I had my first-ever boyfriend when I was in seventh grade. Adam was the “funny guy” in our grade.  He was always the center of attention, always the one in detention, and the one at the center of a popular group of guys.  (Although ‘popular’ is such a tricky word…there were a number of popular cliques at my junior high school, all with different female followers and claims to fame.)

When he asked me to be his girlfriend—no one went on dates at that age, you went from single to girlfriend in a second flat—I was ecstatic.  I mean, sure, I hardly knew this guy, but he was cute and he was popular and he wanted to date ME so obviously I said yes.

Without cars or money, though, being someone’s girlfriend mostly meant you held hands a lot at school and talked on Instant Messenger all afternoon.  We couldn’t see each other outside of school much because my parents had told me I wasn’t allowed to date until high school (yeah, I was a rebel).  I remember very little about the relationship, except for one afternoon about a week in:

We had both stayed around after school to be with each other, and the hallways were nearly deserted.  He was in the school play, and was leaving for rehearsal, and when he gave me his usual hug goodbye, he also kissed me.  My first kiss.

I nearly died.

Looking back now, first kisses seem so silly.  They’re short pecks on the lips, and it’s awkward and over before you realize it’s happening.  But to thirteen-year-old me, it was the high point of my life so far.  I was so excited about it that, admittedly, I was a bit overenthusiastic.  This may have been exaggerated by the fact that, immediately following that blissful afternoon, Adam started blowing me off.

The details of this blowing-off are vague in my memory now, but I remember the whole thing culminating in a massive fight via Instant Messenger, and me declaring the relationship over.

Which, it turns out, Adam was fine with, because he had only asked me out in the first place because his friends had dared him to.  The payout was $10 if he had the guts to do it, and was doubled because I said yes.

And that, I think, is where much of my neuroses surrounding men and the dating world stemmed from in the following years.  My first relationship experience was a sham, a set-up.  I was nothing more than the butt of a cruel joke for the entertainment of others.

For a long time, I was resentful of Adam.  I hated the fact that he had ‘stolen’ my first kiss from me, and I was mortified to go back to school and face him every day.  Fortunately, summer break came about two weeks after the incident, and by the time we went back to school that fall I was apathetic.  I hadn’t forgiven him for what he’d done, but it was over and there were new prospects looming on the horizon.