnight, and his curfew.  We were kissing like mad and his hand made its way up my shirt.  We both hesitated.  He snaked under my bra and cupped me awkwardly.  We kept making out.  He stayed there for a few seconds and then pulled away.  We never talked about it, and he never did it again.

Looking back now, I see just how strange that relationships was.  Not only did we never have actual conversations, we didn’t have that much in common either.  Our time together was spent lip locked in dimly lit basements while the soft glow of the TV washed over us. I remember fantasizing about marrying him.  I realize how delusional this fantasy was now.  Time definitely gives perspective.

The word that comes to mind when I reminisce about Jon and our time together is—awkward.  The whole thing was just odd.  Since neither of us had anything to compare it to, we both thought it was how a relationship worked. 

The whole thing fell apart when I moved away to college.  We had text about what we wanted to do…whether we were staying together or calling it quits.  He had told me that he didn’t want to date anyone but me.  I thought it was cute then.  It was naive to think that a high school boy would want to stay attached to a college girl states away.

We hardly ever talked.  We occasionally text and mostly chatted via Facebook.  Since we didn’t have any physical contact anymore, we really didn’t have anything to maintain.  Our contact slowly faded.  After about a month of nothing, I tried calling him to talk about ending things.  He was with his friends and said he’d call me later that night.  He never did.  So, I resorted to our usual means of communication, and chat him on Facebook.  I basically told him that I didn’t want him to be tied to anyone and that we should just officially end things.  I received a reply a few days later that he was sorry, but felt the same way.  And that was that.  I was never sad about it.  I guess we hadn’t really been in a relationship for a while.  I only maintain that it was my first relationships because we did exclusively date each other for over a year.  But truly, it wasn’t a real relationship.

I later found out that he had been fooling around with a few different girls during my absence.  I was never really hurt by it, since our emotional attachment hadn’t ever really existed.

A few months later, he text me again.  We talked back and forth for a few weeks, mostly dirty things.  We sent each other some naughty pictures (I stole mine from the internet, because I was too scared to really take them of myself) and then we stopped talking again.  This proved to me how much we didn’t know each other because they didn't look anything like me.

His family moved away from Texas and I haven’t heard from him since then.  I am mostly relieved, because seeing him after all of these years would just be reliving the awkward.  I don’t care to see him again.  I’m sure he feels the same way.

So, these were the first steps into relationship-ville that I ever took.  Needless to say, it wasn’t a healthy relationship.  It wasn’t really anything…and it didn’t do much in the way of preparing me for the world of men.  But it did give me vast kissing experience and a clear view of what I didn't want in my next relationship.

You're probably wondering why I shared this.  I promise, it's all leading up to where I'm at now.  I think that everyone's relationships play a role in getting them where they end up. My therapist says that if I review my past, I might dig up a reason for my current behaviors.  I still think most of what he says is bogus.  I think they want a label for everyone, and if they can't immediately find one, they grasp at anything to give one to you.  But for the purpose of this blog, I will forge on.  Revealing my relationships and life story to reflect.

And there you have it.  My very first boyfriend.  My first kisses, make out sessions, 2^nd base adventure and break up.  Tune in next time for the continuing story!

--Lemi