Touring My Romantic Ruins
32: from crushes and daydreams to the fluttery feelings and the start of something new
Warning: Hella Storytime Ahead. All names have been codenamed and nicknamed to protect their identities.
“Your past and mine are parallel lines. Stars all aligned and they intertwined.”
As my very accurate enneagram type description would tell you, one of my key motivations is to “find a rescuer.” Since I could remember, I dreamt of this rescuer, this protector, this prince that earlier Disney movies showed me I could have. Don’t get me wrong— I love Disney, and there is nothing wrong with anyone having a goal to find a loving partner, but I think I was a bit too focused on finding the love of my life at such an early age. I was convinced it just had to be some boy I met on a cruise or one of the boys I went to school with. (Spoiler alert: it was the latter. Hehe) Me marrying my high school sweetheart feels very on-brand based on my roots.
“I know he’ll appear ‘cause there are rules and there are strictures. I believe the storybooks I read by candlelight.”
There was always a heavy focus from my support system on what boys I was interested in or what boys were interested in me. Every tiny male waiter or Latino activity director or [insert whatever] that even looked my way once was immediately labeled as a potential suitor for me. The amount of times I heard “Gabby! Omg that guy was so flirting with you!” is too many to count. And I wasn’t even boy-crazy; I never really pointed out boys based on their looks. I did, however, feel a pressure to conform and I used this pressure to fuel a hyper-focus on my male acquaintances and friendships. The people I had actual crushes on were people that were nice to me.1 And since I firmly believed in love blooming out of friendship (I literally couldn’t imagine falling in love any other way), I continued to “like-like” boys that were my friends first2
As a disclaimer, I was in grade school and high school at the time of ALL of these stories and at the time, I lived almost exclusively in my imagination. I was disassociating quite often through reading and daydreaming and even though these mental escapes were mainly about saving the world with my elf/fairy/wizard powers, they were also about falling in love. So, please note as you read that these stories are from a young, un-therapyed, Gabby who only started to have a hard time mentally once her feet were more firmly grounded in reality nearing the end of high school.
All that to say, I am super pumped to share these stories here on my blog as they are personal, in my opinion hilarious, nerdy, and hopefully relatable. I would love to hear your embarrassing early love stories as well. I wrote these in chronological order, starting with…
Skater
This was 3rd grade. I don’t want to try to find this journal entry just for this shitty story, but I had written diary entry after diary entry about the time that Skater was caring for me by pushing in my chair for me when we were all packing up and picking up a glue stick that had rolled off my desk. I have written poems about how this was Lil’ Gab wanting love so bad I expected nothing and settled for the least. I would use these instances as proof of 1. possibly feelings for me and 2. that he was gentlemanly, neither of which were true.
This boy was trying to do his part to allow his table group to line up to leave for the day, as was required by the teacher. That’s why he pushed my chair in. And he picked up my glue stick probably because he was a decent person, not as a sexy excuse to look me in the eye. He also one time asked me if I was okay, but that was only after I had fully fallen onto the ground directly in front of him. Sounds like a normal average boy to me!
This ended when I realized he was not into me at all. Him and another girl from our grade were dropped off at the Cheesecake Factory alone for a date. (!!) This was mind-blowing news for me as a 10-year-old. I was honestly the biggest slut-shamer back then, but it was only because this girl was out eating that yummy brown bread with the boy that was nicest to me.
Flame
Back when I didn’t think anything could come of my friendships with girls, 5th grade Gabby found herself pretty dang obsessed with Flame, a friend of mine I thought of as absolutely stunning who wouldn’t take shit from anyone, including me. We were frenemies, best friends sharing music and inside jokes one day and so angry at each other the next. Her attitude was fascinating as much as frustrating to me, but her vibe was “cool girl not controlled by her religious family” and I felt cool when I was with her.
We continued being casual friends after everything, but I gotta share the most notable instance of my dramatic show of affection. When she uninvited me to her birthday party for the second time and I sang “Gotta Go My Own Way” from High School Musical 2 to her around the playground. I chased her, forcing her to hear my feelings while she ran, yelling for me to stop. And I have continued to make my feelings known (through music as well) to this day, even through pushback!
