My name is Dave Horwitz.
I am a writer living in LA. I perform at the UCB.
My friend and I created DEALBREAKER and we wrote a book about it. I make videos too. If that's not enough, I also
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DEHorwitz at gmail . com

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22nd June 2012

Text with 37 notes

The First Girl I Ever Liked

(NOTE: You will get more out of this if you cue up the most twee song you can find. In a pinch, any Belle and Sebastian tune will do)

When I was in 4th grade, I started to notice girls. Well, girl, specifically. Jackie (LAST NAME REDACTED BUT SERIOUSLY HER FULL NAME IS PERFECT IN A WONDER YEARS-Y KIND OF WAY) was nice to me and she did gymnastics and was very short and had dark brown hair. She let me play jacks with her and her friends during recess, and at the time, jacks were ALL that mattered. Like, crucial social developmental building block-type activity. Everyone was into jacks. And everyone was also into passing notes and all sorts of other pre-pre-pre-pre adolescent things that are adorable now but nerve wracking and life ruining to a 9 year old.

As the school year progressed, I was getting what was pretty clearly a CRUSH. An old school, starry eyed, what-is-happening-to-me crush on this girl. And as nice as she was, it was fairly obvious that she didn’t feel the same way about me. It was also painfully clear to my entire class that I liked her, which was devastating to me. No one could know my feelings! Why is this up for public scrutiny? We’re just a couple of crazy kids, living our lives! We don’t need to be under the microscope, like a couple of nine year old Bennifers (really dug into the vault for that ref.)! As word/notes spread, people started to snicker at me during recess. People were finding out what was going on, and I couldn’t handle it. I was determined to avoid this PR nightmare the only way I knew how: A straight up smokescreen. 

One day after school, I lay on my parents’ floral print comforter, phone next to me. My mom stood by the bed and encouraged me. She even dialed the phone. I felt my hands shaking as I held the receiver, ready to diffuse this bomb. Voice trembling, I squeaked out, “Hi, can I talk to Jackie?” Her mom called to her, and I was off and running. I’m paraphrasing, but I’m pretty sure it sounded like this:

“Hey Jackie, it’s David. I, well, I just wanted to say, that I know a lot of people are talking about me, and saying that I like you and stuff, and I just want to let you know that… I DON’T LIKE YOU! So, even though people are saying that I do, I, um, I don’t. I mean I do as just a friend, but that’s it. Like a friend. So… yeah.” 

I’m sure that her eyes probably rolled out of her head in disbelief, but she was very sweet about it, and said that she was glad and that she felt the same way. And to the best of my memory, my classmates only made fun of me for it for a week after that. And now Jackie is married, and probably has a baby or something, but I’ll never forget the time she kickstarted my lifetime of liking nice girls with brown hair who are borderline emotionally unavailable. 

I can’t remember certain important dates, or my debit card’s expiration date, but I’ll never forget this story.

Tagged: memory

  1. speedandsleep said: great, now i’m listening to belle and sebastian
  2. all-americanbathsalts said: Well played
  3. theidiotking posted this