24th
To the crushes of christmas past
I have a few things to say to each of you. So line up. One at a time now. Okay, here we go:
M.T. I decided I liked you one day in the winter of 4th grade. You were smart and good at making funny faces at cars out the window of the school bus. In other words, you were the perfect man. One day I made up my mind to tell you. That day at recess I stood on one side of the field and you stood on the other. I told J to tell you I like liked you, but not unless she could be sure you like liked me too. She nodded gravely and jogged off to do the thankless job of matchmaking. I traced my name into the dirt with the tip of my sneaker. J came back. “He like likes you,” she told me breathlessly. Thus began our epic love. We hung out at recess. Once you gave me a bag of marbles. Another time we held hands. But middle school brought fast times and faster women, and before I knew it one of them was taking you to our 6th grade dance. Alas, things were never really the same after that.
J.M. Despite our long, late hours of IM conversations and our mutual, obsessive, and odd interest in documentary filmmaking, I think, in retrospect, that it never could have worked between us. I was 13. You were a sage 15. I lived in Colorado. You lived far away in Virginia. I was into boys. You were into boys. Oh well. So it goes.
D.H. We met as counselors for 5th graders at our school district’s outdoor education program. When I think about it, signing up to herd around 10 year olds for two days in the mountains was a highly ill-fated choice for someone who likes neither prolonged exposure to the outdoors nor small children. But you seemed to like it alright. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that in the time I knew you (a year and a half-ish) you only ever wore one shirt. It was black, inside-out, and had a hole in the elbow. I told a friend of mine this recently and he said, “Ryan, you would go for a guy who only ever wore one, inside-out shirt.” And you know what, it’s true. But I think you’re the original, the boy who made me decide my taste ran tall, awkward, and witty. Once we sat together in a giant fridge and tried to play rock paper scissors with five people. Sometimes I wish I’d run into you somewhere in Denver and we could try being friends again, because I think it just might work. And that’s not just the smitten 15-year-old in me talking, I promise.
N.V. Oh, gay crush #2. What can I say except thanks for making 10th grade American lit a more fun class than it ever should have been and not acting like an unwieldy bundle of awkward when you found out I was interested in you. You’re maybe the smartest and most talented person I’ve ever known, and I’ve known a lot of smart and talented people, mister, so that’s saying something. Here’s to hoping life is treating you well these days. I fully expect to one day discover you’re incredibly, absurdly famous. So don’t let me down, okay?
T.V. Stop reading this blog. Seriously. That’s all I want to say to you right now.
Well, that about does it for the pre-college part of this tour. And after that it gets less interesting. To the two boys at Duke who expressed interest in me last year, I’m sorry I’m weird. I mean, you’re both really weird as well. So I guess what I’m really sorry about is the fact that we couldn’t make our weirdnesses work in tandem with one another. Thanks for trying though.
And to my hypothetical love interest of the future, I have only one question: where oh where are you hiding? I’m due for a good crush right about now, so make yourself known. Soon.
Sincerely,
Me
