I don't deny that the feelings are strong and real, it's just that I, as the reader, look on the romances as sweet, innocent, and generally doomed by the growing-up yet to be done.

When I was fourteen I very very briefly dated a boy who was nearly 16 and he was defintly wanting to have sex. I wasn't. But more than that I remember being freaked out because he was talking about being together forever and stuff like that and I can remember thinking "I'm 14!!! I want to date other guys!!!"

Lord, when I was 14 I was a clueless lump and the very idea of dating was somewhere on the comprehension level of algebra.

I was pretty much a clueless lump as well. Dating this guy was liking be run over by the clue bus repeatedly and painfully. And in my grand tradtion of passive aggressive avoidance, I got myself grounded so I didn't have to deal with him. A couple rounds of "I can't go to the movies for the next few weeks because I'm grounded" led to him breaking up with me, which was a massive relief on my part.

I met my first boyfriend two days before my 14th birthday. We dated for a year, but never got anywhere remotely near The Sex.

I wonder if it was a growing-up-in-the-country thing. Far few opportunities for just hanging out there on the farm.

Nah, I grew up mostly in small cities and I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 20. Of course, I'm still with him. I'm just really lazy, dating is hard work.

My amazing ability to pick out the really really wrong guy for me started at a young age. Not that all the guys were creepy losers, but pretty much every guy I've been involved with has been wrong for me in some way, shape or form. The guy I dated the longest, who was a very sweet, nice guy, was also the Very Vanilla Boyfriend.

I'll be wearing a t-shirt that says "Legal" Will that be in two or three years? Either way, worth traveling for, Lizard. Debating borrowing tape, but feel my mom, who's quite shy, might1. back out. and 2. Decide you guys are freaks. Hec, she was concerned about your reaction to being compared to a savant. I said, "Mom, he still talks to me after I called him a 'twisted bastard'. I think we're cool." She said, a la Joyce, "OK, honey, if you're sure,"

Oh, I totally expected all my crushes and the one brief actual romance I had in middle and high school to last forever. In fact, I had fewer crushes than most girls, because I tended to stick to the same one for several years, thinking there was some inherent virtue in fidelity and loyalty, even when the object of my constancy didn't know I was alive or wished I'd stop following him like around like a puppy.

Unfortunately, I didn't outgrow that particular stupidity, and the related belief that you had to always "like" someone, until I was 23 or so....