My Biggest Crush Ever and the Photograph of Us
I just wanted to share a funny story and maybe discuss it.
I’m 33 and still never had a girlfriend before. I’m still looking, but I think I’m unlikely to find one until I move out of my crappy hometown. I guess I shouldn’t say it’s crappy, it’s a nice city really, but it’s small enough that I’ve found it extremely difficult to meet single women who are past college but under 40.
Anyway, so since I’ve never had a girlfriend before, I imagine that I think more about past crushes I’ve had in terms of my romantic history. When I think of the biggest crush I ever had, the most intense and longest lasting, this is whom I think about.
So the summer between seventh and eighth grade my mom had the idea that I should take out the money my parents had saved for me for college and spend it on a sort of marginally educational trip/vacation to Boston and New York that my gifted class teacher was organizing so that I would be eligible for more financial aid when I would apply for college a few more years down the road. I was one of, if memory serves, ten kids who went on this trip, and a few parents went with us too, including my mom. Three of the kids that went with us were the youngest 3/4 of my gifted teacher’s own children, two girls and a boy who was the youngest of the three. I had kind of seen them around for a few years because we had been going to the same school, but I had never really talked to them much before or anything.
I remember lying in the hotel bed that first night and thinking I had already had a great time and felt wonderful, and I considered briefly the question of whom I felt most excited about, and I soon concluded it was the younger of my gifted teacher’s two daughters, who was a year younger than me. This was somewhat ironic because throughout the trip the other guys kind of shipped me with the older daughter, and she was nice, I liked her too but not with the same level of excitement I felt towards the younger daughter, not romantically.
Back to the younger daughter that I had a crush on, it seems strange now I don’t really remember specifically what I liked so much about her. She seemed smart, and I remember she made some snarky comments about her mom and others (I did like my gifted teacher, she was really nice, but there was plenty there to make good-natured fun of too). She loved animals, especially dogs, and wanted to become a veterinarian. Her three siblings had all tested as gifted and had been in gifted classes too, but she did not test as gifted herself and I wondered how that must have felt.
She looked really nice, I liked looking at her at least as much as any other girl I knew, but I recognized just the same that hers was not the flashy sort of beauty that would cause guys to often comment that she was particularly hot. She was fair-skinned with (at the time) long, brown hair (though through the years I have noticed her wearing it short sometimes) and brown eyes, about average height, maybe a little bit thinner than average, average sized breasts. I remember being on the tour bus in New York and seeing a billboard with a picture of Anne Frank and thinking how remarkably similar they looked.
One time we toured a cemetery in Boston where lots of famous Revolutionary figures were buried. We all sat on a wall to listen to the tour guide. I was the second to last one to take a seat and my crush was the last. As she sat down her mother took out the camera to take a picture of her. Here’s the thing: she didn’t sit really close to me so it was obvious I was supposed to be in the picture too, but neither did she sit far away so that it would be clear that it was just supposed to be a picture of her. It was ambiguous whether or not I was supposed to be in the picture too. I was afraid if I smiled and looked at the camera that it would seem like I was too eager to be in the picture and would give a big, obvious clue to the nature of my feelings towards her, so I decided to pretend to be concentrating very hard on what the tour guide was saying, reasoning that if I was supposed to be in the picture that my crush would tell me to look at the camera and smile.
I was wrong. When we had a sort of look-at-the-pictures party at my teacher’s house after arriving back home I was crestfallen to find a photograph of my crush sitting on the wall at the cemetery smiling and looking so cute and me turned somewhat away looking like I was absolutely pissed off.
At the time I was still terrified of being teased for liking girls, unaware that the winds of change had by now turned in the direction of it being cool to like girls, so I decided not to try to ask her out or anything. In fact, for a while I even tried to deny to myself that I was attracted to her. I think she began to avoid me some later in the trip, so I always assumed that although perhaps she knew how I felt and was flattered, that she did not return my feelings. Just recently I have started to question that assumption. We saw each other at school some after the trip, but not a lot. Never had any classes together. Since college I’ve messaged her three or four times on Facebook and never got a reply.
I think last time I saw her was a chance encounter at the local grocery store, must have been at least eight years ago now. I remember that although my knees were shaking uncontrollably she did a remarkable job of pretending not to notice, or at least not to care. She’s moved away at least to a neighboring state if not farther. I have no idea whether or not she’s dating, married, has kids. I’d stalk her on Facebook, but she hasn’t posted anything new in years.
