Young Love is Old Again

By Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

In sixth grade, I asked the cutest boy in school to go steady. He said yes! The next two weeks were exhilarating, exhausting, and excruciating. My first foray into love was a learning experience.

I mention this because, after all these years, I was certain that girls have come a long way in the area of young love. I felt feminism had become the norm and that girls today take control of their love lives, but it seems we have taken a step back in time.

Like many other kids my age, my models on how to have a good relationship were not the best. My mother, a fiercely strong, self-sufficient, and intelligent woman, chose to remain in a marriage that was not healthy for her or her girls. Even she didn't fully understand why. At the time, divorce did not seem like an option based on her family's beliefs and her religious beliefs. In fact, divorce was not an option until divorce became the only option.

Needless to say,  I grew up watching and living in an unhealthy relationship. My father was not a great role model for what a woman should look for in a mate. My uncles were prominent in my life, but at the time, they were a bunch of hippies who were more interested in free love than true love. 

At a very young age, I knew that girls were supposed to want to have boyfriends. Even now I catch myself asking preschool girls if they have boyfriends. How weird is that? I make myself cringe when those words spill from my lips. Girls are groomed from the earliest of years to feel like they will only be whole if they have a man in their lives. I was not immune from this expectation.

Aside from the expectations assigned to my sex, I really did have a crush on that sixth-grade boy. He was cute, sweet, and a bit of a mystery. He did not attend our school regularly. He came and went like the wind. I never knew if he would be enrolled in our small Catholic school until the year began. It was always a treat to find him on the playground on the first day of school. I remember him being a bit of an introvert despite his immense popularity.

I remember that he loved the Beatles. I would give up my lunch hour on the playground to sit with him and two other friends inside at the audio table with our teal plastic headphones plugged into the jacks as he inserted the cassette tapes of Beatles music into the player attached to the vinyl table. He lost himself in the music, and I lost myself in his beautiful face.

One day in the hallway as we were changing classes, with my heart racing and my palms sweating, I ran up to him and stared into his grey-blue eyes as I mustered up the courage to blurt out, "Do you want to go out with me." This was code for "go steady", be exclusive, be boyfriend and girlfriend. Much to my surprise, he said, "Yes." Before he could "pin" me or slip his letter jacket on me, we ran away in different directions. This was no textbook Happy Days moment.

I was so proud of myself and, quite frankly, I still am. I was not a popular girl. I was not the prettiest or smartest girl. I was not an athlete or an artist. I was just a regular plain and boring kid in sixth grade. My courage and brazenness were inexplicable. Nevertheless, I did it. I asked the most desired boy out, and he said yes!

This boy and I were a couple for exactly two weeks. During this time, we never once looked at or spoke to one another. I was terrified. I had no idea what to do next. I willed him to call me or approach me, but he never did. What did happen was the biggest controversy any sixth-grade class had ever encountered.

Every day, before school and during our one hour recess on the asphalt playground/parking lot of our small school, the girls and boys would circle-up to debate over the relationship between the nothing girl and the amazing boy. It was astounding to know that these people, who rarely gave me a second thought, could spend all their free time at school talking about me and my beloved. 

Of course, I was never included in the great debates. Rather, I was relegated to the outskirts where I stood alone pining for my boyfriend's attention and wondering why these people cared so much about my dating status. They gesticulated, laughed, guffawed, murmured, and shouted all in the name of the romance that never was.

Two weeks after my proposal and his acceptance, the pressure got to him. As I sat at Silent Reading Time listening to more conspiratorial whispers at my expense, I felt the tap of rejection on my shoulder. Not wanting to respond to the tap, I remained hunched over my Judy Blume novel pretending not to notice. Moments later, a note, written on blue-lined notebook paper, neatly folded into a triangle, was thrust over my shoulder and into my face. Feeling doomed, I reluctantly grasped the note. With sixty eyes fixated on me and boring into my fragile soul, carefully reading my movements, my breath, and  my expression, I read the words hastily written by my beau, "I want to break-up with you."

My emotions were mixed with relief and sadness. I was glad to be done with all of the drama and controversy, but I was really sad that the boy of my dreams tossed me to the curb. Our love had been brief and oddly silent. We were paralyzed by our emotions, unable to connect beyond just going steady. Though it was the most inactive and wordless relationship I'd ever had, it was the most exhilarating one of my youth.

Now that my girls are at the age where they might find young love, I encourage them to be courageous and ask boys out. I tell them not to wait for a boy to make the first move. I instill them with my feminist beliefs and support them to be strong and true to themselves.

They are not on board with my advice. My older daughter scoffs when I suggest that she ask boys out. She insists that girls don't do that. REALLY!! She even went so far as to say that girls are only allowed to ask boys out to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. Upon hearing this I felt myself reeling as I searched for calender certain I had been transported back to the 1950's.

How is it possible that in 2018 a girl, my daughter, can truly believe that girls don't ask boys out? 

Had all my foremothers' work to fight for rights and equality been for not? Had bras been burned in vain? Where has free love gone? Do young women truly believe that boys should take the lead in all matters of the heart? Is this everywhere or just in small-town America? I can't imagine some girl in NYC wakes up in the morning hoping a boy will ask her out because she can't ask him out. Or, maybe it is more prevalent than I realize.

My younger daughter has no interest in dating. I am good with that. My older one has given dating a try a few times and discovered that for now, she prefers the company of her friends. She wants to keep her academics and athletics as her priority not allowing a mediocre boy to interfere with her passions. 

I am proud that my girls do not feel compelled to have boyfriends. After my brief relationship with that boy in sixth grade, I longed to have a boyfriend, a first kiss. Watching my sister fall in love made it harder. Not to mention my obsession with soap operas and the ridiculous and unrealistic love stories drilled into my brain day after day week after week. The magazines I subscribed to and the books I read fed into my romanticized expectations for young love.

All of that resulted in me giving-in and lowering my standards. I dated boys who I really didn't like just because they liked me. I got in too deep for too long in unhealthy relationships for years back to back to back. 

I want my girls to date boys for the right reasons. I'm glad they aren't in a rush. I'm glad they have a good role model in my relationship with my husband. I'm glad they see my mother and sister flourishing as single women. I'm glad they saw my in-laws married until death they did part. I'm glad they don't watch soap operas or read trashy magazines. I'm glad they put themselves first. 

I just wish they knew it's okay to ask a boy out!