I used to be a teenage crybaby.
Okay, I still cry a lot, like when an old person or dog is struggling in any minor way. In my freshman year of highschool, however, I cried about boys.
In my English class, we read Romeo and Juliet, a play of star-crossed lovers, or at least that’s what it was to me at the time. I find the he plot far less romantic now, but back in highschool, I thirsted for a love like Romeo and Juliet’s.
“Have you ever been in love?” my teacher asked the class one day. I immediately started tearing up. Yes, I thought. I know what love feels like, I thought. (I didn’t). The problem was this: the boy I loved no longer loved me back. Even when we were in love, we only saw each other in school, and we only kissed twice, both of which were apparently not red flags. Back then, all I had were TV shows and Disney movies and Romeo and Juliet. Love was something everyone else found, so why did nobody love me?
“Can you stay back for a moment?” my teacher asked me at the end of class, her eyebrows furrowed with concern. Oh boy, I thought. I’m about to cry to my sixty-year-old teacher about a boy. I hit a low point that day, and that low point persisted through our entire Romeo and Juliet unit. I wanted so badly to have someone love me the way Romeo loves Juliet. It didn’t matter that they both die; at least they had someone love them, right?
