Historia De Un Amor TRUNCADO.

When I was in high school, my first real crush was this guy I knew from church. He was tall, thin, and quiet, with large brown eyes and a warm smile. Best of all, he was an amazing guitar player. To this day I have not known someone who could play as well as he did...all he needed was to hear any song a few times before he could play it himself...he played guitar for the Saturday choir, of which his younger sister (a friend of mine) was also a member, so I saw my in. My plan in getting to know him better didn’t work out that well though, seeing as how he NEVER TALKED. I tried, I joked, I even tried to flirt (yes, try to imagine me ‘flirting’ at the age of 15. It wasn’t pretty. STOP LAUGHING!). This was your basic, run of the mill, HARDCORE crush. I daydreamed about, like, ohemgee, we would like date and be in luuuurve and...I don’t know...ride unicorns and file our taxes jointly and stuff. I thought I was all stealthy too, like, NO ONE knew about it and I was so smart and sneaky. I might as well have tattooed it on my forehead.

Or worn a sandwich board.

While he didn’t take the bait, he was unfailingly polite and never exploited my feelings or made fun of me (to my face anyway). Which is saying a lot. Like most high school crushes, it was pretty epically cringeworthy. Once, for Valentine’s Day, I sent him a Crush Gram through my AVID class. How it worked was you sent someone a bottle of Crush soda, then they could pay like 50 cents or something to find out who the sender was. I was a wimp and left it blank. So not only was I a tease, I cheated him out of his money.

Now that’s true love.

The next time I saw him I resolved to find some shit out with some mad sleuthing skills.

Me: Sooo, did anyone get a Valentine’s Day gram? Those are so lame. (nervous laughter)

Dude: Someone sent me one of those soda ones.

Me: reaaaalllly? (feigned shock) did you find out who sent it?

Dude: I went to look. They didn’t leave their name.

Me: oh, what a shame. (Recon mission TOTALLY nailed. I’m a ninja.)

The romance never came to pass, and my stalker-esque devotion remained unrequited. I moved away to school and life went on. On my visits home and when I finally moved back after graduation, we would periodically see each other, more frequently when my mom babysat for him for a few months. At one point we actually exchanged phone numbers, more out of necessity than anything else. This, along with the couple of times he pocket-dialed me or called (on purpose) would have been enough to send my 15-year old self into a fit of hysterics. By that time, however, he had taken up the spot in my mind as a casual acquaintance that I could actually have a normal conversation with, without blushing, smiling like a vapid moron or collapsing into nervous giggles.

What’s the point of my wistful recollection, you ask? There is a point. I was getting to it. Come in, sit down. Would you like a cookie?

Let me paint a picture for you. Of unrequited love, a story more romantic and tragic than Romeo and Juliet.

My youngest brother is somewhat of a metro. Seriously. He actually spent an hour in the bathroom yesterday complaining that he couldn't get his hair quite right. I guess we all have our battles. Anyway, a few months ago, a girl at school professed her undying love for my little brother, who we'll call Mr. Sexy.

Seriously, who could resist this dreamboat?

Not only is he not allowed to date (Damn skippy, yo), his schoolwork, volunteering at church and baseball leave him almost zero time for anything other than food, sleep and an occasional dump. It is my understanding that he told her as much, and let her down as easily and gently as he knew how. I believe this because we didn’t raise no fool.

This, apparently, did not go over well. Mr. Sexy is now this horrible heartbreaking Casanova who trifles with poor unsuspecting girls’ feelings and leaves broken hearts in his wake.

That trifling casanova!

Because I am nosy and can’t leave well enough alone, I went on trusty Facebook and sure enough, our forlorn and heartbroken heroine has poured her heart out to the Internet world. She ranged from song lyrics, her own poignant ramblings when she fancied herself a poet, to the purposefully misspelled text that these young’ns are so fond of.

Maybe I don't see how '"wonderful" he is because not thirty minutes ago, he admitted to me that he knew all the words to Rick Astley's " Never Gonna Give You Up". Followed by a full demonstration.

He then farted.

The bracelet in question. In case he ever forgets what his name is.

This girl is obviously destined for Mensa.

She is also a poet.

Ride on what?? The boy doesn't have a license. He has a bike. With a flat tire.

It's not his fault he's almost blind in one eye! He wears contact lenses now.

GODDAMMIT! It's FATE!!!!

Finally, after roughly two months of trying to tactfully reject this girl’s advances, she laid it all out there. Via email. On Facebook. Romantic, ain’t it?

That’s right, kids. She was in love because she "can’t talk to other guys".

I can think of a few other countries she’d be right at home in.

At this point however, our young Romeo had had enough, and finally just gave her the cold shoulder. So she gave up and got a new boyfriend a week later.

I guess ‘forever and a day’ in teenager speak is a week and a day.