The next four years were pretty much dry land, although there was this one kid from my class, we were about 14 years old and our relationship lasted for the incredibly long time of one month. This, for us, of course, seemed like forever!

When I was 15 I decided to go to the United States of an exchange year. Everybody told me that I will either fall in love before I leave Austria or before I leave to go back home after the year. The first case did luckily not occur, but the second one did. It was Joe, the 17 year old brother of my best friend, now at that time I turned 16 about a month ago, and he told me he would take me to Prom. I was so unbelievable happy, and I also fell in love. Now that was in April and to understand the situation you have to know that I was supposed to leave the States in June. So there was I, so much in love that I couldn’t eat or sleep and I had to leave him? Yes!

After two month of wild romance I had to leave. I had to go back and I felt terrible.

We e-mailed every day and I visited at Christmas. But then, in March, just a few days before my birthday, I got THE e-mail. Now, I hope ya’ll now what that means! Yes he broke up with me! I felt like someone knocked me right of my feet. After that happened, there were some drunken and gross happenings (the legal drinking age in Austria is 16 by the way), which I rather do not tell.

What I learned from all that? That you should go the save way and take the neighbours boy. I don’t know about you guys but in Austria we have that one saying that goes somewhat like that: The first choice is the best choice. I think I can say that I still have a crush on him. I’m not a very quiet girl and usually I say what ever comes to my mind. But when I see him and we talk I find myself not being able to do that.

I love funny people, and Aaron certainly is that. At 15, I’d never met anyone as intelligent and witty as Aaron, of any age (and still haven’t). The more I hated him, the more I was drawn to him in spite of that. I was determined to catch him out. He told me he was a writer…I told him he was a wanker. By this stage everyone else had fallen in love with him, as most people inevitably do. I was fighting his annoying charm as much as I could. I was dating someone else…a hilarious Arab boarding student who eventually got expelled for pot. I gave up the time I should’ve been spending with him to volunteer to be in Aaron’s school play. I hated the thought of being on stage, but Aaron’s bizarre appeal was undeniable. We flirted mercilessly during rehearsal and within a month became best friends. We spoke every night on the phone for hours and shared everything with each other. I still can’t describe the connection we had…I guess it was that clichéd “click” that people describe.

I knew he was in love with me, (apparently I was the hot girl at school) but we never said anything to each other. He stood by while I had my first year long relationship with the single most boring person on the planet. Typical old thing, I was 16, he was tall, dark and sexy. But after the traumatic experience I’d had with an overly attentive teacher, he was what I needed…strictly catholic and therefore unthreatening. But Aaron was always there…I’d hang up the phone after talking to the boyfriend and call Aaron, relieved to be able to laugh with him (and occasionally take part in a bit of phone sex) for the rest of the night. Aaron’s mum was my art teacher, and was quite a liberal parent. She let Aaron have 6 months off school to write, then enrolling him in a more creative school in Melbourne (Australia), an hour away. I so wanted to follow him but was at my horrible private school on a scholarship and didn’t want to disappoint the folks. They’d already shelled out significant amounts of money at this pompous school that churned out doctors, lawyers, engineers and economists. All I wanted was to be a painter and a musician…which is probably why I also wanted Aaron. So I made my move.

I went to stay at his house. Apart from having done the whole phone sex thing, we were always very physical with each other (I often turned the other cheek when he put his hand up my skirt in English class). His parents and sister finally went to bed and we put on a nice romantic DVD…Robin Williams doing stand up. It was whilst rolling around with laughter together, after 2 and a half years of flirtation that we began to make out – on the couch, floor, kitchen bench…everywhere we could until 4am. The love story continued for 4 years, until recently when we called it quits. We are still the best of friends and I’m sure I will always love that unlikely gangly, overweight 14 year old boy wearing way too tight jeans and unsightly Hawaiian shirt…after all, who could ever compare to that?

About half hour later he popped over, hands holding stacked glasses – A classy type on man, but he took my number all the same and we left. We were texting and chatting for a few days, then met up for a proper date. I stayed sober and we got on really well. The night ended with an adequate amount of making-out, and we saw each other on off for 3-4weeks. This worked well for me, as I wanted to keep him arms length and make sure he wasn’t in it for just the one thing … That I still had. Anyway after one evening I invited him in and all was lovely, maybe a little noisy- But what the hell, revenge on the flatmates who kept you up till 3am with nightime … well not sleeping. We carried on seeing each other for another month … while seeing each  other less and less … in the end he tried just coming over on his half hour break from work to ‘See’ me – That was soon stopped. So even waiting for ages, keeping him at arms length, for what seemed long enough, to make sure he the the one I wanted to give it away to – Obviously wasn’t. But I enjoyed myself all the bloody same!

Of course that hurt me a lot because my cousin and I were very close and I shared everything with her, naturally I had told her about my crush on Tim.  In my hurt, I met another foreign exchange student from Germany named David. 

David and I became very close friends, we both loved the same things and just loved each other’s company.  We’d spend almost every day together.  Well, I ended up completely falling for David and it was really hard for me to say goodbye to him when he left for Germany.  I am now a Junior in college and David and I are still really good friends.  Our relationship now is kind of strange.  We can go months and months without talking to each other and then one day I’ll call him or he’ll call me and we talk like we’ve just seen each other yesterday.

