Once upon a time...

In the third grade, I really started to feel like there was something missing in my life.  I know that's really young to be thinking about life, love, and intimacy; but I knew something important was missing.  I felt incomplete.  At the age of just 8 years old I would lay in bed at night and fantasize about this girl I had known since kindergarten.

I would lay in bed and pretend that she loved me deeply and I loved her.  I didn't even have a crush on this girl, but my young mind couldn't make up a face for this game I would play every night in my head before I slept.  I would imagine talking to her about all of my feelings and secrets and she would share with me her inner most thoughts which I would have to make up on my own.

I thought a lot about how a girls mind might think differently about things and I tried to imagine how that would affect her feelings and thoughts and reactions to make believe scenarios.

I would take one of my larger blankets and arrange it to roughly a girl's body shape.  I would entangle my arms and legs around it's make shift arms and legs and I would drift off to sleep imagining that I was loved, adored, appreciated on some deep emotional level.

I played out a wedding in my head.  I played out becoming a father.  I would fantasize about stroking her hair and rubbing her belly, caressing her thighs, and embracing her hard against me.

As Ii got a little older, 4th and 5th grade, I developed a crush on a different girl and I would replace her into my fantasies.  In my mind we would go on picnics, play at recess, sit together and watch TV.  Just the idea that someone wanted to spend time with me, care if I got hurt or was sad, and love me was so important to me that i couldn't sleep at night unless I played these games in my head.

I did eventually, in 4th grade, ask this girl to be my girlfriend.  You know how that goes, I just wanted to hold her hand.  She called me a nerd.  And yeah, I was the smart kid in class. I was a geek for sure. In so many ways I still am.  A couple years later after pining for her from afar, I asked her if we could just be friends...  She never got back to me on that one.

I got past it pretty easily, developed other crushes and so on.  But still, I always felt unloved and eventually began to feel unlovable....

I don't know if it was because the way my family always fought or if my parents didn't show affection the right way or if I've just always been a hopeless and helpless romantic...