I’m 33 and still never had a girlfriend before. I’m still looking, but I think I’m unlikely to find one until I move out of my crappy hometown. I guess I shouldn’t say it’s crappy, it’s a nice city really, but it’s small enough that I’ve found it extremely difficult to meet single women who are past college but under 40.
Anyway, so since I’ve never had a girlfriend before, I imagine that I think more about past crushes I’ve had in terms of my romantic history. When I think of the biggest crush I ever had, the most intense and longest lasting, this is whom I think about.
So the summer between seventh and eighth grade my mom had the idea that I should take out the money my parents had saved for me for college and spend it on a sort of marginally educational trip/vacation to Boston and New York that my gifted class teacher was organizing so that I would be eligible for more financial aid when I would apply for college a few more years down the road. I was one of, if memory serves, ten kids who went on this trip, and a few parents went with us too, including my mom. Three of the kids that went with us were the youngest 3/4 of my gifted teacher’s own children, two girls and a boy who was the youngest of the three. I had kind of seen them around for a few years because we had been going to the same school, but I had never really talked to them much before or anything.
I remember lying in the hotel bed that first night and thinking I had already had a great time and felt wonderful, and I considered briefly the question of whom I felt most excited about, and I soon concluded it was the younger of my gifted teacher’s two daughters, who was a year younger than me. This was somewhat ironic because throughout the trip the other guys kind of shipped me with the older daughter, and she was nice, I liked her too but not with the same level of excitement I felt towards the younger daughter, not romantically.
Back to the younger daughter that I had a crush on, it seems strange now I don’t really remember specifically what I liked so much about her. She seemed smart, and I remember she made some snarky comments about her mom and others (I did like my gifted teacher, she was really nice, but there was plenty there to make good-natured fun of too). She loved animals, especially dogs, and wanted to become a veterinarian. Her three siblings had all tested as gifted and had been in gifted classes too, but she did not test as gifted herself and I wondered how that must have felt.
She looked really nice, I liked looking at her at least as much as any other girl I knew, but I recognized just the same that hers was not the flashy sort of beauty that would cause guys to often comment that she was particularly hot. She was fair-skinned with (at the time) long, brown hair (though through the years I have noticed her wearing it short sometimes) and brown eyes, about average height, maybe a little bit thinner than average, average sized breasts. I remember being on the tour bus in New York and seeing a billboard with a picture of Anne Frank and thinking how remarkably similar they looked.
One time we toured a cemetery in Boston where lots of famous Revolutionary figures were buried. We all sat on a wall to listen to the tour guide. I was the second to last one to take a seat and my crush was the last. As she sat down her mother took out the camera to take a picture of her. Here’s the thing: she didn’t sit really close to me so it was obvious I was supposed to be in the picture too, but neither did she sit far away so that it would be clear that it was just supposed to be a picture of her. It was ambiguous whether or not I was supposed to be in the picture too. I was afraid if I smiled and looked at the camera that it would seem like I was too eager to be in the picture and would give a big, obvious clue to the nature of my feelings towards her, so I decided to pretend to be concentrating very hard on what the tour guide was saying, reasoning that if I was supposed to be in the picture that my crush would tell me to look at the camera and smile.
I was wrong. When we had a sort of look-at-the-pictures party at my teacher’s house after arriving back home I was crestfallen to find a photograph of my crush sitting on the wall at the cemetery smiling and looking so cute and me turned somewhat away looking like I was absolutely pissed off.
At the time I was still terrified of being teased for liking girls, unaware that the winds of change had by now turned in the direction of it being cool to like girls, so I decided not to try to ask her out or anything. In fact, for a while I even tried to deny to myself that I was attracted to her. I think she began to avoid me some later in the trip, so I always assumed that although perhaps she knew how I felt and was flattered, that she did not return my feelings. Just recently I have started to question that assumption. We saw each other at school some after the trip, but not a lot. Never had any classes together. Since college I’ve messaged her three or four times on Facebook and never got a reply.
I think last time I saw her was a chance encounter at the local grocery store, must have been at least eight years ago now. I remember that although my knees were shaking uncontrollably she did a remarkable job of pretending not to notice, or at least not to care. She’s moved away at least to a neighboring state if not farther. I have no idea whether or not she’s dating, married, has kids. I’d stalk her on Facebook, but she hasn’t posted anything new in years.
