For Christmas, one of the things I bought Heather was the just-released DVD set of the complete “My So-Called Life.”  If you’re unfamiliar with it, the series was a 1980’s-era drama starring a young Claire Danes as a 15-year-old High School student, trying to make it through a difficult age.  Highly regarded by those who watched it, the series did not last very long.  I suppose a semi-accurate portrayal of teenage life isn’t particularly escapist, which most successful television seems to be.  Besides, the show lacked some of the truly dark and achingly cruel truth of, say, “Welcome to the Dollhouse.” 

So we started watching a few episodes recently, and it got me thinking more about my time in public school, and my experience with girls, and the fact that I don’t think I had the same outlook on them as other guys (or the same point of view towards guys that most girls had).  Or perhaps I simply think I’m different, when I’m not.  There’s always a lot of that going around too.

I never had that period as a youngster where I thought girls were gross.  In fact, long before puberty, I would think about girls in a romantic sense.  Not a sexual sense – I’d simply imagine some girl I liked in my class being my “girlfriend,”  with no real specific idea of what that meant except that we both liked each other and wanted to spend time together.  I can remember having a few declared “girlfriend” in the 2nd or 3rd grade: Wendy O’Connell being the first that comes to mind.  But there were others I’d think about a lot: Annie Williams, Sara Briggs, Sandy Sullivan, April, Tracy…and there was always the unattainable Patty Shepherd.  Even at this young age, I realized certain girls were out of my league.  Whether it was that they were from a very wealthy family, or simply that they openly demonstrated disdain for me (or my family), some girls were beyond me even as simply friends.  Of course, at this age I didn’t know what a mess my family was, and obviously without that realization I couldn’t have possibly known how some of the down looked at us with a combination of pity, trepidation, and repulsion. 

During those years, girls were generally a part of everything we did.  Oh, they wouldn’t play baseball with us during recess, but they were always invited to birthday parties.  In my elementary school classes, we had a seeming peculiar habit of gently scratching each other’s backs when we sat on the school floor watching movies or filmstrips.  There was no hesitation of doing that to a girl, or having her do it to you…you just asked, and they did it.  If someone asked you, you did it.  “Sex” was a foreign concept, so it wasn’t sexual.  It was basic, friendly, comforting human contact.  I sometimes wonder how that changes the development process, now that we live in an age where children can’t even hug or hold hands or any of the other things we did on a regular basis.  Then again, I only did those things in school…at home, we NEVER touched each other.  Touching meant someone was hurting you, or about to do something nasty like drop a bug down your shirt or stick a piece of skunk cabbage under your nose.

I’ve tried my best to figure out when my point of view on girls changed.  Probably around 6th grade, when we moved to New Jersey.  There I could actually fantasize about girls in a sexual way.  Maybe I didn’t consider the idea of having SEX, but instead kissing and holding and being affectionate.  I know there were a few females I lusted after.  Margie was the main one.  I thought she was the cutest, most wonderful being on earth.  At this age I still talked to other boys ABOUT girls, and I remember myself and Ed swapping desires: me for Margie, him for Lisa.  We found the strength of the infatuations we had to be amazing, like a whole new world had opened up to us.  My happiest moments were when she and I were on crossing guard patrol together for a week or two.  She talked to me, laughed with me…but in typical Kent fashion I never told her that I “like liked” her.  At the end of the school year she transferred to a private school (I think) and that was that.  I saw her somewhere – some school function – a year or two later, and realized whatever attraction I’d held for her was completely erased.  I guess I had moved on.

Somewhere between 6th and 7th grade, as I moved from Elementary School to Junior High School (referred to as Middle School in some places), I changed.  I don’t know why, I don’t know how, I don’t know what caused it.  I suppose puberty had started full force, although the awful plague of acne I’d do battle with for years didn’t really start right at this point.  Perhaps it was just going to a school with so many more people…I have no idea.  But it all changed.  Girls were no longer attainable.  And they never would be.  Oh, I could still think about them, list after them, fantasize about them like all heterosexual boys did…but it was the same as fantasizing about a movie star or a rock star.  The odds of me connecting with any girl I went to school with were about as likely as me finding myself in a romantic encounter with Jodie Foster or Olivia Newton John or Chrissie Hynde or one of the Go-Go’s or Patty Smyth or Claire Grogan or that woman from “Buck Rogers.”  In other words, zero.

Maybe I just realized how utterly out of step with the rest of the world I felt.  Even with my friends, I felt like an outsider, or being included seemed to be done out of pity or social obligation more than anything else.  Or, even with good friends like Fritz or McDougal or Richard Rives Howe Jr., I always (rightly or wrongly) sensed the attitude that while my being around was fine, they’d be equally as happy if I wasn’t.   They could take it or leave it.   The only time I didn’t feel that way, some of the time, was with my wargaming buddy Steve.  Aside from occasional arguments, we could spend nearly unlimited time playing games and ringing doorbells or talking.  Like everything else, that would change over time, but for a couple of years it was good to have.

So, while I’d fantasize about some of the marvelous, magical, mystical females in my world – Patrice, Synda, Beth, Ashley, Elana, and especially Helen – there was never the slightest hope that I could do more than pass them in the hall.  Even when a female seemed less other-worldly because they were openly friendly and sweet – Caroline, Gabby, the other Beth – I wouldn’t allow myself the luxury of thinking they could be anything but friends.  I did, in fact, find myself developing a few close friendships with females.  Ayla comes to mind – I loved talking to her, listening to her, discussing life and relationships and anything else with her – but that was a true friendship.  It was completely non-sexual, and was different and wonderful in its own way.  In the years to come I’d find myself forming similar friendships with other women, but that was the first of its kind for me.

Even later, when I met Mara and started dating her, the idea of any of the other women around me being attainable seemed ludicrous.  In fact, I don’t know if that has ever truly changed.  I’ve jokingly complained to Heather that I wish women would hit on me once in a while…but the fact is, women could hit on me day in and day out; I wouldn’t have the slightest idea that anything was going on.  With me, a woman needs to make the first, second, third, and maybe the fourth move.  Not that I need women making moves on me anymore; Heather might take issue with that!

So what is wrong with me?  Was I simply born without the gene to recognize a female’s interest in me?  Or do I think so little of myself that the idea anybody wants to be with me is laughable?  I used to think it was the latter.  But now, as I’ve gotten a bit older, I really think it’s the former.  It is one of my many genetic birth defects.  But as to the history of fantasizing about females, I am curious how different my experience is from everyone else’s.