“I’ve got to move on and be who I am. I just don’t belong here, I hope you understand. We might find our place in this world someday, but at least for now I gotta go my own way.”
Chester
It was grade 4 and Chester and I had this game where he would randomly tag me and I would chase him, as if in anger over him bothering me. One of these times I decided to take off my puffy jacket and use it to “catch” him. I mean, it made me look like big burnt marshmallow, so it couldn’t really hurt him, right? WRONG. At this time, I had braces and it was a big deal to be brushing after meals. I had forgotten my toothbrush and toothpaste were zipped up tightly in my jacket pocket. When I caught up to Chester, I ended up whacking this kid in the neck with my jacket, resulting in the toothpaste tube exploding through the pocket.
I thought I had killed him. It didn’t help my nerves that this science nerd from our class came up, checked his pulse, pushed up his glasses and declared that it “wasn’t bad but it wasn’t good.” You can imagine my shock and despair when I found out Chester went home directly after recess “because of an asthma attack” and I, having asthma myself, legit believed I GAVE him an asthma attack via toothpaste explosion to the back of the neck.
And this could have been where the story ended, but because my mom was the cheer coach, it did not. Chester’s older brother was on the basketball team, so being at games with my mom meant having to see Chester. Out of guilt, I let him play my Gameboy Advanced (which I let absolutely NO ONE do. Feel special, Chester) and even brought him snacks during the game. Nearing the end, when my mom was off being a great coach, Chester’s grandfather came over to us, who I knew was friends with my grandmother. She had joked that she told her friend to keep an eye on me, which didn’t phase me when I had nothing to hide. When I saw him, I stood up, shook his hand, and basically curtsied but— I kid you not— this guy gets right in my face, unsmiling, and practically snarling in his scratchy smoker voice, “I know what you did and I’m gonna tell your grandma.”
Some of you may or may not know that my paternal grandmother was very intimidating (bordering on scary) to me growing up. I had seen her insert a bar of soap into my sister’s mouth as a small child and I never looked at her the same. This raspy threat from someone who claimed to know my grandma personally felt as real as putting me in handcuffs. I spent the next month unable to sleep at night, fully believing my grandma and the police would come bursting into our tiny Winnie-the-Pooh-themed room and yank me out of the top bunk and throw me in jail. As my clean record can prove, that never happened. But I still wonder what this guy’s deal was. Was he just sarcastic or did he like threatening little Catholic girls? Either way, I didn’t feel too fond of Chester after that.
Pretzel
I had the biggest crush on Pretzel on and off throughout elementary but it came to head in 7th grade. We were such close friends and I think looking back I probably missed my chance for anything to blossom. In fear of risking our friendship, I never took the leap. I ended up shooting my shot toward a lesser crush at the dance, who said yes but did not care one bit that we were swaying off-beat and not looking each other in the eye. I haven’t seen either of them since, but I have still thought about the big dreams I had imagined were real with Pretzel.
He would come over to my house fairly often and we went swimming together. I only hoped for more instead of ever saying or doing anything otherwise. It’s sad to think back on the friendship we had knowing we don’t talk anymore, even though we’re both doing great now. I do wish I could share this story with him on behalf of Lil’ Gab and see what he would say. So Pretzel, if you’re reading, I hope our friendship meant something to you as well. Did you ever feel that way or did Lil’ Gab save herself from losing her best guy friend? And did your great grandpa actually own that pretzel shop?! I hope you’re living your best life!
“Wherever you are, whenever it’s right, you’ll come out of nowhere and into my life.”
Puppy 1
(Yes, Puppy 1, meaning there is another Puppy— another guy I “dated” of the same name.) We were friends way back in second grade, so when we reconnected at a mutual friend’s party the summer before I went to high school, he asked if I wanted to go to the movies with him. That seemed like a super normal friend hangout to me, so I accepted the invite, meaning I agreed to my first first date on accident. My mom later informed me that this invitation seemed more like a DATE, and after pondering this for exactly 2 seconds, I became excited.
Having known him for as long as I did, I was following my personal “friends first” rule. We were just going to the movies! We would reconnect as friends and maybe something more would blossom later on! But as soon as my mom dropped me off at Harkins, this kid laid it on thick. It wasn’t charming, but I wanted to give it a chance. He asked to hold my hand and we tried that out. It was exciting to experience. He bought us popcorn and we walked into “Grown Ups,” possibly the least romantic movie I can think of.
Once in the theater, I thought we would maybe hold hands and watch the movie together; this was when I learned that teenagers sometimes go to the movies on dates and don’t want to watch the movie at all. He put his hand around my shoulder, which awkwardly fell to my mid-back, making it super uncomfortable to try sitting back in my seat. When I went to readjust, he went in for a kiss. Yup, this was my technical first kiss. He pushed his face into mine repeatedly as if our lips were the fists of the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. It almost felt like our teeth were being pressed together through our lips.
To stop the madness, I leaned back onto the chair his arm was taking up for the rest of this (retrospectively sexist) movie until everyone had cleared the theater. As we walked down the stairs, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I instinctively replied “Okay,” but— I kid you not— we walked into the hallway moments after and I blurted out “Actually, no, I don’t.” I told him I wanted to be friends, but he said he was determined to help me see him as more. (Ahem, red flag.)
To make a long story short, I texted my mom to pick me up early before we could continue the date as was originally planned, I went home and washed my mouth out for at least half an hour, and I ended up having to block his number when I realized he was going to keep his unrelenting promise to change my mind. What he considered “flirting” came across as forced, creepy, and just not attractive to me at all. It helped me realize I did not need to settle for any living, breathing boy, especially if he made me feel so uncomfortable.
Skunk & Eeyore
Freshman year of high school, ready for new experiences, I jumped into my first mini relationship with Skunk. He was a theatre kid and many other girls “warned” me about him, but I knew from the start it wasn’t anything serious. Spanning all of 3 weeks, we barely even kissed (still so pressy, no moving of any lips) and I broke it off with him before Valentines Day. He immediately responded with “Yeah, I was just about to tell you I didn’t think this was going to work out.” Okay cool. There isn’t much to share, other than when I was reading “The Fault in Our Stars” while crying, he ran over to me as if I had just fallen and couldn’t get up. He couldn’t handle allllll thiiiiiis (emotion). He also went on to cheat on his longterm girlfriend with a married woman, so those warnings were correct.
Eeyore and I were not in any semblance of a relationship, but I think he deserves an honorable mention. Later my freshman year, a solemn, lonely senior (that had apparently recently lost his mother to cancer) I knew in theatre asked me to go to prom with him. The craziest part about this was the deja vu, as I had had a dream the night before that it happened exactly as it did. When he asked, I already had planned what I would say, which was that I would think about it. I eventually said no and he understood as we just didn’t know each other that well, but I remember him walking away, hands in his pockets, and hoping that he had a good support system outside of school.
Timberlake
My sophomore year was when my plot really took off. (Shoutout to God lol.) I was in a really good friend group in media class. This, of course, included my future husband Zach, but it also included this guy I’ll call Timberlake. When my early attempts to win Zach’s romantic attention were seemingly turned down, I turned my attention toward the most biggest flirt I knew: a Mormon high school senior.
Timber’s charisma and quick whit made for easy banter between us. For a while we danced around in the friend zone, but nearing the end of my sophomore year, Timberlake finally took the big step into an actual relationship: hand-holding. You may be thinking, “Holding a high school senior’s hand is not a big step, Gabby” but may I remind you how very innocent of a Gab I was and how conservative this Mormon boy was. Holding hands felt very important, definitely official, and extremely exciting!
I had recently read an article (not this one but one like it) about how “one often (consciously or subconsciously) feels attracted to a person whose genes are different than one’s own… In other words, our nose helps us make the choice of which partner to procreate with3 to ensure a good set of genes.” This was especially interesting to me as someone who was adopted and, at the time, had no knowledge of any biological family members out there in the world. Something that struck me as off pretty quickly was that his smell was not attractive to me. That— along with his extremely sweaty hands— really broke the illusion for me (not unlike the “Bad Habits” episode of How I Met Your Mother).
