the presbyterian... history repeats, right?

My VERY first boyfriend will hereinafter be referred to as the Presbyterian.  (Why?  Because I'm Jewish - the fact that he wasn't was a very big deal.)  And tonight, as I was out with Newfie contemplating how to get this blog rolling instead of focusing my energy on his wonderful company, I realized that end of my relationship with the Presbyterian is probably something I have repeated throughout many of my failed dating attempts.

But be kind to me... I was 13.  I didn't know!  I was at an all-girls school, he at the local all-boys school.  We were both shy.  I don't, in fact, remember much of what he said to me...  he was painfully shy at that spring dance, where we danced one slow dance with that jerky side-to-side sway that 6th graders danced in the 80's -- oh yes, my hands on his shoulders, his hands at my waist, both of us straight armed and stiff.  Like a bad John Hughes movie.  Then he held my hand and then he was my boyfriend.  (Note: this is not the thing I've repeated.  I at least dance twice with a guy before I assume he's my boyfriend. But I digress.)

In the lives of 13-year-olds with over-protective parents in the mid-80's, dating is pretty much limited to school dances and phone conversations.  And in the intervening 4-months as spring stretched towards summer and I moved on to a new co-ed school that fall, even as I scrawled my name as "Mrs. Presbyterian" all over my notebooks, we spoke on the phone barely once a week.  I was in junior high now, and thought... maybe I should play the field a little bit.  There are boys here!  And I hadn't seen the Presbyterian since I became his girlfriend 4 months ago.

Even though I was a major dork, I hoped for just a little bit more... so I dumped him on Saturday afternoon.  A few hours before, his dad had said to him "don't you want to take your little girlfriend to the (major NFL team) football game next week? I have tickets for all of us!"  But I dumped him before he could invite me.  I cut out too soon for him to extend the invite.

I've often wondered... did I cut out too soon, really?  Or was it too little too late?  And can I really take something that happened when I was thirteen and assume it represents a pattern in my adult life?  Curious, eh? 

So really, that this occurred to me while I was at dinner with Newfie tonight may have worked in his favor.