Laura and I had been friends since kindergarten, which was far before the onset of puberty, so I had no unusual feelings for her until the end of the fifth grade.

I thought to myself, Laura’s kind of attractive.  Laura is different from the other girls.  She’s already my friend, so I don’t feel uncomfortable around her.  Since we were friends, I thought it would be much easier to ask her out.

This theory works for some, but for others-namely me-it is simply a fifth-grade fairytale.  As soon as I fell for Laura, it became impossible to talk to her.  This was okay at the time, however, because Laura was already in a relationship.

Unfortunately for me, the pickle I was in was much bigger than my inability to talk to Laura.  Laura was the gem of our class, and there were already three other guys who were fighting for her at the time.  The problem was, all three of them had a whole lot more jerk in them than I had.  It was like a love connection show, but I wasn’t even on her bachelor list.

Bachelor #1: Greg.

Greg and Laura would frequently get together as boyfriend and girlfriend, then break up shortly afterwards.  This was my first lesson about jerks.  A girl will realize that the guy she is seeing is a jerk, yet she will still chase after him.  Greg seemed to effortlessly reel Laura back to him, and whenever the two got into a fight, we all knew they would get back together eventually.  Finally though, Greg seemed to be thinking of throwing Laura back into the pond altogether and finding a better fish.  Good news for me.

Bachelor #2: Chad.

Chad had been Laura’s boyfriend when I first fell for her.  However, Laura did not seem to be very entertained by him.  Though Chad was a jerk, he pretended to be a nice guy by complimenting Laura and showering her with gifts; however, this didn’t hide the fact that he was a braggart and Laura was nothing more than a trophy to him.  Eventually, Laura became fed up with his attitude, but before she could dump him, he dumped her.  This confused everyone, including Laura.  My guess is that he suspected what Laura was planning and decided to end the relationship himself to protect his ego… (jerk)….  In any case, this was more good news for me.