My first boy crush
Going from one of the most recent situations all the way back to one of the earliest I can recall!
I think I was in grade 5, so I was about 10 or 11 at the time and I was good friends with this boy, lets call him Jack.
In anticipation of telling this story, I've been trying to think of a way to describe what he was like, what he looked like and how I saw him. I've decided that given I was the same age as him at the time, I'll describe him as a 22 year old guy.
Jack is 5"9, medium build and just slightly toned. He has rich, chocolate brown hair, dead straight, medium-long length. He has dark brown eyes, long eyelashes, some freckles on his nose and cheeks, and tanned skin.
Jack is one of the boys and likes to hang around with a group of guys who are generally pretty macho. He likes playing sport and going out with his mates. Regardless, he is a pretty sensitive guy, who is comfortable with his sexuality.
Apart from his mates, he has another group of friends consisting of two girls, Megan and Lucy (who will soon become his girlfriend), and two guys, Rob and Ben who are both a bit nerdy, a bit sensitive too, but mostly just normal guys (one of them is me btw).
I'm very close to Jack, and while there is nothing sexual about the relationship (because we were 10), there is a closeness and a bond that kids of that age would classify as being 'best friends'.
So now that you know how I saw him at the time, I'll head back to 1998...
Every day after lunch we would gather in 'the pit' (a sunken area in the classroom with steps around the outside which acted like a small amphitheatre) for reading time where either our teacher would read to us or we would read on our own. When our teacher read to us we were allowed to lay around the pit so we were more comfortable.
Some of us would also play with each others' hair, getting it braided (if it was long enough) or stroking your fingers through it.
So on this occasion Jack asked me if I could play with his hair and I said ok and he laid down and rested his head on my knee.
I was stroking his hair for a little while, not thinking anything of it. It just felt nice. I enjoyed playing with peoples' hair and Jack liked his hair being played with.
Then I noticed my teacher, who was reading to us, turn his head and look at me stroking Jack's hair. I don't quite recall the look he gave us, but I definitely remember feeling like I shouldn't be doing it.
I don't know what he was actually thinking, but I assumed that it was something like 'that isn't the sort of thing boys should be doing' and so I stopped.
Avoiding my teacher's eyes, I got Jack to sit up and that was that. In hindsight, I think that Jack was probably my first boy crush. Or maybe boys are just like that at that age, fine with physical affection, I don't know. I realised something while writing this. My reaction to the look my teacher gave me was more about a prejudice within me rather a prejudice that he may have had. I have no idea what his opinions of gays were. Maybe he was concerned about me and was thinking of giving me some counselling to understand who I was.
No matter how he felt about gays, I projected my fears, misunderstanding and prejudices onto him when analysing that look. I assumed he was thinking the worst. It was probably a defence mechanism but it meant that I assumed people had prejudices before I got to know them. That was a trend that continued until I came out 4 years ago, and even now I struggle to not automatically assume people have prejudices against me. I assumed my boss would be prejudiced against gays before I got to know him, just because he is from a different generation. Hell, I assumed most people at my work and at uni would be prejudiced just because they are in engineering.
Even though I frequently get proven wrong by people, the defence mechanism is still there.
I think I was in grade 5, so I was about 10 or 11 at the time and I was good friends with this boy, lets call him Jack.
In anticipation of telling this story, I've been trying to think of a way to describe what he was like, what he looked like and how I saw him. I've decided that given I was the same age as him at the time, I'll describe him as a 22 year old guy.
Jack is 5"9, medium build and just slightly toned. He has rich, chocolate brown hair, dead straight, medium-long length. He has dark brown eyes, long eyelashes, some freckles on his nose and cheeks, and tanned skin.
Jack is one of the boys and likes to hang around with a group of guys who are generally pretty macho. He likes playing sport and going out with his mates. Regardless, he is a pretty sensitive guy, who is comfortable with his sexuality.
Apart from his mates, he has another group of friends consisting of two girls, Megan and Lucy (who will soon become his girlfriend), and two guys, Rob and Ben who are both a bit nerdy, a bit sensitive too, but mostly just normal guys (one of them is me btw).
I'm very close to Jack, and while there is nothing sexual about the relationship (because we were 10), there is a closeness and a bond that kids of that age would classify as being 'best friends'.
So now that you know how I saw him at the time, I'll head back to 1998...
Every day after lunch we would gather in 'the pit' (a sunken area in the classroom with steps around the outside which acted like a small amphitheatre) for reading time where either our teacher would read to us or we would read on our own. When our teacher read to us we were allowed to lay around the pit so we were more comfortable.
Some of us would also play with each others' hair, getting it braided (if it was long enough) or stroking your fingers through it.
So on this occasion Jack asked me if I could play with his hair and I said ok and he laid down and rested his head on my knee.
I was stroking his hair for a little while, not thinking anything of it. It just felt nice. I enjoyed playing with peoples' hair and Jack liked his hair being played with.
Then I noticed my teacher, who was reading to us, turn his head and look at me stroking Jack's hair. I don't quite recall the look he gave us, but I definitely remember feeling like I shouldn't be doing it.
I don't know what he was actually thinking, but I assumed that it was something like 'that isn't the sort of thing boys should be doing' and so I stopped.
Avoiding my teacher's eyes, I got Jack to sit up and that was that. In hindsight, I think that Jack was probably my first boy crush. Or maybe boys are just like that at that age, fine with physical affection, I don't know. I realised something while writing this. My reaction to the look my teacher gave me was more about a prejudice within me rather a prejudice that he may have had. I have no idea what his opinions of gays were. Maybe he was concerned about me and was thinking of giving me some counselling to understand who I was.
No matter how he felt about gays, I projected my fears, misunderstanding and prejudices onto him when analysing that look. I assumed he was thinking the worst. It was probably a defence mechanism but it meant that I assumed people had prejudices before I got to know them. That was a trend that continued until I came out 4 years ago, and even now I struggle to not automatically assume people have prejudices against me. I assumed my boss would be prejudiced against gays before I got to know him, just because he is from a different generation. Hell, I assumed most people at my work and at uni would be prejudiced just because they are in engineering.
Even though I frequently get proven wrong by people, the defence mechanism is still there.
