This isn’t a story about my boyfriend and I, but it’s a story about how my first love and how much I learned from loving him.
I met him online, and I know how weird that may sound to some, but it was a cute new website named iminlikewithyou at the time. It was a site with games and one day, I went into his gameroom randomly and I started a conversation with him, just like I would with anyone else to be nice, but he seemed a lot nicer and more willing to talk than others. For some reason, the server crashed or something and I was out of the gameroom. I clicked “play” again, not thinking much of it and out of all the rooms available, I ended up in his room again. By the end of the night, we exchanged AIM screen names and then Facebooks. We started out as just friends, (I had a boyfriend at the time) and I would go to him for help with my relationship. I’d talk to him whenever I was upset about how things were with my boyfriend. Not too long after, my boyfriend then and I broke up. After, I started to have feelings for the guy I met online, but I tried to brush it away because he lived in California, and I lived in Virginia. However, the more he and I talked, the more I liked him. When it was the right time, I came clean about my little crush towards him and he told me he felt the same. For six months, we talked to each other as if we were boyfriend and girlfriend, just without the official title. We would alwaysbe webcamming, texting or on the phone. Although I never met him, I could tell he was down-to-earth, nice, caring, and different from all the other guys I met. In August of 2009, I went over to California to visit my brother in Los Angeles, him living in near San Francisco, he drove about six hours to come see me. The first day we met was at Six Flags Magic Mountain. We thought it’d be awkward since we never hung out before, but there wasn’t any awkwardness and it was like we knew each other for years. The next day, he had to go back home because school was starting the day after. He came to my hotel to say one last goodbye, and we spent almost an hour just in each other’s arms. It was our goodbye hug because we didn’t know when the next time we’d see each other would be. During our goodbye hug, he asked me if I would be his girlfriend and he told me to really think about it because we lived so far away from each other and it would be a lot of work. He told me that he believed what we had was strong enough, even though I was 15 at the time and he was 16, and he said he’d put his 100% into it. I said yes, not worrying the distance because I knew what I felt towards him was something I never felt before, I loved him. I also know how skeptic some may be about a 15 year-old being in love, but I know I loved him with all my heart. A couple days after, I had to return to Virginia, nothing changed between us. The week after, my mom and I did a spur-of-the-moment-move to Orange County, California, because of a family situation. He was so excited that we would be living in the same state, even if we still lived around 400 miles away. On average, we saw each other once a month. In January, I moved back to Virginia. It was hard for both of us, but he told me not to worry because our love for one another will pull us through. From that moment, I knew this was the guy I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I knew that it’d never be “normal” for us. We’d never have a “normal” relationship. We’d never go to a dance together. We would never go to a school football game together nor would I be able to go to any of his basketball games or track meets to cheer him on. The words “let’s hang out this weekend,” or “I’ll see you this weekend,” will never come out of our mouths. Every meeting will have to be a special occasion, where we would feel like we had to do something otherwise we would just be wasting time together. Our goodbyes will always be emotional and the goodbyes always will come, only to be followed by us not knowing when the next time we would be able to see each other again. He could never visit me by surprise, but nor could I. Birthdays will have to be spent without one another, while anniversaries and monthlyversaries will feel like just another regular day, a day without us together. However, I believed that fate would help us. If we were meant to be, fate would help us stay together. After about seven months of not seeing each other, we decided that it would be best to call our relationship off. It’s now October, 2010, and I still love him. I will always love him no matter where we are in life, no matter how long it’s been since we’ve seen each other. He was the one who taught me how to love, the one who taught me that best friends can be boyfriends too. He got me to believe that not all guys are all the same, and sex isn’t the only thing guys want. He was my first love and I still believe that if we were meant to be, fate will help us.
by jeniee