told him I loved him, which served to do nothing so much as freak him out. That didn’t stop me, though. I wrote him love poems and followed him around school gazing adoringly at him. He was the worst kisser, ever, and I say that out of honesty, not because I hate the way he treated the 16 year-old me (though of course I do hate the way he treated me, as well as the fact that I took being treated shabbily with no qualms whatsoever). He’d come at me with his mouth wide open and his tongue at the ready. No slow, gentle kisses to start us off; his tongue was down my throat no matter where we were. He was a senior, and he was under the impression that the other senior boys considered him a big stud when he backed me up against my locker and tickled my tonsils with his big nasty tongue. He was mistaken. On Halloween night, at a party we were attending, he told me he thought we should see other people. I agreed calmly, instead of bursting into tears – which is what he obviously expected – and went back to the party. Peeved, he left. The next day at school, in the hallway, he broke up with me. Nice guy, huh? In tears, I called my mother, who came and picked me up at school. Once home, I climbed into bed, wrote amazingly bad poetry about my broken heart, and cried a lot. Two hours later, I climbed out of bed, got dressed, and went back to school. I am obviously not one to wallow. It took about a week to get completely over the three-month relationship, and once I was over him, I was only mortified that I’d ever thought myself in love with such an ass. Though, to be fair, he wasn’t as much of an ass as he could have been. I’m betting I would have put up with pretty much anything back then, just to have a boyfriend, just to have someone to hug and kiss and call my own. Pretty pathetic, eh? I’m not nearly so much a doormat these days. I’m sure you find that hard to believe!]]>
12/02/1999