When I was two - almost three -  we moved to Hollywood Beach, Florida. A little boy named Cooper lived in our apartment complex. Cooper had every single toy in the world. When you walked into his house there were little paths that his mother had carved through the knee deep toys. In my mind’s eye, it was a cornfield maze of toys.

Cooper was a real brat. He hit the other kids and didn't share his toys with them.

Cooper did share his toys with me because he loved me. I know that because my mother told me that he asked to marry me. We lived there for a year. Alas, though I turned three during that time, Cooper was an older man by almost 18 months. It was not meant to be. Cooper’s toys are one of my first memories and also my first lesson about men: If they love you, they share their toys and then ask you to marry them.


1979

I went through a major dating drought for the next few years. We moved around a lot and then settled in Gulf Breeze, Florida just before I turned six. A little boy named Jake lived across the street. He had fire-engine red hair and a lot of freckles. His older brother took us into their rickety RV one day and played The Jay Giels Band record “Centerfold” for us. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew it was probably dirty.

Jake took me by the hand that day and led me out into the woods. He kissed me on the mouth. (Yes, my first kiss!) Then he asked me if I wanted to see his boy bits (artfully referred to by Jake as his "thing"). I didn’t know what to say. I stared at him blankly and audibly blinked while opening and closing my freshly-kissed mouth like a fish. He yanked down his swim trunks and said, “TA-DA!” I didn’t look. I just laughed really hard.

Jake didn’t take me into the woods again after that. But, he did teach me my second lesson about men: Never laugh when they show you their penis.
 
1985

I had my little crushes and schoolgirl flirtations after that, but Eric was my first real “boyfriend”. I was in the sixth grade and felt rather important because I had a locker and more than one teacher. Eric was a little bit of a jerk, but I liked the feeling of someone liking me that was a jerk to everyone else.

One of my best friends had sex with him in a hot tub. At the tender age of eleven, I learned Very Important Man Lesson #3: If your man is a jerk - no matter how smart and cute you are - you cannot compete with a whore in a hot tub.

 
1987 - Same Shirt, different boyfriend.

Rick was my seventh grade boyfriend. He was 15 and in the eighth grade. That should have been a tip-off but he was beautiful and dangerous. We had dated most of the school year when he started acting strangely. One night, I went into my room and closed the door to put my pajamas on. He was hiding next to my bed. He had popped the screen out of my window and climbed through. I begged him to leave before my father shot him in his crotchal area.

I had finally forced him out the window when the dog started barking. My father screamed, “GET THE GUN!” to my mother, then ran out into the humid night in hot pursuit of “The Guy Trying to Break In”. He got away, but I broke up with him the next day at school. Two weeks later he got run over by a car while riding his bike.

I went to visit him in the hospital. He had a broken leg and arm. I leaned in to hug him and he said, “I did it to show you how much I love you. I’d die for you.” His mother heard this and all hell broke loose. I was banished from the room, he was shipped off to live with his Dad and I never saw Rick again.
Important Man Lesson #4: When a man tells you he’d die for you and it sounds like a life plan rather than a platitude, it’s time to leave.

 
1992

The next serious boyfriend was Tim. We had been friends for years. We dated until my junior year. On Valentine’s Day, he told me he was moving to Massachusetts to live with his mother. He was sick of school and she’d let him drop out. So, I was dumped on Valentine’s Day and had no date to the Junior Prom. Important Man Lesson #5: If he’s too lazy to stay in school, find another date to the prom. Quickly.

 
1994 (I know I look like some sort of child-bride. I was.)

I went off to college and got engaged to my first husband when I was still 17. We were married five months later.

After ten years and two children, I learned Important Man Lesson #6: No matter how much you love someone, it doesn’t always work out. He’s one of the best men I’ve ever met. I love him as my brother, friend and kid raising partner. But, we just wanted different things. That’s a good lesson, but a very costly one.

2004

Finally, I met The Man. He taught me the best lesson of all:
If you’re patient - cosmic, earth-shattering love can come to you - even if you’re older - even if you have children – even (and maybe ESPECIALLY) when you don’t want it. He made all my lessons irrelevant - but I would still never laugh at his penis.