Friday, September 07, 2007

My First Crush



When I was little, there were two Joeys in my life. The first, of course, was my brother (on the right in this photo). The second was the boy-almost-next-door, the youngest son of my mother's best friend (centre in this photo). [Hey, what can I say? Two Catholic families where devotion obviously outweighed creativity and originality ... LOL] Anyway, I had a crush on Joe P. off and on until I went to high school and met the another charming blue-eyed blond, Jim, who sat in front of me in geography class.

I remember, in Grade 7 or 8, finally mustering up the courage to ask him to dance with me at one of those tightly-chaperoned school dances. "Oh but I wanted to dance with Mereille ..." he started to say, before he mastered his disappointment and politely danced with me. However, I am sure that, for the entire duration of "Crimson and Clover", he was intently peering over my shoulder at the object of his affection. LOL

Today Joe P. is married with two boys. He recently started up his own pet supplies store, which reportedly is incredibly busy. I'm very happy for him; there could not be a nicer guy in the world, and he truly deserves every success. As for the unrequited crush I once felt for him, from this perspective I'm positive it was all for the best. And I'm grateful that my first crush was a decent kid who never, ever hurt me when he really could have been cruel.

I like this old photo. I don't know if I was old enough at the time to really have a crush yet, but it's clear that I enjoyed having him around. And today I really like knowing that he's doing well.

As an interesting side note, I generally have not been attracted to blond men since high school. (Daniel Craig is an exception, but can you blame me???)

So ... what's your story with your first crush?

No comments: