Really, I can't say I was a particularly romantic child. In fact I'd even go as far to say that I was the most asexual child in the world. Never cared for the romances in movies, never ruminated over vivid fantasies of my wedding day like a girl ought to, I guess....

I didn't exactly live up to most expectations of girlhood, starting with my appearance. But even with all that being said, I absolutely still had crushes as far back as I can remember. 

In the early days of the new millenium I was still carted around as a little boy, and that boy had crushes on other little boys.  So in case you think these feelings start from some scale tipping the wrong way in the midst of puberty, well you're just wrong. But no one listens to what I have to say anyway. Which is a shame because I remember things from my childhood that most people can't seem to. 

In any respect I can vividly recall the details of my first crush in 2nd grade at Brookside Elementary School. Some little boy, skin just as pale as mine-- just not as pink--, dark hair-- my favorite on men today--  and a narrow head. I'm sure he grew up to be more convincingly woman-looking than I did.

Every single day without fail he would get dropped off to class and just cry and cry; red all over his face and  he was especially swollen around his eyes. The classroom was positioned at a part of the school building where he could peer out the window near the area where we would have circle time and watch his mom slowly walk away from outside another set of windows where the building went straight into the parking lot. This amounted to some slow form of torture for him, I'm sure. 

Call it a sadist's origin story but you'll be shocked to know I looked forward to this display every day. I was delighted seeing this snot-nosed, puffy-eyed thing weep for Mommy.  Make no mistake I knew who I liked at a young age and was in denial about it for more than a decade, but I became aware that there was a pattern taking place as far as my romantic attractions went.

It was the same thing when Koda from Brother Bear cried for his mommy, or Simba mourning the corpse of his father, the same endorphins released here too. 

What is my logic? "Oh he's crying.... he's sensitive!"

... no bitch, he's SEVEN!

Yeah, not only was I a girl undercover, I was THAT kind of girl. 

Believe it or not this chain of events continued after itself. On the same circle time rug that this traumatized boy dropped salty tears onto, we as a class learned his behavior had a lot more to it than we may have been led to believe.  The teacher read aloud a book that was provided by that same boy's mother as he stood by the teacher's side faithfully. 

No, I don't know how on earth I could have remembered all this.

It was a children's picture book about another young boy with bipolar disorder. I even remember fragments of the book's text...

"When I get sad, I am really sad. 

"And when I get mad I get boiling mad. 

"I think I have this because I'm bad.

"'No, you're not bad', the doctor said..."

Truthfully I could be making this up, but even if I unconsciously fused two or more equally distant memories together, the fact I've associated all this with my 2nd grade crush can't have come from nowhere!

And that's the story of how I learned what bipolar is, and also that I find mental illness really, really sexy. 

I suppose if I am to use this story as a way to educate more conservative individuals that everything they tell each other about people like myself is wrong I guess for the sake of transparency I should also point out that I vaguely remember feeling attracted to this boy in other ways. This is when I figure my near eidetic memory is both a blessing and a fucking curse. How would you like to be a grown adult remembering the time you were curious to see what a classmate would look like naked in second grade?! Goddamnit.... I can't tell if sharing that information is a checkmate against people who have "different opinions" than me or a checkmate against myself on their behalf. In any case, admitting to having had some proto form of sexual desire isn't very ladylike of me, isn't it?

Most folks I know have a hard time remembering any middle school experience they had. In truth there is no reason for me to remember any of this. I haven't  told anyone , I've never written it down or gave it any physical manifestation that would make this stick out in my brain,  (until now). But here it is, living rent-free in my head along with the lyrics to a million childhood songs I haven't sung to since the Bush administration.

Oh, but there's more to the story.  

I figure it's customary to give the characters of your life a name.... little late but we'll call my first crush Evan. Yeah, he looked like an Evan. 

This isn't even his fake name for anonymity reasons, I'm just that much of a monster that I don't remember his name, period. 

