When I was eight, Mom asked all three of her boys to draw a picture of the girl we would marry one day. I gladly drew a short brunette with long hair and green eyes. I’ve always thought that I’d be married someday. My very first friend who was a girl was Jan Easton. I used to go over to her house across the street and play board games – her favorite was Park and Shop, and play with matchbox cars. But when I returned home I was teased by my brothers, who called Jan my “girlfriend.” Eventually I stopped seeing her. The teasing was too much to bear. My first fascination with girls was in the 5th grade. I had a dream about a girl, in fact she looked very much like the girl I ended up marrying. There was nothing sexual about the dream, only that I truly loved being around her and was mesmerized by her feminine beauty, smile, skin, and eyes. After that I was hooked! Of course there were boys my age that were ahead of the game and even had girlfriends then, I imagined because they were more confident in themselves or better looking. As I entered junior high school though, my confidence didn’t grow at all. I remember one girl asked me in front of the whole class, “Why is your brother so cute, and you’re so ugly?” Of course I was embarrassed and stunned, but my old friend Jan Easton stood up for me and told her to shut up and to look in the mirror herself. I have to admit though, when I look at pictures of myself then – acne, unmanaged greasy hair, wearing taped together bifocals – I now see what they saw. Not a pretty picture. Still, just being around a girl made my heart race. Mark Ward and I agreed when we talked at sleep-overs that we liked girls, ALL GIRLS. I had an opportunity to play “Spin-the-Bottle” for the first time in 7th grade, and got to kiss a lot of girls for the first time. That was awesome! I remember praying that the bottle would point to the one girl I really wanted to impress with my kissing skills. Once in a while it worked. The girls always seem to be more than happy to kiss whomever the bottle pointed to. Some of them kissed softly and sensually, others kissed a long time with a lot of lip pressure. I do regret that I never kissed Jan Easton. After all, that’s the least I could do for her standing up for me during the lowest point of my adolescent life.