Examining past relationships Part I

I read somewhere once that marriages don't fail, they conclude. It is sad for me to think about, but it's true. I've learned that divorce, no matter what the reasons or who initiated it, is extremely difficult. Not for someone who is weak at heart.

Lately I've been doing a High Fidelity deal where I've re-examined my past relationships and trying to figure out what went wrong. I'm going to talk about them, and on some of these, I'm going to use their real names because I'm hoping that by some small chance, one day they will google their names and see that I've talked about them, and contact me and let me know what they're up to.

***DISCLAIMER!*** This is only my side of the story. Each of these boys/guys have their own to tell. Please keep this in mind!

***DISCLAMER AGAIN!*** Because this is so long winded, this post only contains childhood through Jr. High. More to follow!

First relationship ever was with Jared Steenblik. I met Jared in my ward and knew him from baby age on up. Right before kindergarten, we were a hot item. I remember my 5th birthday, he gave me a box of play-dough. Later I went with my mom to drop the kids off, and when I got home, Jared was sitting at my kitchen table, playing with the play-dough he gave me. This is true romance for you-- after we dropped him off, he went into his backyard, cut across my best friend Emilie's back yard, and broke into my house which was 2 houses away. We spent Kindergarten chasing each other around the playground and sitting next to each other in class when we could, but the relationship had no chance. We were too young, and our parents wouldn't let us move in together. We were in different classes in 1st grade, so we only really saw each other in Primary each week. The relationship could not last, as I moved away and back a few times. We went to the same High School, though. We never talked to each other much, but made a point to sign each others yearbooks every year. He and I always had a special bond, there's something unique about maintaining a friendship with someone from your past like that.

After that, it was Chris Green. Chris was also in my ward, and a year younger than me. During the summers, his mom would babysit me a few times a week, so we were together often. One night his sister invited my sister over for a slumber party. I was jealous, and pitched a fit. So his mom said I could sleep over, too. We all slept in our sleeping bags in the living room. He fell asleep, and the girls stayed up to play truth or dare. My dare was to kiss him. Chris Green was my first kiss, and I'll never forget that! I moved the next year, and maybe said 5 additional words to him the rest of my life.

I had a crush on some kid in my 3rd grade class, and dammit I don't remember his name! I do remember fantasizing about showing up to school in a most beautiful princess gown, having him come up to me and kiss me. This was my first time feeling inferior to someone. He was "above my league", so to speak. The smartest, best looking kid in the class. No way would he like a dorky girl like me!

In 4th grade, I got to my desk one day with a note on it saying only "will you go weth me?" I looked around the class, couldn't figure out who it was from. I was grossed out by the idea, and threw the note away. It even had a decorated border! Later that day, a boy named Justin Hall walked up to my desk and slapped another piece of paper on my desk that said "WILL YOU GO WETH ME!!!" I freaked out, wrote "NO!!!!" On it, then slapped it back on his desk. Even then I was a spelling snob and said "Besides, I can't go out with a boy who can't even spell WITH!" After that, he tormented me with notes, then they got nasty. The day before Halloween, he passed me a note first thing in the morning that said "I'm going to screw you on Halloween". Yes people, this was in Bountiful Utah, and I was being threatened with rape at age 9. I didn't think to tell the teacher. That day during recess on the playground, he started chasing me, and I ran for my life. He chased me all over the place, relentlessly. I had some friends who saw was was going on and either ran with me, or tried to stop him in his tracks. When the bell rang, I ran into my class, and told my teacher what happened. The teacher called him up, had a few words with him, then sent me home for the rest of the day. As I recall, he never bothered me again after that. This was a truly horrifying moment for me. I moved away the year after that, and when I returned to Bountiful 6 years later, I asked about him. No one knew what happened to him. Sometimes I still wonder. Good enough reason why that couldn't happen, eh?

I moved to Germany just before 5th grade. I don't know what happened here, I wasn't boy crazy at all at this point, but I had several boys ask me to "go with them". I was a good mormon girl, and said no to each one of them. Even when the most popular boy, T.J. Daniels, asked me. My best friend Mandy started "going with" another boy named Cary Belmear, and they french kissed on the playground, in 5th grade!! Quite the scandal, clearly I wasn't ready for such antics.

At the end of 5th grade, a boy by the name of Jeremy Cochran moved and was new in my class. From the moment I saw him, I couldn't take my eyes off of him. But I wasn't one of the cute petite girls (always a bit on the taller side, myself) so he never had those same eyes for me. However, he and I became great friends, could really talk about stuff and things.

6th grade was boring. Not much to tell.

7th grade, Jeremy Cochran was in my band class. He was on the trumpet, I was on the flute. Again, I couldn't stop staring at him. We started of a conversation where we left off in 5th grade. I immediately re-ignited my crush. My relationship with him was rare, and I'm not just saying this because he was my first "Real" boyfriend (although we never kissed). He and I talked, flirted, and stared at each other for about 6 weeks before he asked me to "go with him", and I said yes. The weird thing about this relationship was that I dreamed the situation in its entirety the night before it happened.... in extreme details. He played football at the local rec center and asked me to go to the homecoming dance with him. Because I was a good mormon girl who couldn't date in an even extremely controlled environment (Pee-Wee football? Come on!), I had to say no. He still wanted to "go with me" anyway. After that, we both got nervous about the expectations and stopped talking. Didn't even pass notes. After a week I missed my friend and realized how pointless the relationship was, so I broke up with him, telling him I still wanted to be friends. Suddenly, we could talk and joke and hang out again. About a week later, I had another dream that he asked me to "go back with him". The next day, TO THE ENTIRETY, this happened. And I said YES!! This time, things were different. Keep in mind that in 7th grade world, 1 week seems like 1 month in the real world. ANYWAY, we started going out again. This time we didn't talk or hang out as much, but it was different from before. Then I started becoming popular. And my friend, Jennifer Ayers, found out that I was going with Jeremy. She looked at me one day and said "Jeremy Cochran?" And made the gagging sign with her finger and her throat. At this point I desperately wanted to be popular, and friendship seemed more important than boys, so I asked her to tell him to break up with him for me. She did. He came up to me later that day and said "Jennnifer Ayers said you wanted to break up with me, is that true?" I said "Yes, but I still want to be friends" and that was it. To this day, I have regrets about that. I could have handled the entire deal so much better. Jeremy and I broke up, then didn't talk much more after that. He was my first boyfriend. I'd love to talk to him again! I contribute the loss of this relationship to peer pressure. A stupid girl finally gets what she wants, then gives in to peer pressure because he's not "cool" enough.

The next two years are a blur-- I moved back to Utah, and went from a big fish in a small pond, to a small fish in a big pond. A lot more students and population!! I was a total dork. I'll never forget my first 8th grade assembly where I had to sit by myself, then listen to a girl talk on the bus ride home about how she had no one to walk between 4th and 5th period with, and how embarrassing that was. I may as well have been from another planet, and a loser. I remember a region dance for church where one guy named Mitch Schroeder asked me to dance. I thought this meant that he had a crush on me, but hindsight tells me that his best friend had a crush on my best friend, so he only asked me so his friend could ask her. I read too many teen romance novels at this point and fantasized about a real romantic realationship developing with this guy, but he never spoke to me again. I got over him, eventually. As far as I can remember, I have nothing to tell about 9th grade. Lots of depression, no romance.

Okay, this post is long enough, so I shall end it for now. I'll do a part II where I start with High School.