So crybaby Evan eventually adjusted to life in 2nd grade and I was genuinely disappointed when I stopped seeing his  blubbering in the morning.   I can't even say I really talked to the boy a lot. I didn't talk to any boys really. My comfort with communicating with others girls my age or older was a reality that carried onto my current life as of me writing this. At one point for an arts and crafts project nearing Christmastime I colored in a coloring book image that was cut into a perfect circle-- probably not by me--that was to go on the inside of a paper plate and hung up. It was of two gingerbread people holding hands at the center of a swirling spiral graphic made up of many corresponding lines. I was very proud of my own ingenuity as I cleverly colored every line alternating between green and red. I mean those were THE Christmas colors, right? The ones for Santa's college football team, I'm sure.

At one point I raised it in the air to show everyone. We were scattered around doing our work quite like elves in a workshop. My teacher, who my mother hated, was actually pleased! 

"(My name), that's beautiful!!" I probably beamed. But boy howdy do you know who made the effort to get up and come to me with a thumbs up? Evan, my love! 

"Great job, (my name)!" He quickly disappeared again, but wowza, he might as well have asked me to marry him then if we weren't both going to be sent off to an insane asylum by "concerned" parents as a result-- and not for being diagnosed with bipolar I might clarify...

So what happened next was bold for me. Hell, it would still kinda be bold for me today. My first ever birthday party was about to happen, and I was advised by my mom to hand out invitations during recess so no one would notice if they were slighted an invitation in class. They were in small envelopes that I could pass to people on the playground after successfully shaking them down. 

I managed to get a hold of my dearest Evan who was not crying most of the time but appeared pretty timid and hesitant to give emotion when I handed his envelope to him. We stood there, him in an oversized yellow and black coat, pinching the white paper with both hands quietly while children ran around us hysterically. 

"It's for my birthday party," I probably said. The memory bluntly ends there. 

Despite being the only event in this little anecdote that actually has documentation or proof of existing in the form of photographs I actually don't remember a great deal of that birthday party. 

On second thought, give me a minute, I'm sure I'll uncover more if I continue writing...

The pictures of me that exist are jarring. I somehow looked like the straightest boy ever even at 8 years old. I wore a horizontally striped shirt and my hair was completely spiked in a gel that my mom forced me to wear. Of course I hated it in a way I couldn't yet articulate other than the fact that I hated the concept of me being "handsome". Oh god, how I hated being fucking handsome. The worst word of my childhood, and it was always associated with making my head feel as sticky as tar and as spiky as pine needles!

My mom had a Spongebob pinata we all bludgeoned to death later, I had a karaoke machine as a gift where me and a girl friend of mine who wore all the pink I was forbidden from wearing, sang along to a ditty called "Oops, I Did It Again." It would be years before I ever even passingly put a face to the one called Britney Spears. I remember perhaps the one other boy at the party gifted me two maquettes of Spider Man characters. I got quite a few Spiderman gifts that year. My mom would have told everyone that's what I liked even if what I really wanted was Disney Princess shit and Spiderman was just a VHS that existed in my house somewhere. Despite my burgeoning artistic merit I never desired to paint the maquettes like the kit prompted and the poor boy was horrified when I expressed interest in crushing these little fuckers with a hammer.

Before all of this I remember my dearest Evan arriving, or rather, his mother arriving first. Butterflies batted around my stomach as I peered through my living room window to barely see him huddled up anxiously in one of the cars that was parked outside my house. I just.... really wanted him to come in. I really wanted to see him, you guys... 

I had no plan, I had no memories of talking to him, much less of making any sort of move. He just existed. And that he did. 

In photos he did exist. 

On my mother's couch. 

In the fetal position, with his thumb in his face,

My man ❤️🥰

----

The rest is just footnotes. 

I remember seeing him straddled in that uncomfortable part of the grocery store carriage where kids can sit and put their feet through, facing their parent. I was also doing that. We were both too old doing that very babyish thing, my mother would make a point of telling me. He never saw me when I placidly shouted for his attention. All it got me was a reprimand that I shouldn't stare.

At one point I saw him at the local bowling alley, with a fleet of other kids in our age range as some part of an extracurricular children's program. You could tell because everyone wore the same red shirt. Neither of these times had I initiated any type of conversation with him.  I was simply too shy to make my presence known.

You know, usually when someone writes a book in the first person like this, it's by some really spunky girl narrating with conviction and a lot of power in herself who takes no bull from anybody. I am simply... not that girl.

After this brief swell and fall of 18th century gay yearning my love life would stay well and dormant for over a decade. Sigh.