Reader be warned, this blog is going to talk about my sexuality, primarily sexual and romantic attraction. Not sex itself.
I got my first crush when I was seven years old. Of course it wasn’t sexual at the time, but I knew my feelings for this boy were different from how I felt about anyone else. I remember writing furiously in my first little diary about him. I cut his picture out of the year book so I could tape it where I could see it everyday.
I loved a boy. I didn’t really talk about it. I didn’t know what to do about it besides try to play with him more at recess and try to get in more group projects with him.
It happened becuase he was nice to me.
I have been bullied for as long as I can remember. Sometimes worse than other times. I went to a new school in 2nd grade after a poor experience in our local public school. In our class our seats were arranged by our last name, and this kid happened to sit next to me because of our last names. He turned out to be a very kind person. He never made fun of me for my height or gender or lack of fine motor skills or anything. He never made fun of me.
I don’t remember a lot of specifics from that young of an age. I do remember he was nice to me and part way through the school year it made me get new big feelings. I had heard enough about crushes to know that’s what this was. But I also knew I didn’t want to like… kiss anyone yet.
This crush lasted on and off for about seven years. It was my only grade school and junior high crush.
Because our school was small we were with the same kids all the way through 8th grade. So he and I were in the same class and same classroom, often next to each other becuase of the ongoing last name organizational system for years. And he was always nice to me.
We were friends all those years, and as we got older even did very typical Jr. high things like go to McDonalds together and see movies. But they were never dates. Even though in my heart all I wanted was for them to be dates. I’m not sure how much I told him, I was very scared to share any intimate feelings at that age. I don’t know if he knew or if he knew and wasn’t interested. Either way he stayed kind.
We went to the same high school for one year, but that was the same year my heart found its next crush.
This boy also sat next to me at school. We had our last class of the day together our freshman year. I already knew him from the skatepark. We would often sleep though our last class and then go skate after school, catching a ride from his brother or my mom to a skate spot for the afternoon.
It really didn’t take long for me to fall for this boy. But it was clear that once again that the interest wasn’t mutual and I had to fight down those feelings for fear of losing my only good friend in my new scary high school. This was the worst year of bullying in all my schooling and I had drifted away from most of my friends from 8th grade in this new school, leaving me vulnerable.
After that year I again switched schools, starting at the local public high school for my sophomore year.
I still hung out with the boy from freshman year all the time, and my heart still crushed on him pretty hard, until my junior year when I became closer with a kid who I had met though our school music program. This kid was a year younger than me than me, but we had become very good friends and eventually I realized I liked them more than a friend as well.
My heart had moved on to its next love, who happened to be my new best friend. All three crushes had been best friends at some point before becoming crushes.
Throughout all these years average teens were a mystery to me. They seemed to have actual crushes on celebrities and people they barely knew. They were attracted to people just by looking at them. I literally could not understand this. I had never experienced this. I had only fallen for best friends.
The third crush was my last for a very long time. We started dating my senior year and got married a few years later. We are still together. I married my third crush, the first one to return my romantic feelings.
My fourth crush didn’t come until more than a decade after the third one. I literally felt no romantic or sexual attraction to anyone except my partner for over ten years. And then I found a new best friend.
We had known each other for a while, but eventually we started hanging out together late at night smoking weed and just talking for hours. After a few weeks of this, I fell hard. I hadn’t experienced a crush in so long that it was all consuming and wrecked me.
It was hard on my marriage but ultimately something that forced us to talk about a lot of things that had been previously “off limits” due to our time spent within conservative Christianity. The experience helped us grow as a couple and stay close to the person I was crushing on. He’s still one of our best friends, and his new partner has also become one of our closest friends!
A few years ago I discovered the term “Demisexual”, which describes a sexuality in which you only develop sexual attraction after forming a deep emotional bond with a person. When I learned what it meant I immediately identified with it. Read more about demisexulaity here. I used this term for myself for the past few years, but now I’m not really sure anymore.
It turns out as I’m figuring out my gender my experience of attraction is changing dramatically.
For the first time I’m finding myself attracted to seemingly random people. I’m getting these weird small crushes, and they are entirely on queer people, or people I am close with. People whose gender is hard to figure out are the ones I’m most likely to fall for. I wasn’t exposed to a lot of genderqueer people until very recently.
It’s taking me by surprise.
I’ve never experienced life like this. Just seeing a random person at a bar and thinking “Oh they are cute, I would totally be into them.” Having a friend get flirty with me and not only feeling anxious, but also feeling somewhat into it. Its all new and weird.
Looking back it turns out all my crushes except crush number 2 are openly queer in some way. Number 1 came out as gay at some point and I found out when I found him on facebook years later. Number 3 is my trans partner who wrote an entire album about her bisexuality. Number 4 recently told me he’s bi.
There’s something about queer people I guess. And now that I’m more comfortable in my body and my identity than I’ve ever been I’m finding myself attracted to people in various ways all the time! It’s really wild. But overall it’s good.
I’ve always understood sexuality as fluid intellectually, but now I’ve experienced it first hand. Sexuality can change and evolve! It can catch us off guard, it can overwhelm us with feelings. It can be a gift and seemingly a curse at times, but I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for healthy intimate relationships of all types. I’m happy to have so many in my life both past and present. I’m extremely thankful for those boys who befriended me and protected me as a young person who was so often bullied.
I once heard it said “Once you love someone you love them forever” and with those four big crushes I have I found that true. Even if I’m not close to them today, my heart will always have a special place for them.