As a Freshman in college, I came out to my friends as bisexual.  They were all very understanding and supportive of me.  Especially one of my girl friends, who will remain nameless.  She and I became close and started a little “fling.”  

It went really well for a while, then her uncle committed suicide and then everything took a turn for the worse.  She became really distant and so I thought I would do something nice for her.  I drove home from college, she was still in high school at the time, and placed flowers and a stuffed dog in her locker for Valentine’s Day.  When I came back to my dorm room that night we started talking online and she ended our relationship.  It hurt me a lot, not because of the actual breaking up but the method in which she chose to do it.  We’re both trying to remain friends but our friendship has never been the same.

My love life has had it’s ups and downs but I wouldn’t change anything that has happened.  I’m happy with the person I have become because of these ups and downs.  I am still young, there will be more ups and downs in my love life; look for a sequel to this story.

I didn’t really care about boys at all.  In fact, boys kind’ve weirded me out; it was the girls that fascinated me.  As I watched them, it was the way that they looked and smelled, the way that their hair would swing gently in a rhymic motion down the hallway.  How they knew “just” how to lacquer their hair with the mile high bangs. I kept thinking to myself, why wasn’t I able to do that?  Why wouldn’t any of those girls talk to me?  I don’t know, maybe it was I wanted to be their girlfriend instead of just their “girl” friend?

Julie.  She was a blonde, charismatic, hippie chick, who was into Doc Martins, ripped jeans, flannel shirts, and Alternative Christian music.  I only had one creative writing class with Julie. I was mesmerized by her,  she was everything that I wasn’t and could never hope to be in high school.  During class, I always made sure that I had a clear view of her radiance.  She literally glittered in the florescent light and beige carpet.  Julie was full of life and laughter, and when she spoke in class, she was brilliant and dripping with charm.  She spoke of politics, and genocide, about empathy and apathy and her favorite food.  It didn’t matter if she asked for a drink or water or she was on her soapbox about euthanasia in Africa. Julie commanded the classroom. She read aloud of her writings and they were not of a 16 year old girl, but of a 25 year old graduate student who is studying Poli-Sci with a minor in Women’s Studies.  I was absolutely enthralled by her.  But she never realized that I existed.   

At the time, I was too ashamed to think that I was a girl that was into girls, so I never let on that I liked her. We spoke just a few times in class, but it was insufficient because I never said anything that I REALLY wanted to say to her.  Like, “You’re brilliant, you’re beautiful, you are stunning.  Want to be my girlfriend?”  In 1993, being gay, was really not the way to shoot yourself up to the top of the high-school popularity food chain.  

So, I admired her from a distance.  Eventually, the class ended and she went her way and I went mine. I think about Julie every now and again and about our one sided tryst in high school.  I saw her just once when I was in my early 20′s.  I was working at a testing center and I looked up and there was Julie in emulating light from all directions. She still had the long, wheat-golden hair, the Doc Martins and flannel shirts, but before I could utter a syllable, a large man with a stroller comes swerving in behind her.  I realized that the girl of my dreams had a husband and a baby.  I put on my professional smile and helped her with her test, afterwards, I told her (in my most charming way) that my name was Dana and we had a creative writing class together in high-school. She looked up at me, bleary eyed and said, “I don’t remember you. I don’t think I ever took a creative writing class. Do you have my test results yet?” 

My smile deflated as I told her the test scores (which were perfect…of course) and told her to have a nice day.  She gathered her husband and baby and I never saw her again.  I’ll think about Julie at odd moments in my life; at the grocery store, or buying shoes, or vaccuming the floor. I hope she is happy and I still wish that she was mine.

The fling that’s vivid in my mind is the one that happened this past July. Now, that fact that I had a so-called “fling” astounds my three bests. To most I’m known as the ultimate Mary, but the gals know me better (they’ve seen my wild/sassy side). They just didn’t expect my sometimes sassiness to turn into sexiness and take over my body (their words, not mine). Any who…

I met Ryan at, what I like to call, “the real life Dirty Dancing Resort.” I originally developed a crush on the owner’s son, a good guy who is handsome and funny. Ryan was his best friend, “the playboy,” the one I was warned to stay away from by some girlfriends. Uh-oh, intrigue! I didn’t do anything about it as first though because I never saw him and had other things to focus on. Then, unfortunately for me, we were paired as dance partners. I say “unfortunately” because this is a gal who can’t ignore a guy who likes to shake his tail feather. After that we began chatting frequently and after a night of drinking (devil that alcohol) the fling was in full swing.

After three weeks I was sure that I had achieved something great; turned this playboy into a one woman man. But, lo and behold I found out that he was dating one of my friends behind my back and that they had been together for months. At that moment I had a rush of so many emotions that difficult to describe. I knew I had to confess (if you can call it a confession when you didn’t know it was wrong in the first place) to my friend. I told her as soon as I figured out a way how, but didn’t know what do to about Ryan. Then I realized that Ryan prob. didn’t know that my friend and I were friends. Ah-ha! So, my friend and I showed up a party together, the look on Ryan’s face and the squeamish way he acted towards me was the revenge I needed.

Truth though, as bad as it seemed as the time, I learned a lot about myself. Which I guess is the best thing you can ask for. The sad part is that I don’t think either of them did because they’re still together.