First Boyfriend

"So then Aaron said, "Will you go out with me?" and of COURSE I said yes, and then he was like, "that was EASY!" It was the cutest thing ever, and that all happened Friday May 22nd, 1998. Aaron is the FIRST boyfriend that I've ever had, and I REALLY like him! I would use the word "love" but somehow I just feel strange saying it. I do really really like Aaron, but we haven't kissed yet. I have a feeling that we won't for awhile..." -- Age 15

This appears to be a normal entry by a hormone riddled teenager. However, it is made hilarious by the fact that Aaron is gay. He decided he was gay IMMEDIATELY after dating me. I was the only girl he's ever been with and our relationship lasted all of two months. We never kissed, even with ample opportunities. He had a beautiful singing voice, a hot "chili bowl" haircut, and I adored watching him act in the school musicals. He would also write me notes in gorgeous hand-writing, and give them to me in-between classes. My favorites were the ones with his drawings. The one I'm looking at now is illustrated with a "rainbow", a "bunny", a "flower" and a "hammer". I suspect the "hammer" was added last minute, in a regrettable attempt at manliness. It appears on the back of the note and is hastily drawn. Unlike the "bunny", which has different levels of shading and employs the use of colored pencils.

Nobody would ever confuse Aaron for a straight man nowadays, but at fifteen- who can tell? Voices are changing, hair comes in patchy and experimentation runs rampant. I broke up with him at a friends birthday party and to his credit, he REALLY acted put out by it. Although now I think he's made a name for himself as a stage actor, if that puts anything into perspective...

Four years later he attended a prestigious music college (ironically where my husband graduated from) and made lots of friends. I received numerous late-nite messages from him exclaming, "People really want to meet you!", "NOBODY believes that I had a GIRLfriend!". Considering the circumstances, I took this pretty well. I chose to look at it from the "glass half full" angle. Instead of thinking, "I'm such a troll that I've made a man swear women off entirely", I would think "I'm so freaking charming that even the GAYS wanna date me!"

One last update: After our tumultuous relationship ended, Aaron wrote me a letter. He wrote that "he never shared his faith with me, and that's why we didn't work out". I highly doubted that was the real problem. Five years later, during one of his visits home, I asked him about the letter. He responded with, "ohhhh, did I say "because I didn't share my faith?", because I meant to write "because you don't have a penis."

AAAaand SCENE.