Puppy Love - I had a lot of it!

I don't know about you, but I was always looking for or in a relationship. For as long as I can remember. Before I hit high school, I had been in love more times than I can count on one hand.

When I was three or four, my best friend, Rambo, was my next door neighbor. I spent most of my days playing with him and sometimes his older brother, Mario, would join us. We spent a lot of time playing in the backyard. Rambo would bring his He-Man action figures over and I'd want them to fall in love with my Barbies. I think Rambo could've done without the lovefest, but whatever. I'm a girl! Sometimes, when it was really hot out, Rambo & Mario's mom would let us hang out in the basement. The boys played Nintendo, and I pretty much just watched because I sucked. Bad. We listened to Weird Al and Kokomo on a tape player. We played on the slip-n-slide in their backyard. They were good boys - made for great friends. And I was madly in love with Mario. I remember once he asked me to be his girlfriend. I think that only lasted a couple days because Rambo found out and was pissed.

I had a couple crushes early in elementary school, but I think I was more interested in Donnie from NKOTB than any of the boys my age. And then in fourth grade, boys and girls started having girlfriends and boyfriends. And thus started the crush on Billy. O.M.G. I wanted to love Billy so bad. And so did Gina. Gina definitely won that battle. I don't think Billy even knew I existed. The Billy thing continued through fifth grade and into sixth, where it was at its height. Sixth grade, I started to explore other options because Billy and Gina were still going strong, and she had great boobs already. I was no competition. Billy was one of the cool guys, but was always so nice. He never had anything mean to say, even to the nerdy fat girl with the pimple in the middle of her forehead. I'm friends with him on fb now and even still, I have to admit, that that red hair and big smile make me melt. Oh Billy...If only you knew...

And then I transferred schools. I went from a public school where there were probably 120 kids per grade to a private Catholic school, where we had maybe 30 kids per grade. It was a huge change for me, but luckily, I wasn't alone. I had Mel (and another girl who I'm pretty sure has completely fallen off the face of the earth). It didn't take long for me to find a boy to latch onto. First, there was Sully. He was a super nerd, as were all but two or three of the boys in the class. But he was nice and best yet - he liked ME! So, I don't know how we got there, but he was my boyfriend. And then all the 8th graders started giving us shit. He tried to kiss me on the bus one day when they were giving him a hard time...I turned my head, he kissed my cheek. And then I dumped him because I didn't like all the flac that we got. I was embarrassed and didn't want to be put on the spot like that. Sully was always a really nice guy and we remained friendly. I think for a few years after that, we still had a flirty thing between us, and I'm pretty sure that if I'd made the first move, we would've gotten back together.

Eighth grade was a flurry of boyfriends and love interests. For most of the year, I had an actual boyfriend, JD. He was the smartest kid in the class, another nerdy one, nice guy. I totally walked all over him. And I never really got the feeling that his mom liked me. I mean, she wasn't mean and she wasn't outwardly unhappy about me. But she was looking out for her son. She didn't want him to abandon his schoolwork because of me. And she didn't want us moving too fast, I'm sure. I mean, I was the guy's first girlfriend. He was my first real kiss. It was sweet...I wonder if he still remembers it. We both, along with a lot of other kids in our class, volunteered to help with Market Day after school. It was kinda dark and we'd just finsihed helping someone out to their car. We snuck off to the side of the school, underneath the fire escape and had our first real kiss under the yellowey-orange glow of the parking lot lights.

The biggest caveat of my relationship with JD was not his mother, I think if we'd stayed together, she would've warmed up to me more. No, the biggest probably was that I was totally and completely in LOVE with his best friend, JO. Who wanted nothing to do with me. I tried everything I could. I flirted...HARD. But he just wasn't taking the bait. I don't know if it was me or if it was because he was smitten with someone else. But eventually, I got the picture, so I moved on to their other friend, TB. Who was into me for a couple weeks after he had his heart broken. And then realized that I was the rebound girl and was done with me. lol And then I moved on to another guy in the class, who I knew had wanted to rock my socks for quite a while, JG. And after all of that, JD and I ended up back together for a few weeks before summer kicked off. Yeah, I was whoring it up in 8th grade. I liked the attention.

High school started and that was a new wave of stupid boy-driven decisions. And once I was in high school, all bets were off. This was no longer puppy love. It was all-out 'You will be my squishy' love. I don't remember a time where I was single for more than a couple months since my freshman year in high school began. I was always the girl with the boyfriend. I just couldn't stand to be single. I needed to be loved.

Tell me about your puppy love! Who was the first boy you wanted to love? Who was your first kiss? Who was the first boy that you really did love? Who was the first boy that you treated like crap? Or was that just me? I think about all of these boys still, some of them more often than others.