If you're still reading, you must be asking yourself when the now practically trademarked "shitty love life" started.
So let's start at the beginning.
*And I better not hear one of my exes say: "Hey that's not nice!". I am not here to make you feel better, dear exes (I am also not here to scare you, dear nexts)... If my love life was any good, we'd still be together right? So shhhhhh! Be quiet and have a cookie.
So here it is (insert annoying trumpet sounds here), the beginning:
I remember my first love very well. I was 8, so it goes without saying that at that age we don't need to do much to be a couple. You just say you are and boom! You are. So simple. So easy. So long ago.
Didn't even need to pick flowers, just had to pluck them straigt out of the neighbour's yard. Didn't have to buy dinner, just had to share half a stick of gum (I'd have probably accepted it half eaten back then). Definitely didn't have to find the G-Spot, we didn't even know it existed!
So here I was at summer camp with my brother, just like every summer, but this time I saw something that I had never seen before: A nice looking boy. Before this, boys were either dumb or annoying. Usually both. But not him.
When our groups would cross because he was older than me and in a different group, I would see his gaze drift to me. It wasn't a look that said: "EW! another girl who dresses at a thrift store", it was a curious look. His eyes would find me even though he probably didn't know why or what exactly he wanted. His head turned and he half-smiled at me. Then one day, he didn't only do that, he full-on-smiled and I didn't know what to do I was so surprised. I even turned around to try and figure out who he was smiling at, which is a reflex I still have*.
*Luckily, because usually now the guy in question is actually smiling at someone else... I would tell you about the time I looked like a complete doof in a karaoke thinking this hot guy was singing to me (don't bat your eyes or say thank you loudly before you check around for his fiancé who is attracting attention by loudly crying behind you) but right now we're in the 80's and there's no karaoke at camp.
His smiles to me were getting more frequent and I was getting into it. I may have been scared of all the bugs hanging around, but I loved those butterflies in my stomach! It was like a roller coaster, but without the nausea.
When we had a saturday dance where they not only played music but also gave us popcorn and soda (SCORE!), my crush's sister came to talk to me: "So, do you want to go out with my brother?". It was THE ultimate million dollar question. Especially since I didn't know what to answer. I went with: "Sure I want to... Just... You know... Where does he want to go?"
I wish I was joking.
The girl laughed and asked me the same question a different way: "Do you want to be my brother's girlfriend." Oh, ok... "Oh, ok," I said timidly, and then I was Billy's girlfriend. We continued to cross paths and smile till the end of camp. I vaguely remember us walking hand-in-hand once. That's it. We were together. He was my first boyfriend. He was the most gorgeous boy. He smiled at me. Ok, he couldn't ask me what he wanted himself and I didn't come away with much except the semi-prestigious-with-my-friends idea that I was someone's girlfriend but it was nice. And then I never heard from him again.
The cycle of craptastic love stories had started and I... I was happy.
