B is for Boyfriend

Ah, my first boyfriend.  Jeremy.  How I loved him.  How I wanted him.  How I talked endlessly about him to my friends.  How I...pretty much made him up.

In ninth grade, all my friends were completely boy-crazy.  In addition to lusting after actors and boy band members, they kept a roll of the most eligible Seniors at our school and would squeal in ecstasy whenever one was near.  Tony was their favorite, but I could never figure out exactly which one he was.

Unobtainable crushes just seemed pointless to me, but I pretended to be as head-over-heels over Brad Pitt and Invisible Tony as my friends were because I didn't want to rock the boat.  I'd thought I'd been playing along pretty well, but then one day, they confronted me.  They said that if I was a lesbian, it was okay with them, but not knowing was making them very uncomfortable.

I was horrified to say the least.  My friends were afraid I was going to hit on them? I won't even throw in a "not that there's anything wrong with that" caveat, because to me, at 15, there was something very wrong with that.  I began questioning every move I made, every word I said.  The best way to prove them wrong, I figured, was to get a boyfriend.  Unfortunately, no guys at school were interested in me.

At this time, I was involved with Children of the American Revolution (an off-shoot of the D.A.R.), and that was how I knew Jeremy.  As the oldest kids in the group, we held the offices of president and vice-president, and meetings were held at his mother's house.  He was bland, boring, and lived in a hick town outside of the city, but as my eyes met his across a platter of flag-speared cupcakes, I knew that he would be my proverbial "girlfriend who lives in Canada."  Except, you know, not a girl. 

Trying to take things slow, I first mentioned him to my friends in the most casual of fashions, then gradually stepped things up from there.  I knew I would have to be subtle to pull off such a ruse.  Pity that 15 year-old girls are never the most subtle of creatures; I could only wait a few weeks before announcing that we were going out. 

I mailed myself love letters, carefully tearing them at the postmark to hide the fact that they were mailed locally.  I bought a beautiful silver bracelet with rose quartz hearts dangling from the chain and told everyone that it was a gift.  When the C.A.R. kids got together to clean tombstones for Veteran's Day, I brought my camera to take pictures for the chapter's scrapbook, and made sure to get a picture of Jeremy and I together.  I taped it up in my locker and showed it off with glee.

I basked in the relief of being a confirmed heterosexual.  But then came the questions.  I was the first in my group to have a boyfriend, so everyone was very curious as to what it was like.  Or they were trying to catch me in my lie.  When I was asked if Jeremy and I kissed with tongues, I was sure that had to be a trap because people didn't actually do that, did they?  (I might as well have been lying to them about having been accepted to NASA.)  But I'd once read a letter in Seventeen from a girl who wanted to know if you could get pregnant by "having sex with your clothes on," and though I couldn't figure out quite how that worked, it sounded just risque enough, so I told my friends we did that.  Boom-chicka-bow-wow.

After a few months, I'd grown tired of lying, tired of my friends going out on the weekends while I pretended to be in the country, visiting Jeremy.  And, while I was parading around, telling everyone about my awesome boyfriend, I was paired up with a very sweet, smart boy in chemistry class who probably could have turned into a real awesome boyfriend if I hadn't been so wrapped up in my George Glass fantasy.  It was time for Jeremy to go.

So one day, I came to school red-eyed and told my friends that his father's job had transferred him to Madison, Tennessee.  The relief of being a confirmed heterosexual was nothing like the relief of being dumped for a place I picked randomly on the map.  Of course, there was the grieving process, the last visit where I helped him pack, and maybe one trip to Madison in my sophomore year to see if we could make a go of our long-distance relationship.  After that, I'd occasionally, I'd mention that we'd talked on the phone, smiling bravely as I told my friends how well he was doing.  After 9/11, in a burst of patriotic fervor, Jeremy joined the Air Force.  He should be in his tenth or twelfth tour of duty by now.  I'm sure he's doing well over there.

Comments

[abbersnail]

Holy crap, that is brilliant.

Seriously. I am in awe.

[nabbalicious]

Hahaha, love it! I love how elaborate it got. You're a genius.

[Nattering Natalie]

That was really fun to read.

[Jeni]

That is hilarious. Fantastic. I found your blog through NaBloPoMo and the Missouri bloggers. Good luck with the month of posting. It's already trying to kill me.