Shoot, I'm not quite sure, though I've been crushing on women since Kindergarten. I could probably chart my school career with lost loves instead of years and it would make sense (i.e. well I went to my first school dance in the year of Sarah); women are probably my greatest motivation.

My crush was probably in Kindergarten with a girl who I would play tag with after school while our mothers chatted. I didn't see her again until high school where we became friends again. Or perhaps it was in the first grade with a girl who I car pooled with and who was probably my first good friend who was a girl. I also didn't see her until high school at which point she was a popular cheerleader and didn't have for me, who was the only one in school who still knew and called her by her full name an not her nickname.

Or maybe it was the first girl to really broke my heart. You see, I had quite the routine by grade 10. I would fancy a girl and over the school year build up the courage to let them know. Then they would avoid me and I would get over it during the summer break. This happened again in grade 10, but this time it really kicked me in the ass. Maybe it was just because her reaction was so contrary to what I thought was her nature, or because she was a closer friend than any of the other girls. You see, she was the first girl whom I ever made cry (well, apart from my sister). I saw her walking in the hall of school and just looked up at her and smiled as kindly as I could as we passed each other on the way to our respective classes and she grabbed a friend and ducked into the nearby bathroom. I later found out that she either cried or laughed in the bathroom, and I'm not sure which I prefer to think of. I tried to make amends somehow before the end of the year and wrote her a note saying something or another. The only thing I remember putting in that note was, "as they say, 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.'" Needless to say, this didn't help.

That whole ordeal, however, was the first to really rattle me. So much so that the 11th grade is just a blur, probably because I can't define it by who I fancied that year. Sometime in that year she did end up coming up and meekly apologizing. She said she didn't know how to handle that kind of attention. Later, when I would get my first girlfriend at the end of grade 12, I would look back and that and empathize with it much more. I had spent my entire life chasing and being rejected by women that when I actually got one I hadn't the faintest idea of what to do in a relationship. I was so paralyzed that I ended up just stopping talking to her, not even breaking up with her, because I was too cowardly to do anything.

I like to think, however, that my wife is the first person I truly loved (and not just to score brownie points with her, though that too). I met her after going through my usual cycle in college and we just sorta clicked. It probably helps that she really did more of the initial work than me: inviting me over to play Halo 3, stealing our first kiss, giving me enough to drink so I wouldn't be sober enough to drive home and would have to stay the night. I dated my wife for four and a half years before we got married, and I loved her more each and every day. It's like something my mother told me, "You don't find your soul mate, you become someone's soul mate." She was only my second chance at a relationship and I made sure to not just let her slip by (by which I mean not to let myself be a lazy coward). I consciously worked on building our relationship and she made it really easy. I like to think that all the work we've put into our now-marriage is an investment that we will see the dividends of throughout our lives together.