My First Girlfriend Dumped Me

and I’m grateful

In fifth grade, there was a girl in my class on whom I had an enormous crush. Throughout my life, I’ve had crushes on hundreds, probably thousands, of girls, but this one was a bit more serious. Our desks were in a U shape and she and I were on each end, directly across from one another. This was about 1990 and I was an enormous Michael Jordan fanatic — even more than most — and one day, during our weekly spelling test, I started wagging my tongue around my mouth like MJ when he would drive to the hole. I heard a stifled giggle and looked up to see her laughing at me, her eyes twinkling and her face bright. I was simultaneously embarrassed and thrilled. Maybe I was onto something. Did I purposely move my tongue during every subsequent spelling test for the rest of the year in the hopes of a similar reaction? You bet your ass I did. It wouldn’t be the last time I recycled a joke in the hopes of getting a girl to like me.

After sixth grade, when most of us were entering junior high, she left our school. She wasn’t bad per se, but she wasn’t the most wholesome girl either. Her parents enrolled her in Catholic school to straighten her out. How do you think that worked out?

By my senior year, I had all but forgotten about her. I was firmly entrenched in my high school ecosystem, trying my best to be the all-American kid — Student Council Vice President, co-captain of the varsity basketball team, Rotary Student of the Month — desperately hoping to date the cheerleaders and homecoming queens with whom I often hung out, but who only viewed me as friends. On the first day of November, a Saturday, I was trudging into the high school along with many of my classmates to take the SAT, when I felt someone bump me. I look over and there she is, like a vision from both my memories and my dreams, looking more beautiful than ever with a huge smile on her face. We spoke for a few minutes before going to our separate classrooms.

During one of the breaks, I went into the audion, the carpeted center area of the high school where students congregated and lounged, and she was sitting alone. I walked over to her and we began talking. I joked and flirted like I did with everyone, but it seemed to be having a greater effect than usual. My jokes were funnier, my anecdotes more interesting, my opinions more insightful. I don’t remember how it happened, but one of us asked the other what they were doing that night. Quickly, phone numbers were exchanged and promises to hang out that night were made. We then made our way back to our respective desks.

I secured a date during the SAT. They should award scholarships for things like that. It’s way more impressive than most of the other things I did in high school. Later that night, my stomach was in knots as I prepared for my date. To get me into the proper mindset, I was listening to LL Cool J (Ladies Love) as I chose and rejected one outfit after another like Cher Horowitz getting ready for school. Eventually, I settled on something and we met up and the knot in my stomach grew and twisted. It’s hard for me to imagine that I could ever be more nervous than I was that night. I was positive that she would realize her mistake and flee in horror.

She did not.

She and I were different. We had been different in elementary school and we were different in high school. We were cool in different ways. I was popular, involved in student government and varsity sports and she knew everyone in the area and hung out and partied. In high school, there are different degrees and forms of cool and we just happened to exist in two different circles. When we got together, those two circles slightly overlapped like a Venn Diagram.

We had known each other for years and felt comfortable with one another, but over the course of our two month relationship, my nervousness never really went away. I would look at her and wonder what she saw in me. My fifth grade and twelfth grade lack of confidence with girls merged to become a supervillain of insecurities, trying to take over the world by ruining one relationship (specifically mine) at a time.

I was so young and so hungry for the approval of a beautiful girl beyond simple friendship or working together on a class project that every time I saw her it was like the first time. As an adult, that’s not really the case. There is always something else to distract you, usually your career. No matter what is happening at home, whether good or bad, you’re paid to do a job and leave all of that at the door. In high school, your social life is your life. Even in college, there are other things that take your attention and priorities away, but in high school that was it. I have dated several beautiful women and amazing people and been privy to multiple experiences that other people wouldn’t really believe, but I’ve never been as excited as I was when I was with her.

Then again, maybe I’m just old and cynical now.

Since we went to different schools, we had the type of relationship that I would come to cherish in later years: we had our separate lives. We talked virtually every night, but we weren’t attached at the hip and, by and large, we only saw each other on weekends. This kept it fresh to me and was a big part for my excitement. It was also a big part of my insecurity.

She was cool in the classic sense — nothing bothered her, she was open to anything, just a relaxed person that liked to laugh — but I took this as aloofness and disinterest. I was needy and even if I didn’t always verbalize it, she could probably tell that I was constantly searching for validation from her (and the world).

We never talked about it, but I knew she was far more sexually experienced than I. In reality, anyone that had high-fived another human being had about the same amount of skin-to-skin contact as I did up until that point. This intimidated me and, when combined with her beauty (and her general easiness in her own skin), made me constantly fearful that I would do something wrong. I was so stuck in my own head that I thought I would kiss, touch, hold, whatever her incorrectly, instead of just enjoying it. There was nothing more in the world that I wanted, but I was petrified. I was convinced that she would regret doing anything with me and when your closest friends are girls and they confide in you that they did stuff with their boyfriends because they felt pressured and wish they hadn’t, it sticks with you. I was scared that I would try to make a move and she would suddenly realize who she was kissing, and she would freak out and charge me with rape or, at the very least, tell people I was like all those other dudes. I saw myself as a nice, good guy, and I didn’t want to ruin that. Or go to jail.

In hindsight, this is ridiculous for a variety of reasons. First, she was, you know, my girlfriend. Secondly, she was more experienced than I. The pickle jar had already been loosened, so to speak. Third, the vast majority of girls/women quickly become accustomed to having to hold up the SLOW and STOP signs like a worker on a road crew and most of them find a way to reject you without hurting your feelings. Fourth, and most importantly, if she was ever uncomfortable, I would immediately hit the brakes. If a girl says stop and you stop, that’s not rape!

