My High School Crush Does Not Want to be my Facebook Friend

His loss.

You know, I thought that maybe enough time would have passed and that he would have seen that I was really an innocent kid dealing with confusing feelings that really had no outlet when I was fifteen. So maybe I called him nightly. Maybe I had his parents freaked out because this lispy kid kept calling the house. I might be worried that some strange boy was calling my son. A boy they never met. A boy who wasn't on the football team like their boy.

I prefer to believe that they were racist.

We even managed to weather the storm of the four hour phone call I made, pleading with him to still be my friend. Lying through my teeth and trying to convince him that I didn't have feelings for him. That I wanted to be a friend to him. Just a friend. Just an emotionally needy, physically affectionate friend.

We really didn't have a lot in common. I don't know why I pursued the relationship--I'm sorry, friendship, so passionately. I was a huge Madonna fan (still am). He was into Rush, Leppelin, The Who, Boston. Probably. The boys in my high school were into Classic Rock. He probably was too. It didn't matter. It's not like we had to have everything in common. Variety is the spice of life, after all. It's what takes us outside of ourselves and allows us to see the world as a bigger place. Maybe my Unnamed High School Crush didn't want his world to be big.

He works with Nascar, I think. Lots of cars in his profile pictures. He protected me from being his friend, but not from viewing some of his pictures. Including his girlfriend or wife or woman he stood very close to one day while out at a winery and asked his "friend" to snap a quick picture of them together so he could send the passive aggressive message to the strange boy who would call his house at odd hours that he likes girls.

Well, that strange boy is now a strange man and I'm not falling for it, buddy. Yeah, I said "buddy." A nice, safe, masculine term of acknowledgment. Like "man", "bro," or "dude." Safe and non-threatening. Because even though you may not believe me, Anonymous Crush, I am safe and non-threatening. And really, really nice. Just ask my boyfriend. Not my friend or roommate, my BOY FRIEND. Manpanion. Domestic Partner, if that makes you feel better.

You know, Crush Who's Name I'm Not Mentioning Out of Respect, I should really thank you. Because you were my first. You kind of set the stage for the relationship I'm in now. I'm in love with a Potato Eater. A Corned Beef-loving, cabbage-smelling, delicious morsel of an Irishman. That's my Wes. I have no problem mentioning his name. Because I'm proud. Out, LOUD, and proud. Wes also loves musicals, which is why we're a better match than you and I were. Well, that and the fact that we were only fifteen and not ready for a real relationship.

I like Irish guys, thanks to you. And if you were my Facebook friend, I could say a proper, modern thank you. Not really "say", per se. But write...well type. And thanking you would involve sending you a Facebook message and not really hearing what your voice sounds like now as an adult. Is it deeper? You still have a pinhead, judging from your pictures. But is your voice at least more mature than you are?

Facebook's a bit impersonal, actually. But thanks to you, I can't even do something impersonal to you.

I'm so mad I could reveal your actual name.

But I won't. Because I'm the bigger person.