By: John Silva – January 2025
As I look back at my relationships it was a pretty bumpy road. Basically, I was a small fish trying to figure out what this part of my life was about. And, even though I tried my best my record was dismal.
Tressa was my first love. Prior to Tressa I hadn’t paid too much attention to girls. She was very petite, well dressed, wore braces, and cute as she could be. I was madly in love with her. I gave her a special Valentine Day card, a small silver bracelet, all of my attention, and my heart. Her response was simple. I’m not interested. I was in the sixth grade. So much for true love. Years later, we had a chance encounter, and it turned out she liked girls more than she liked boys. Who knew?
Judy and I were both in the same eighth grade class. She was short, bouncy, energetic, and almost always chewing gum. And she was a knockout. It was hard not to notice Judy because she was very well endowed and had the largest breasts of all the girls in the eighth grade. I couldn’t believe that she had agreed to go with me to the Friday night dance at the Boy’s Club. Unfortunately, the extent of my dancing skills consisted of doing the box step to slow dances. Before I knew what was happening, Judy was out on the dance floor dancing with some guy doing dance routines from the Roaring Twenties. They were doing that criss-crossing thing with your hands and knees, jumps, and splits. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Who knew? The last time I saw Judy, she was sliding across the gym floor on her knees for a grand finale. I was alone when I walked home after the dance.
Delores
Her name was Delores. I was in eighth grade and madly in love with Delores. Everything was going well until our last date when she informed me that when we were making out she had feelings that she said she didn’t feel she could control. She also told me she was signing up for classes at the Catholic Church the next week because she wanted to become a nun. I was beginning to understand there was so much that I still had to learn.
Helen
Was a tease, and always just out of reach. She would smile playfully, and then off she went. I hoped she would be interested in being my girlfriend. But, that didn’t happen.
The girl on the next block
I can’t remember her name. She was a casual interest.
Christine
Her name was Christine, and she lived in Elmwood Park. I can’t remember her last name, but we met at the Hub roller rink. On the last time around the rink I asked her if she would go to the prom with me… three weeks before the dance and dinner. Talk about cutting it close. She dumped me after the prom. It was my own fault. I wanted to kiss her too much.
Linda
Her name was Linda and she knocked my socks off. I only got to kiss her once or twice, but boy could she kiss. Her lips were so soft… I was in heaven. Sundays after church we would go for a walk around the block and I would hold her hand. I was in heaven. Months later, she had stopped coming to church and I was missing our walks. So I wrote her a love letter of sorts telling her how wonderful she was, and how much I missed her. I got a note back from her mother explaining her father was a drunk and a brute, and Linda didn’t feel safe at home anymore. So, she got married and left home with no plans to return. I cried every night for two weeks. Turns out her newly acquired husband was worse than her father… so sad.
Paula
Paula was plan B. She was kind of a plain Jane, didn’t talk much, wasn’t very interesting, just skosh heavy, and wore a girdle which later in our relationship I found difficult to remove. But, she wasn’t demanding, kinda nice and available. On our first date, I kissed her three times. I sent her a clear message. I loved to kiss girls, and if that didn’t suit her, we needn’t go any further. She turned out to be a good kisser or so I thought, and she told me over and over how much she loved me. Now, I’m not so sure. I think I was a means to an end.
We dated for about five years, and were often intimate during that time. As soon as I graduated from college we got married, and I was soon teaching drafting at Prosser Vocational High School which allowed me to keep my 2A draft status and avoid the horrors of being a part of the Vietnam war. I was always faithful to her. We had three kids. And I ran the architectural department at Triton College. A number of years into our marriage things changed. The woman I had chosen to live my life with forever wanted a divorce. I was heartbroken, but I stayed in a very unhappy marriage for twenty six years so our kids would not be raised by a single parent. During that time it felt like she did everything she could think of to make my life miserable and force me to divorce her. She even lied to my mother when she was dying and told her I was having an affair. The third time she told me she wanted a divorce, I said OK, enough was enough. Two of the kids were in college and the third would soon graduate high school. She kicked me to the curb, and that was that. It’s been fifty years and she still doesn’t talk to me.
Kay
I met Kay at a singles dance where I was supposed to meet someone else who didn’t show.
Once we were married, Kay changed
Charlotte