All of these revelations would come much, much later.

We did some stuff — more than I had ever done up until that point — but never really got close to my own deflowering. I found myself being silly with her, something I thought would be beneath someone so cool. I took her to the Winter Ball and it may have been the best formal I’ve ever attended. I was just looking at those photos today and felt butterflies in my stomach.

In late December, I realized one day that she hadn’t returned my call. I waited a few hours and called again. Again, no return call. I tried once more and after I was yet again met with silence, I slowly came to the realization that I had been dumped. There was no argument, no fight, not even a Dear Pierzy letter. Nothing. I don’t know if I was heartbroken — I didn’t sit in a locked room staring out the window like Bella or write songs like Drake — but I immediately missed her. And it wasn’t just the hot girlfriend that I missed. I missed the person. I missed her.

As a person that took self-reflection to a Hall of Fame level, I began to wonder if I had been too timid for her. The seemingly confident person I had been when we reconnected on the day of the SAT, when I had nothing to lose, had been replaced by a needy, worrisome, insecure boyfriend that didn’t trust his own relationship, but still wanted it so badly. This was confirmed one day when I was playing pickup basketball with other kids from the area — some from my school, some from others — and a friend of mine said to me out of the blue, “I talked to[REDACTED]. Wanna know why she dumped you?”

That’s always a good start to a conversation. I figured it was embarrassing, but I needed closure and several guys were watching, so I knew they would get the story whether I did or not. Besides, I had been through embarrassing things before, so I said, “Yeah, sure.”

While looking away in an attempt to be nonchalant, he said, “It’s because you wouldn’t bang her.”

“I figured,” I said, as regret welled up inside of me.

He wasn’t done. “You should’ve. She’s fucking hot!”

“Yeah, I’m aware. Thanks.”

Finally, another voice piped up and said, “Fuck all this talk. Let’s play! Who’s got next?”

That was it. The conversation was over. I’ll never know if that kid, someone I knew but didn’t really consider a friend, said it because he was truly bored with all of the talking and really did want to play or if he could sense my emotions and decided to rescue me. I suspect it’s the latter and I’m thankful that he did it.

Naturally, that conversation stuck with me and, in a classic case of overcompensation, I decided to change myself. I would be heartless. I would use women only for their bodies. I would teach her a lesson by sleeping with every girl that even glanced at me. I’d extract my revenge on the entire gender. My sarcasm became a little harsher, my patience a little thinner. I would become the guy that didn’t care and, as a result, would be surrounded by eager women. I’d make up for all of the time I wasted being a good guy.

It didn’t quite work out that way. While my mentality was different, I had been that other, nicer person for as long as anyone knew me. Trying to radically reinvent yourself in twelfth grade is stupid because those people remember you from recess. I tried a variety of things, most notably taking a younger, supposedly “easier” girl to the prom. I was half-right. She was definitely down for sex that night, but, unfortunately, it was with someone else.

Ultimately, after several false alarms and flight delays, it happened at the start of my sophomore year of college. For the next few years, I wasn’t exactly Wilt Chamberlain, but I had ripped the plastic off and had a little wear and tear on my body. But that feeling of inadequacy and regret of not sleeping with that first girlfriend has never fully gone away and I don’t think it ever will. Maybe when I’m dead, I’ll be able to rest easily. Doubtful, though.

It only lasted two months, but I have as many, maybe even more, fond memories of that relationship as I do any other aside from my marriage. We talked about life, the future, our childhoods, our hopes and dreams, and hip-hop. It had all of the makings of what I would come to consider a good relationship, but I was too young and immature for it. (Even my longest pre-marriage relationship, which lasted a year during college, was plagued by my insecurities. I’m still in contact with that girl — she came to my wedding — and I thank her repeatedly for teaching me how to be a boyfriend. I’ll always owe her for that.)

Just as in the years before the SAT, I didn’t see her again. We returned to our neutral corners and to our separate circles. Our utter lack of contact has only served to enhance her myth in my mind. I only saw her once following our breakup. My first summer job was as an employee at a miniature golf/batting cages/driving range fun center and one night she brought her boyfriend(?) to play mini golf. I’ll never know if she took him there in the hopes that she would see me, but I have to imagine she did. I worked there for years and she knew that. That was the last time we saw one another or even exchanged a word. I’ve searched, but even in our world of hyperconnectedness, she isn’t a part of social media. Or, if she is, my cyberstalking skills need work. If you can’t find someone on Google, chances are that person doesn’t want to be found.

It’s for the best.

Being Facebook friends would only diminish my view of that time. I’m certain that our relationship doesn’t hold the same place in her memory as it does in mine, but she helped me in ways she could never imagine. Ironically, after dumping me, she was the first girl to convince me that I was boyfriend material and that I could be with someone that I really liked, rather than just settling for someone that was interested in me.

I’m grateful for her for that. I don’t know where she is or what she’s doing, but I genuinely hope she’s happy. She deserves it.

And if I ever do see her again, I’ll be sure to give her a flower and tell her that she should have had it all along.

—

Christopher Pierznik is the author of five books: The Notorious B.O.O.K.: Sports, Rhymes & Life, The Hip-Hop 10, The Hip-Hop 10 More,No Talking at the Urinal, and Sacrifice Fly, a novel. Those books can be purchased in Paperback, Kindle, and Nook. A former feature contributor and managing editor of I Hate JJ Redick, he has also written for XXL, Please Don’t Stare, Amusing My Bouche, Reading & Writing is for Dumb People, and others. He works in finance and spends his evenings changing diapers and drinking craft beer. He once applied to be a cast member on The Real World, but was rejected. You can like his Facebook page here, follow him on Twitter here, and read more of his work here.