Boyfriend Chronicles, Part I

Valentine's Day has completely snuck up on me. I didn't realize it was this week until Giraffe's stepbrother asked us what we were planning on doing on the special day. We looked at one another with blank stares until I turned back to Stepbrother and said, "I have no idea." However, since then, I have developed a plan. I am going to cook him a special Valentine meal. As you all know from my aforementioned hesitancy of cooking due to the ill-fated gumbo, I am slightly nervous. I plan on documenting this later, so stay tuned for a hopefully good recipe and no stories about grease fires.

Because of all the reminders of Valentine's Day around, I've been reflecting on boyfriends from years gone by. Some of them were good, most of them were bad, but I learned something specific from each one that has helped me become who I am today, for better or worse. I have several installments, so for now, here is The Boyfriend Chronicles, Part I.

My freshman year of high school I pursued (okay, pretty heavily pursued) another freshman in the marching band. We had started a friendship at the end of 8th grade and we began talking on the phone all night, every night like teenagers often due. We somehow ended up in a relationship and spent three months of it barely seeing one another and talking on the phone all summer. When school started, I was psyched to have my first boyfriend! Due to some scheduling conflicts and the realization of "I love music...I can read music...why not be in band with all my friends?!", I joined up. He played tuba and I played percussion on the sidelines because since I joined late. Despite not marching around, I had a blast. Alright, back to the relationship. Since we had hardly spent any time actually together, it was not what I had imagined. However, I was not going to let this upset me! I mean, it was my first boyfriend, what kind of expectations did I have? My only knowledge was from cheesy, romance movies where everything is super perfect. What I, instead, had was a guy, whom another band member said best, was the reincarnation of a cow. He was just a very laid back kinda guy, to say the least.

Now, as this was my first relationship, I decided to go all out. I'm the creative type so I was going to make for him the best gift imaginable, in my opinion: a mixtape. That's right, a real analog tape filled with songs that had, on one side, sentimental value between us, and the other had songs representing how I felt about him. I spent the whole weekend gathering up the perfect songs and then began the meticulous process of putting each song on the tape and making sure the timing was right and no songs were clipped. Finally, it was done. And it was, to me, perfect. On the next Monday, I've got bounce to my step and I look forward to seeing him so I can give him this treasure that I created just for him. In band that afternoon, the time came. I prefaced it with something very romantic and articulate, I'm sure (i.e. "Uh, hey. I made you this."). He thanked me and got on the bus to go home after class. I released the breath I had been unknowingly holding and smiled to myself. He was going to love it, I just knew.

I see him the next day, expecting some sort of reaction such as spinning me in his arms saying how much he loved it or, even better, made me one of my own! However, he said nothing. All day. Or the next. So finally after waiting two whole days for some sort of reply (a simple "thank you" would have been nice), I ask him at the end of Wednesday. He shall be known as Boyfriend #1 or B1, for short.

Me: "B1, did you listen to the tape I made you?"
B1: "Huh? Oh...yeah."
Me: "Well, what did you think? Did you like it?"
B1: "I already had some of the songs on there, but the others just sucked."

WHAT?! Did he really just say that?? We'd been going out for months by now, and that's an eternity in high school, and he thanked his girlfriend this way? I was stunned. And, of course, heartbroken. The first nice thing I did in my first relationship had completely bombed. As you can imagine, all my female friends were all over him once they heard what had happened. Since this is high school, that took all of 1.2 seconds to get around. They offered encouraging words ("It's okay. I think what you did was really sweet!") and offers ("When I march next to him, I can bump into him and make his tuba crush him like it was an accident."), but things changed after that. I just didn't feel the same way and began wondering if this relationship was right for me.

Shortly thereafter, Christmas was upon us. Now, Christmas is a big deal to high schoolers in relationships. At the time, it was always understood that the guy would get the girl something special like the beloved pink ice ring of the time or something equally as cool. Me? I wanted something practical like books. That's what I got him for Christmas. A nice copy of The Phantom of the Opera with a carefully thought-out, sweet inscription in the front of the book. Let me interject for a moment: I am NOT the type of person who likes public displays of affection. At all. Imagining guys proposing to their girlfriends via scoreboards and the like freak me out. I'm just now coming around to kissing in public, but even now I still get that little feeling of anxiety. It's just not how I'm wired. Anyway, back to B1 and Christmas.

We had math class next door to one another during second period. During first, I had heard everyone telling me that B1 had something really crazy to give me and to get ready. I'm trying to gather information as best I can and finally someone blurts out, "It's in a HUGE box!" My world stopped spinning. My heart dropped. My face turned pale. I felt like throwing up. I didn't want the bell to ring because I knew as I came around the corner to go to algebra, he'd be there with a huge box that had already created a big buzz. Even the preppy kids, who I did not hang out with, had heard and were interested. Stupid high school. But the bell did ring, and I did see him holding a box bigger than him, walking down the hallway. I felt my face grow hot with embarrassment (something I do not handle well at all) and I set my stuff down in my classroom. Everyone called for me to go to his classroom and open up my Christmas present. My class and his class filled the room and surrounded me as I opened the box as quickly as I could because I wanted this over as soon as possible. However, I open the box and see...another box.

You've got to be kidding me. This is a nightmare. So I open up the next box, and the next, and finally get to the bottom where there's newspaper strips everywhere. So I start digging to find this present so I can just get on with my life and turns out, he had it in his pocket the whole time. Everyone oohed and aahed as he brought it out, so I turned to follow their gazes. He was holding a small, black box. Ring-sized. So I take it, open it up, and see a gorgeous diamond ring inside with approximately seven diamonds in the shape of a V. I put it on, show everyone with the biggest, fakest smile I can muster, and quickly exit the classroom. My heart didn't stop pounding all through algebra. Shortly thereafter, I had to call it quits with B1 because we were just not meant for each other.

I still have the ring and occasionally wear it when I'm wearing diamonds. The process of how I got it no longer bothers me and we became good friends afterwards. He is now married to his best friend's sister and they have a son together. My lesson from this relationship: no matter how many nice, romantic gestures you try to bring to the relationship, you need to make sure you actually get along by spending time together instead of just jumping in. That and under no circumstances should any guy try to make a big gesture to get my attention unless he wants me to throw up, and then dump him on the spot.