…It’s just a little crush
Not like I faint every time we touch
It’s just some little thing
Not like everything I do depends on you…
~Jennifer Paige
I had what can best be described as an opposite-gender-sheltered youth. With a father and two brothers as the true men in my life, I was conditioned to trust them and only them. Boys outside those bonds were objects of Daddy’s scorn, and boy-girl interaction was, if not prohibited, frowned upon. This moratorium on males continued well into high school, and left me inept and self-conscious in the presence of boys. I’ve never felt truly confident in my dealings with them, and sometimes still don’t. But I’ve always loved the male species anyway, even when I was too young—or too naive—to understand the laws of attraction.
In first grade, boys were mere playmates, and I ran, jumped, and tore kneeholes in my jeans with them. I liked all of them, except the one who threw up oatmeal while the teacher led us through Dick and Jane. See Scott puke.
I couldn’t have cared less about the then-fuzzy concept of boyfriends and girlfriends. But I soon realized Kirk was king of the boys, and to be one of “Kirk’s girls,” was a very big deal indeed. Only problem was, Kirk hated me. I was boisterous and unbridled, while Kirk’s girls were quiet and as decorous as a grade-schooler can be—a distinction foreshadowing the future of all my romantic encounters. After a day or two of mousy pretense, I convinced him to relent, and joined his harem. I was excommunicated by recess, though, and as he leapt off the seesaw without warning, I slammed into the hard-packed, red dirt, busting my chin two stitches worth.
Second grade found me enamored with Ryan O’Ryan after he shared his crayons with me one day. I’d broken one of mine in some tragic waxident, and Ryan was nice enough to let me use his red-orange. I couldn’t imagine why his parents hated him enough to saddle him with such a name, but I soon found out. Upon learning of my admiration, he cornered me at recess, shouted, “I don’t like you!” and shoved me to the ground.
Having learned a lesson of sorts, by third grade I was studying the male animal with a playground’s width between us. My target for the next three years was the sandy-haired Russ, a soybean farmer’s son. My poker face non-existent, he knew. Everyone knew. And he accepted it, though he didn’t return my affection, and avoided me at all costs.
By middle school, I knew more of what male-female relations should be, though I was still more or less afraid of the y-chromosomers. I was especially fearful of Buddy, a volatile little bundle of sixth grade testosterone who’d get furious with himself if he couldn’t solve a math problem at first glance. And he’d dispute a point with a brick wall, even if the wall had solid proof of its argument. He was scary, but, gosh, he was cute. Really cute. Popped collar polo and tennis shorts way-out-of-my-league cute. We sat next to each other in English, and he told me crude jokes I didn’t understand.
“Hey, what’s worse than Olivia Newton John in Grease ?”
“I don’t know, what?”
“Come on Eileen. Get it?”
“Ha ha, that’s great.” Yeah, no clue.
The unfortunate victim the rest of junior high was a dapper young lad with eyes sparkling like the pennies in his loafers, and eyelashes women would forever covet. I spent many mornings outside our homeroom in the company of the sweet and lovable Kermit, discussing our mutual obsession with the Garfield comic strip and related merchandise.
When I snuck the fat, orange replica I’d gotten for my birthday to school, he was delighted. And when one of the other boys grabbed the toy and threw it down the hall, scratching Garfield’s left eye in the process, Kermit retrieved it, and helped me camouflage the scuffed plastic with Liquid Paper. He was a bit shorter than other classmates, myself included, but this did nothing to assuage my affection. If anything, it made him more appealing—like a fun-sized candy bar. I pursued him with no less determination than Miss Piggy, and, like his Muppet namesake, he bore my affections well, albeit begrudgingly.
The next few years saw a myriad of misdirected swoonings. Having led such a willy-free childhood, I was quick to misconstrue any attention as “like with a capital L,” and formed a number of random, fleeting interests.
In tenth grade, standing in the lunch line, I met Brady. He was wearing a shirt embroidered with a duck in flight, the sleeves rolled just past his wrists. Khaki slacks, leather belt, and penny loafers completed his ensemble. (I like penny loafers, what can I say?) We struck up a conversation and became instant friends. As time passed, my feelings grew beyond friendship, and I spent the next few years in the flux of hope and despair common to every teenager with an unrequited love. I watched our never-to-be romance play out in every adolescent film, and did the usual bonehead teenage things, e.g. riding by his house five thousand times a day and saving the straw from his drink at Hardee’s. In some misguided John Hughes-fueled gesture, I passed him an I love you but I can’t wait forever note written in dramatic scrawl on rumbled college-ruled paper. Eventually, the friend I had in Brady became more important than the boyfriend I did not, and we settled into a comfortable routine of two-hour phone calls and impromptu piano duets. (Yes, he was gay. Shut. Up. I already admitted my naiveté; I didn’t even know what ‘gay’ was.)
As Brady moved to the back burner, Jess got thrown in the frying pan. He had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, was good-looking in that unassuming way that makes men all the more handsome, and he was funny and smart. And it was because of Jess my fascination with intelligence and wit began to cement. From then on, my dalliances were founded more on brains than brawn. Again, I watched our never-to-be romance play out in films of the era, and did the same stupid things, e.g. riding by his house six or seven thousand times a day and saving the wrapper from a stick of gum he chewed. (Stop laughing.)
At the insistence of his best friend, Jess asked me on a double date to an out-of-town football game. That afternoon, as I was planning what to wear, I realized my jean jacket—my only jacket—was doused with Brady’s cologne. (Add to my bonehead list of teenage things spritzing my jacket with Halston Z-14 every time I went to the mall.) I presented the problem to my mother, for whom everything is solved with solvents. She ran it through the wash with a capful of Pine-Sol. Voila! No more smelling of another man. Unless he were a logger. After the Carolina pine forest incident, I more or less gave up on any sort of romantic interlude with Jess.
By my sophomore year in college I’d had an actual boyfriend, but the next few years were not without folly. There was James, wry and lanky, who lived on a dead-end street, thereby complicating my usual stalking routine. Then came Shane who, Super-glued to high-school sweetheart Dana, was a prime example of wanting what one cannot have. Next was Tom, who also had a girlfriend (A minor complication, whee!) and then Rodd, South Georgia cowboy who both stole and broke my heart. We had a failed date of our own, sans household cleaner. For a moment, though, as we swayed to Patsy Cline in a backwoods barroom in Jenkins County, cheek to cheek, life was…perfect. Shortly thereafter, he started seeing Campus-Slut Barbie Doll.
By now I’d earned a Master’s degree in biology, but was still a freshman in matters of the heart, though I’d had two serious relationships during that time. My move to Athens for pharmacy school ended what was left of the last one, and I was free to again behave like a man-crazed idiot. I promptly did so with Jack, the tall, blue-eyed boy-next-door from Metter. I was serious; He was not. After several attempts to ingratiate myself into his life, and summer spent physically ill from his lack of reciprocation, I resigned to move on. And it was then I met, pursued, and snagged my husband, finally beating love at its evil game.
And so ended my fatuous infatuations.
NOT.
I still love men in all of their inherent deliciousness. Though individually they are not without fault, collectively they’re divine, from the glint of a wedding band against a tanned finger, to a scruffy five-o-clock shadow, to hair that is graying at the temple. And though I’m married now, and very much in love with my husband, I still entertain the occasional crush. It might be a celebrity (see also: Chris Meloni, Michael C. Hall, and Becks), an associate, a friend, or a co-worker. It might be my doctor, my contractor, my lawn guy, or a Facebook pal.
Who knows? It might even be you.








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