I want to write about my ex-boyfriends. I'll explain later but I've got to get it out now. 

So, when I was sixteen I had my first boyfriend named "Lance" (not his real name--it's the internet peeps). I had known him for years though quite anonymously. We went to the same elementary school, but then he was just some kid I would see in the halls from time to time. In fact, I have this memory of him way back in the fourth grade or so, I think. I was throwing something away in the trash, he was there, and someone shouted that there was a spider in the can or something. He got this really faux concentrated, serious look on his face (faux because he was always trying to seem really 'cool') and then he suddenly shot out his hand and squashed the spider-- or something like that. 

Then there was this other time that we went to this wildlife preserve--it was a class field trip, and this was back in like the seventh grade--and I was looking at this snake in a glass cage. He came over and stuck his tongue out at it, hissed at it, and it shot up and hissed back at him. Everyone was all "oohing" and "aahing" in a rather uneasy way because people all assumed he was some weird kid who was secretly psycho and that he was due to go all Columbine on us eventually. I'll admit, I thought the same thing too, but who would have known that about four years after that I would be making out with this kid in his car, fogging up the windows. 

Yeah. My junior year of high school I finally worked up the courage to talk to Lance and gave him my email address (because giving him my number would have solidified that I was trying to hook up with him) and we started chatting with one another. A few weeks after that, he asked me to the homecoming dance though we ended up going to the movies instead (mostly because I had gained some weight and after having looked like a lumpy piece of clay in a dress at the mall I decided I wouldn't go through with the humiliation of trying to look all cute for a dance when I felt like a bloated piece of crap). 

The movies. We went out to eat, saw How to Meet Friends and Alienate People (which was really bad and British--not that that was bad) and I had my first kiss by the end of the night. I was feeling really happy--which wasn't often during those years. 

So we dated. Broke up due to him being completely distant (months would go by before I heard anything from him and it was almost like I didn't really have a boyfriend) and nothing else happened. Senior year, we started dating again and got really heavy handed, meaning almost every day after school we were feeling each other up and trying out oral sex for the first time. Later on in the year I finally, after months of fruitless coercing, lost my virginity to him one weekend while his parents were away. It was my first sex, so it wasn't great--far from it--but I was so happy to lose my v-card before I was in college I dealt with the awkward thrusts and me cooing and aahing, trying desperately to emulate all those women I'd seen in pornos (yeah, I admit it). 


We dated his first year of college but once again he got so incredibly distant and unconcerned, I said goodbye to Lance for the final time and was left feeling kind of let down and sad. 


Right, but what Lance looked like. Gotta mention this: He was a short kid, lanky, skinny, devoid of any muscle whatsoever (not that this was a bad thing, of course). He had a long nose, coppery brown eyes that shone so beautifully when he was excited or animated, and Leon Kennedy hair (I'm such a nerd!). 


Okay, well, the hair might be something of stretch but Lance was...well, such a nerd. And I don't really mean this in a pejorative sense, but all of his hobbies, his 'way of thinking' it all came from video games. He watched TV for long hours at a time, gorged himself on MMO's, sugar cookies, and Mountain Dew. He dressed blandly, slept all the time, and was also a genius to boot. I mean, the kid was SMART. Really smart. Like Harvard graduate neurosurgeon PHD smart (not that he went to Harvard). 

Despite all of this, I kind of found his know-it-all, sudden spurts of coolness and lucidity very charming and kind of sexy. He wasn't an overt jocky type or even the sensitive artist that I've been craving to date, but he was a sweet guy and a good first boyfriend. 


So, that was "Lance." Next is "Gabe". 


I met Gabe online. We chatted a bit, finally went out on a date after a few weeks of chatting, and then started dating. He lived a ways from my hometown, it was always a drive to go see him. We had outgoing dates compared to my quieter, typical ones with Lance. On our first date he took me to a petting zoo and introduced me to the fun brilliance to be found in attending a Renaissance fair. He was a musician and he'd always play old school rock on his radio during car rides along with elaborate symphonies-- of which he'd try to describe to me the technicalities and intricacies behind every trumpet and violin-- while I sat with a clueless smile, trying to keep my practiced yet detached look of interest from sliding of my face like a runny egg. Gabe liked to talk a lot--about himself, his music, his life, his experiences, his opinions, his interpretation of everything from a book he read to an episode of South Park. Alas, this didn't always make what he had to say interesting. 

Gabe was a stout, plumpish twenty-something with a full beard and almond shaped brown eyes. What I liked best about him was...well, I won't go into here, but let's just say that he knew how to put his tongue to good use, and mostly when it wasn't flapping around while he yapped about how he felt.   


Gabe and I broke up not too long after I began school. It hurt to admit that I missed him, but it hurt even more to admit that I only missed him because I was so desperate for someone in my life that I was willing to put up with a guy who blasted Pink Floyd in my ears until I was grinding my teeth together in the hopes that I could fend off the impending headache I always got. 


So, I don't know why I wrote this. Earlier, I was listening to a certain someone's account of their run-in with their significant other's ex and I hopped on here to talk about my own experiences with past "loves". Now, I wonder if there's something more to this, something I needed to get out. 


Maybe-- not really. I've thought about my relationships with each of these men to death and I don't think there's anything else to talk about. One guy was sweet but ridiculously aloof, one was thoughtful but self absorbed. They're all the experiences I can chalk up in my dating gamut, so maybe that's why they feel so tangible, so poignant. I haven't dated hoards of guys, even though I always wanted to at this point in my life, so I think about these guys every once in a while, the latter almost often. Not really because I miss them, or even loved them, but because they're there, and until I find someone else I guess they'll just be figments of my bitching until I date, fuck, and break up with some other guy. 

Huh. We'll see.