However, I still wanted to push past these glaring roadblocks to be able to continue our relationship. The hugest, biggest, craziest roadblock of all was the fact that this guy was Mormon, but I didn’t see it that way just yet. I wasn’t thinking very far down the road because I knew come May, he would be going on his Mormon mission. I was trying to listen to his piano skills and pretend our year wasn’t going to end badly.
One of our last nights holding hands as he drove me home, he took a turn down the wrong street purposefully. We sat idle under a streetlight, with tension you could cut with a knife, with me looking at him and him looking forward, both hands on the wheel. I leaned in closer, wondering if we would finally close the gap between our faces, but he was white-knuckling the steering wheel and looked like he might physically explode. He suddenly put the car into drive and we were back at my house.
From there, things started coming apart. Zach, Timberlake, and I had been such close friends, but his Mormon mission drove a stake into our friendship. He was leaving and it wasn’t clear whether we could ever pick back up where we left off. Zach was pulling away emotionally and I was trying to lean in to get some sort of commitment from him, like a Gab would. We had never officially given each other dating titles and his lack of hand-holding in the coming weeks was really confusing and hard for me.
We filmed a rock-concert-themed video for class and Timberlake ended up throwing a drum stick at me, just like full-force out of nowhere. He also threw a pillow at my cat one time seemingly out of annoyance. Things were just starting to unravel and I was desperately trying to collect all the pieces. He even told me that the song “Mirrors” by Justin Timberlake (which is trending on TikTok for being a “sexy song” which makes me cackle) reminded him of me and then immediately backtracked and said it felt more about him and Zach…and me…
“You reflect me, I love that about you.”
It was never going to work. I am way too strong-willed and liberal for the life I would have been signing up for. It was still heartbreaking for me when he left without any true closure for what happened between us, as if nothing had happened at all. But now he lives in Mormonland and I retain my freedom in my marriage with Zach. It’s way easier to think back on those times with a more humorous point of view. Like when my friends and I didn’t know how to act at one of the ceremonies at his temple and we raised a commotion during communion when we didn’t know whether we were allowed to eat the bread or not.
At his send-off party in May, his family and Mormon friends shared their excitement about the impact he could make while he was away, but I only expressed the sadness of losing such a close friend— which was totally not the vibe of this party and I still laugh thinking about being so solemn at their “celebration.” In the end, I am glad it all went as it did. Some people are meant to be in your life for only a certain amount of time. He still reaches out sometimes but it’s honestly kind of weird to me that he does.
The week he started letting go of me without explanation, I lost 5 pounds. He wrote me one sole letter when he was away and then wanted to come back to friendships that no longer existed. I felt a little used by him in the way that he wanted what he wanted when he wanted it and I had no say in our relationship or friendship. I have no regrets, but I kinda hope he does. He always told me I looked better with my hair straightened and Zach has always said he liked my natural hair just the way it was.
Puppy 2
Aghhhhh so…. I don’t have any regrets in my life but I do feel a little sting of embarrassment when I think about this relationship. Puppy 2 is connected with Puppy 1 in the way that they share a first name, but they also both liked me a lot more than I liked them. Puppy 2 came into my life my junior year of high school. Zach and I were both recovering from the Timberlake situation and Puppy filled the gap in the friend group.
The start of my relationship with Puppy came from my jealousy over Zach starting a relationship with another girl in our media class. As his best friend, I was a part of his romantic gesture to ask her out which happened to be on the Tower of Terror at Disneyland. (You can imagine my evil victory laughter when they replaced this one tainted ride with Guardians: Mission Breakout years after.) On this trip, I decided that Puppy was a living breathing male that wasn’t unattractive and that I didn’t want to be alone, especially with all the romance going on between Zach and Gretchen Wieners.
Puppy and Zach were both seniors that year and I convinced them to be in the spring musical “Once Upon a Mattress,” a retelling of the Princess and the Pea story. Zach did not end up actually auditioning (but my good word got him a dance duet at the beginning!) so he was not able to receive a named role (though he totally would have if he would have fricken auditioned!! Sigh). Puppy got the role as the bumbling prince and I got the role of the princess.
“Quite often the lady’s not as hard to please as she seems. Quite often she’ll settle for something less than the man of her dreams.”
There were many signs that we weren’t compatible. One time, he serenaded me, but I was trying to hold back my cringe from his lack of his musical ability (something I found out in that moment was extremely important to me). He gave the same kind of face-smash experience, but he also did not seem at all enthused while kissing me. I almost think he wasn’t actually attracted to me, or to girls at all.
It all came to a screeching halt when I realized Zach was maybe finally coming around to me. He broke up with his girlfriend and was acting funny around me. At this point, Puppy was asking me to prom and telling me he loved me, but I responded how I thought we should go to prom as friends and that I wasn’t ready to say those words to him yet. We never labeled each other as boyfriend or girlfriend, but it seems only I knew why.
Looking back, I was totally leading him on at this point, wanting to have someone in case Zach ended up changing his mind, but it really wasn’t leaning that way. I ended up breaking it off with Puppy, kissing him once more, and then officially breaking it off. He was a mess. I remember sitting for what felt like forever in my mom’s car while my family ate dinner at Logan’s Steakhouse (which could never beat Texas Roadhouse, so it closed) to try and comfort him over the phone. “It’s nothing you did,” I repeated. “There’s nothing wrong with you. I just don’t feel that way about you.” He just couldn’t understand what went wrong. It can’t suddenly go wrong if it had never felt right to me in the first place.
The excitement of Zach and I finally getting together felt like high school’s season finale. I had begun rehearsals for the current musical we were in in a situationship with Puppy, but ended rehearsals stealing kisses from Zach behind the prop pile of 20 mattresses every chance we had. Zach was trying his best to save the feelings of his friend and break it to him after some time had passed between the two relationships, so we had kept things a secret from our friend group. Unfortunately, Puppy found out and gathered whatever he gathered from it. We didn’t talk much after that, but I hope he finally understood: it was always Zach. We all went our separate ways after high school. I hope he’s doing okay and that he’s with someone who loves him back.
Zach
The one we all know and love, my high school sweetheart, Zachy! You can click the highlighted words aboce for our whole love story, but I am glad I got to share some more of the crazy “before” bits in this post. Seeing each other with different people was weird, but it took us having those other relationships to help make it clear to both of us that we were meant to be together in the end.
You might be noticing that the only previous dating experience I have happened in no more than a semester of high school. It’s definitely interesting to think that Zach was my first real relationship. I married Zach at 22 after dating for close to 5 years. Sometimes I wonder why I was meant to meet Zach so early on in my life, but I often thank God that I did. I am very glad that I got to stop focusing on who was romantically interested in me and start living my life more authentically early on.
I think I would have continued being disproportionally focused on finding my “one true love” and continued settling for people who were interested in me that I was not necessarily vibing with. I think it says a lot about Zach and I’s relationship that being with him has made me feel safe enough to be my true self and explore all of the desires of my heart. I am so lucky he “rescued” me and has continued to be my best friend even after romance was added to our already established friendship.
“Lucky I’m in love with my best friend. Lucky to have been where I have been. Lucky to be coming home again.”
🌻ART SHOW & TELL🌻
If you saw my art room right now, you would wonder which one of my craft supply shelves exploded, but it is a gift I have been working on. I have nothing ready to show this week. 😅
Time for some TLCCC💕
Treating myself to: alone time— honestly what a treat! As well as a lot of time with good friends! Conversation is SO important to me.
Listening to: the singing vacuum my son likes to walk around the kitchen with, & the Warbler album from Glee for some reason
Crafting: my outfit for the AZ Renaissance Festival (going Feb 17!)
Craving: water… dehydrated again
Caring SO much about: The Trolls Saga! What a series! I just watched the second one and am excited to move to the third!
I only ever labeled boys as my crushes but looking back, there were definitely girls that made me feel nervous and excited in the same way.
When I first saw the term “demisexual” that felt very correct for me as well as bi/pan, especially based on how I looked at my relationships.
Fun Fact: Zach has always smelled amazing to me. Theory confirmed! The olive theory from HIMYM is also confirmed with us. Hehe