Crushes: kindergarten

Kindergarten was a time where all the girls ran away giggling from the one boy who threatened to kiss them, no one exactly sure if they really wanted the chase to end, but they all seemed to love the game. I was too distracted with playing soccer with other boys to care much about the drama. If I had a crush on someone it was the Tom girl who played a mean (as in impressive) game of handball.

I do remember a time where I got caught in the crossfire of the playground games, however. My parents were friends with the parents of one of my schoolmates. She was a nice quiet girl who was often by herself, and though I would never have told her so, I thought she was cute. Since my mom visited her mom with me in tow I got to know her as well as anyone. There family had a trampoline. That was cool.

Well there I was, getting sung the k-i-s-s-i-n-g song as I sat next to this girl. Sure it was embarrassing and we both scrunched our faces in disgust, but it wasn't like I didn't like her. Several days of that and you would think we would have quit sitting next to each other altogether. Instead I found myself standing up for her when I wasn't around her and sitting by her under the monkey bars during recess. She was my first crush but it was more like a friend that was a girl: the first friend I remember having.

My family moved away. The next time I saw this girl we were in college. Let's just say, things were different then.

Crushes: crazy crush on me

Though I didn't date much in high school, it was not for lack of interests. I was not interested in dating until I could drive, however, so I could properly pick the girl up and really go out. It was always funny to hear about people "going out" who really weren't going anywhere. There were several girls who either had a crush on me or I on them, but apparently it didn't last long enough for us to come of age to do anything about it. I'll have to write about crushes I have had, but today I write about a girl who had a crush on me.

She was crazy! No really. When a girl brags in the locker room to all the other girls about how she has been with a guy, she smells of cologne splashed all over herself, and she literally has your name tanned across her belly, that is crazy. I've never had the urge to do any of that for a crush. Of course, being my reserved self it was obvious to all my friends that this girl was out of her mind. Word got back to me. Thankfully it was more funny than anything, but I can't say it wasn't a little bit freaky, and I had to wonder if she was harmless. It's funny to look back on now.

My First Group Date

I never went on a group date in high school, but I should have. It seemed if you asked someone out on a date then you were immediately considered to be in a relationship with them (except for Prom). I don't know if it was a high school thing where you needed to be paired off exclusively if you were going to go on a date, or if that was a small town thing where rumors fly, so it just seemed that way. I wish I would have grabbed a couple friends and told them to get dates for a group thing and then grabbed different dates for the next week. I do remember how I couldn't wait for college and being able to date around a little before settling on one option.

I lived off-campus throughout college so I could room with my older brother. That was cool! As a freshmen I had a few older roommates, but I was game to be included in many things they did, even when they posed the idea of a group date. We had a lot of fun as roommates and on occasion we had invited apartments of girls out for ice cream, so doing a group date together was not that far-fetched.

My roommates actually made it really easy. One of them had gone on a date with a girl who had six roommates. Yeah, that's a lot of girls under one roof. Anyway, he first asked her if she could set up a certain roommate with his direct roommate, and she offered to set up his other roommates too, if he wanted. So my brother and I were given dates too, the only problem is no one ever told my brother and I, or our dates, who was being set up with who. That was an awkward first group date. Firsts for me in dating have often been awkward growing experiences and if I had it all to do over again it would be different. I guess you could say I'm behind the curve of people who started dating in the 1st grade.