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I was 15 the first time I saw Jeff.
I had had crushes on boys before, but this was different. With
the guys before him, it had been secret and one-way. I liked them
from afar. I never let anything on. I would have been mortified
if they had known.
But with Jeff it felt different than
any of those crushes. It felt more real. I didn't think of it
as a crush. One night when a bunch of us were out together, I
saw Jeff pull out a chair for the girl sitting next to him. I
was impressed with that. And there were other little things about
him that spelled QUALITY.
Also, we had "chemistry."
I liked the way he stood with his
thumbs hooked into his back pockets. Liked the way his jeans looked
on him. I liked his face, his hair, his body. I liked what he
said and how he said it. I liked the quality of his voice. I liked
that I felt something real behind the face and body and talk.
I could go on and on.
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| When
I was with Jeff, I didn't feel clumsy or awkward or tongue-tied
like I usually did around guys I liked |
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I saw
Jeff at least twice a week - once when we all tutored disadvantaged
kids at the school, once when we had our tutors' meeting, and
sometimes again if the kids all got together and went to the movies,
or just hung out at someone's house on a Saturday night.
When I was with Jeff, I didn't feel
clumsy or awkward or tongue-tied like I usually did around guys
I liked. We connected on some level that went beyond the fact
that we liked the same movies and the same songs. He said things
that I really understood and vice versa. I remember this one thing
he said about everyone kind of travelling through life in their
own bubble and then once in a while, two bubbles kind of touching
and overlapping. I hoped he was talking about him and me.
But I spent much more time talking
about him than talking to him. Jeff made up most of the content
of my side of my daily phone conversation with my best friend,
Judy, who went to another school.
So one day in gym, Anne, the girl
who had introduced me to Jeff, comes up to me and says, "Jeff
wants to ask you out. He wants to know if you want to go out with
him."
I felt a little funny because it
seemed to me that Anne had a crush on Jeff, too, and she had known
him longer. But she never said anything about it. So I just said,
Yeah, I would. I'm sure my eyes lit up like stars.
Although I was already 16, I was
a bit of a late bloomer. This would be my first date.
I agonized over what to wear. Finally,
I went over to my Aunt Charley's and borrowed something from her.
And of course in the end I wasn't happy with what I was wearing
and I was having a bad hair day.
I won't go into all the gory details
of that first date. It was pretty awful. I was so nervous, I couldn't
think of one thing to say. I must have said SOMETHING, but whatever
it was, it was stiff and not really me.
I still remember the long ride home
in the car with Jeff's best friend and his girlfriend practically
making out in the front seat and Jeff and I in the back in total
silence. The dream that had come true had turned into a nightmare.
So we didn't go out again - at least
not that year. But the next spring, we started a real relationship.
We went out, we talked endlessly, we made out passionately - in
short, we became girlfriend and boyfriend.
I was never so happy. The actual
relationship was to be short-lived. Three months to be exact.
But it took me about ten years to get over Jeff.
In Deanna Troy's Betzazoid culture
on Star Trek, the first person who touches your soul is your
imzadi. As painful as the break-up was, I don't regret a minute
of those wonderful three months. I think of Jeff as my imzadi.
We stayed in touch and we're still
friends today.
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