The Percussion Boy

Or how I got my first boyfriend

A year of confidence!

Moving along in my chronology, let us head into 8th grade. I had a wonderful 8th grade year. I became quite body conscious over the summer between 7th and 8th grade and decided to go on Weight Watchers, losing about 30 pounds. I felt beautiful and confident in myself, and it showed in the way I acted in social situations. Let me just say here that internalized fat phobia is a real thing, and I don’t want to imply that being thin made me more charismatic or beautiful. I felt better about myself because I believed society’s lie that thin is beautiful and fat is not. I also was pretty close to being done with puberty by 8th grade, so I didn’t feel or look as awkward as I did in 7th grade. The reason I had a great 8th grade year is because I had more confidence, NOT because I was thin.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I ended up in a homeroom class largely filled with other band nerds like me, so I spent a fair amount of my day with other kids with whom I had a lot in common. I had another pretty serious crush early that year on a new boy to the school. I’m honestly not sure exactly what drew me to him. I think it was that he was different, from outside of our town (like me) and had some different ideas and ways of interacting than the boys I’d known previously. He liked Beavis and Butthead, so I sneakily watched episodes of that on MTV when my mom wasn’t home, as she didn’t approve of the show. I honestly wasn’t a huge fan of it myself, but I wanted to better understand this guy.

Ironically, when I type “oboe,” most of the stock images that come up are of clarinets, so I found a photo of a Loree oboe, which is the type I played in college. (You can see the photo and buy an oboe for yourself here.)

I played oboe in the school band, which made me a woodwind. (For those unfamiliar, the oboe is a double reed instrument that looks a little like a clarinet but has a very different sound.) In 8th grade, we started marching for the 8th grade football games and the town Christmas parade. Unfortunately, oboes do not march, as it’s too difficult to take care with the reed while marching around the field. Double reed players typically play in the pit for marching band. If you’ve ever been to an American football game and watched the halftime show, the pit refers to the instruments and musicians on the sidelines who don’t march, e.g. the xylophone and/or marimba, a gong, and other such percussion instruments. However, I had pretty good rhythm, so my 8th grade band teacher wanted me to play on the drumline instead of the pit section. Specifically I played bass drum, which helps keep the beat for the whole band while marching.

I played this type of bass drum. (Photo by JACQUELINE BRANDWAYN on Unsplash)

I became pretty good friends with the guys on the drumline which, from 8th grade through 12th grade, was all guys except for me and one or two other girls. The guy I liked was also on the drumline, playing the snare drum, if I recall correctly. We would all hang out at the lunch table and before and after school. I was full-blown teenager by then, standing around chatting with my friends whenever possible and calling them on the phone after school to talk for hours, then hurriedly finishing up my homework before dinner. As I mentioned previously, this was also the year I noticed that cliques were starting to form. Friends from my school years have informed me that they were well on the way to gelling before then, but I first really noticed them in 8th grade. I have a very clear memory of walking down the hall with my class, passing another 8th grade class, and hearing a few of the girls from the other class call out, “Skank!” at some of my friends. The friends in my class shouted back, “Prep!” It felt sort of surreal to me that these groups were coalescing and became so vitriolic toward one another, especially since I had just been in a class with, and considered myself friends with, some of the “Preps” the previous school year.

The sneak attack

Anyway, I was confident and spending most of my day with people with whom I felt more comfortable, meeting new guys, and spending afternoons talking with both girl and boy friends and on the phone. I had a great group of friends and felt really good about being an 8th grader.  Over the winter/Christmas break that year, one of the percussionists (not the one I’d had a crush on) and I were chatting on the phone. I remember that we were about to hang up, and he sneak attacked me with, “I like you!” right before hanging up. I was sort of surprised, but also quite flattered. This was the first time a guy had actually told me he liked me. Honestly, I really still had a crush on the other percussionist, but I did like this other guy as a person and as a friend. I also believed that it was best to be friends with someone before becoming romantically involved, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I decided that I would sneak attack him back on a call the next day.

This is 8th grade me with my grandmother, who is now deceased, and my younger cousin. We were at a family reunion.

Of course, this was over winter break when we were both 13/14 years old, so there was about a week during which we only talked on the phone. We did meet up at his apartment (to which my mom had to drive me), and we played basketball and hung out a bit (with the other percussionist that I still had the crush on). It was fun, but I wouldn’t say it felt natural trying to be boyfriend and girlfriend. When school started back, we sat together at the lunch table and tried to hold hands and act like we were together, but it just felt weird and awkward. It became abundantly clear to me that we were really just better off as friends. So I had the tough conversation with him about that - I said I did like him, but it felt weird as boyfriend and girlfriend, and maybe we should go back to just being friends. Fortunately, he took it well, saying he felt the same. Hopefully, he truly was feeling the same way and not just hiding his disappointment well. We actually sat together at lunch that same day, and it felt less weird and more normal than it had the whole week before. The whole “relationship” lasted about 2 weeks, one of which was during Christmas break, without actually seeing each other. Still, he was my first actual boyfriend.

Moving on

We sort of lost track of one another in high school, as he eventually dropped out of band to focus on ROTC, while band became my main activity. I did run into him years later, after graduating college, at our local university campus. I was working in the Alumni Office and found out that he had become a campus police officer. He seemed to be very happy, and that always makes me happy to hear about old friends, and particularly old boyfriends. Interestingly, he and one of my best friend’s husband were also good friends! It is a small world, especially in a Southern town.

So - to the genuinely good guy who was brave enough to say he liked me, even if it was right as we were hanging up, thank you for being able to stay friends when it was clear that “dating” wasn’t the right direction for us.

What was your experience with your first boyfriend? Did you ever have a relationship that really felt like it was better as friends?