When stars and Spin Doctors align

I have known Amy since we were both 8, so most of our child and adult memories include each other at some level. Even if we weren’t there, we were there.  In fact, I wrote in one of my diaries in high school, about making out with a boy: “I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could go home and call Amy about it.” So, we’ve decided to bring you some of our memories via our blogs. Today’s memory: first crush (I’m writing about my first high school crush; Amy’s revisiting slightly earlier days.)

I’m not sure why I was at the middle school that evening, considering I had certainly moved on as a so-much-more-mature high school freshman. But there I was, at my old stomping ground for some reason or another, and I decided to visit my absolute favorite teacher in the world, Miss Thomas.

I found my way to her classroom and was chatting with her about high school and how much fun (or not fun? Who knows) it was compared to middle school, when he walked in.

He was Chris, and Chris was a tenth-grader. Miss Thomas was his absolute favorite teacher in the world, too, and he and I had chosen the exact same August evening to drop in on her. The stars must’ve been aligned just perfectly.

The rest of 9th grade was a blur of school, friends, and Chris. Planning my day around his – making sure I happened to be around his locker at the moments he was, making sure my mom picked me up from school after his mom picked him up, so that we could hang out together as long as possible.

I picked wildflowers on his birthday and put them in his locker. I talked incessantly to Amy and Michelle about him. I had a nickname for him, pictures with him, and diary entry after diary entry about him.

No, he wasn’t my boyfriend. We were just “friends” as far as he knew, and I was way too shy to actually tell him how I felt. One day Michelle announced she would have a crush on him, too. “How fun is that?” she asked. “We have a crush on the same boy!”

Um, no. Not fun.

As the school year went on, somehow he figured out I had a crush on him. Imagine that! The feelings didn’t seem to be mutual, and he was really hot and cold with me. One minute he’s tickling me in the commons area after school, the next he’s blowing me off between classes. In hindsight, I’m certain I came on way too strong and he was torn between liking the attention and being annoyed by it.

I even tried dating another guy, Casey. Casey and I lasted two whole weeks, and at least once during those two weeks I called him Chris. Oops.

Then summer came, and the only way I would see Chris is if we made plans to see each other. But when I called him, he was aloof. By this point, although I still rather liked him, I was pretty sure nothing was going to happen between us. In fact, I’d even gone on a date or two with another guy, and it was showing promise.

So I casually dropped the word “boyfriend” into conversation with Chris, and instantly the tension went away. “You have a boyfriend?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “It’s still new, but we’ve been going out all summer and we’re getting pretty serious.” Truth was, we’d gone out less than a handful of times and we hadn’t even kissed.

From that day on Chris and I were perfect together. Perfect … buddies. He talked to me about his crush on a girl he knew, which I wrote about in my diary and even went as far to say “I really hope she likes him too. I want him to be happy.” (Wow, was I really that selfless?)

Summer ended and we were back at school for another year. The guy I’d been dating was quickly fizzling into a friendship (um, still no kiss.), and Chris and I were hitting it off like never before. He wasn’t nervous around me anymore; the pressure of the crush was gone.

Except, all this comfort was stirring up: you guessed it! My crush was back. But this time I was smarter about it; I didn’t let him know. I kept it to myself, just happy to be in his life even as one of his closest friends.

Then, sadly, not too long into my sophomore year, he announced his family was moving to Chicago. I was devastated.  We hung out as much as we possibly could over the next few weeks before he left, and I got an idea in my head: I had to tell him how I felt, once and for all, just in case he felt the same way.

So I made him a mix tape. Of course I made him a mix tape; this was 1993! It was accompanied by a letter telling him how I felt and a notebook full of lyrics to the songs that were on said mix tape (do you know how long it took me to hand write all those lyrics?)

I waited until his last day of school, until the last moment I would see him, and I gave him his present and a hug, and then it was goodbye.

I don’t remember how much we talked after that. I know he came back to visit once, and things were great. I don’t know if he ever called me from Chicago. I did call 411 once looking for him, but he had a very common last name so that didn’t get me anywhere. Probably a good thing, too – I think I stalked him enough without tracking him down in Chicago.

To this day, when I hear the Spin Doctors, I think of him … “If you want to talk for hours/just go ahead now …” Well, him and Sarah Silverman. I guess times do change.

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I know all about Amy’s first crush, but I can’t wait to read her retelling of it! Read her first crush story here.

And Whitney and her friend wrote about their first crushes last week. Begin their stories here.