Bus = boyfriends!?

I am amazed at how my brain works sometimes, and how it can jump around all over the place.

Today I saw a bus. It got me thinking about old boyfriends! Which got me thinking about my first boyfriend, which got me looking at the types of boys I chose a boyfriends, which got me thinking about how some of them had turned out! All because of a bus…

I was surprised to realise that my first three boyfriends were short and blond, much like my husband. I had this perception of myself always being interested in tall, dark, and delicious, but clearly, after some thought, that is not so.

My first two boyfriends were in primary school. I don’t know where either of them ended up. Number three was in my first year of high-school, he was three years older and thought himself madly in love with me…for a whole week! Even bought me a gorgeous little ring. He ended up covered in tattoos and a house-painter (with a thing for fishing). I thought he was rather sweet when I was with him and I was devastated when he dumped me (I was rather young and his mates were giving him a hard time about it). I had a couple of momentary boyfriends later that year, I recall being a bit of a bitch about it. I wish I could remember more, actually, as the memories are very dim, blips on the radar.

I remember a couple of crushes I had. One boy I played chasies with (with him and other friends), but we never ‘went out’ together. He was a fun kid, from a rough home. He ended up being a druggie with a few kids. His partner was a girl I had gone to school with too, nice enough, just a bit rough around the edges. Another boy I had liked sat up the other end of ‘my’ verandah with his mates. They were a couple of years older and very full of their own self-importance (except for the one I liked, he was shy and quiet). I asked him out a couple of times and he would blush and refuse and then I would hassle him about why not, lol. He ended up a police man in the big town nearby.

I was very forward in my second year of high-school. My first year was spent finding my place, who my friends would be, where I fit in with everyone else. I wasn’t a loser, but I wasn’t too far from it either. I hung out with girls who were like me, a little shy, not so confident, a bit different in their hobbies (we weren’t surfie chicks, and living in a coastal town that put us definitely in the out crowd straight off). One of the girls is still my friend, twenty years later (we were friends in primary school too).

I came into my own in my second year of high school. I looked good physically – I had filled out a bit, got my hair done nicely, got contacts instead of glasses, the package was pretty good. I look at photos of that time and wish I had managed to look after myself better in the following years, because even I think I was pretty damn cute. I had also grown in confidence. I was working in my family’s fruit and veg shop, so had gotten used to talking to people, I had managed to attract a bit of interest from boys, and I had friends who knew and accepted me. What more could a girl want. However, I made a choice at that point in time that was to put me in a completely different direction.

Over the holidays before my second year I had met and started dating a tall, dark, and cute boy who was 4 years older. He worked in the shop next door, had quit school and was training to become a baker. He was very cute. I was surprised my mother and her partner allowed the relationship because I was only 13 and he was 17. Later it turned out that my mother had allowed my relationship with this boy/man and his family as a way to get out of her relationship and the town we were in. How? Well, she didn’t like her relationship and when she found out that my boyfriends family were moving out west and a good distance away from where we were she convinced them to help her move out there as well (in secret, in the middle of the night, when my stepfather was away fishing). Now, I don’t recall life with my stepdad being all that bad. He was a firm disciplinarian and had a bit of a temper, but if you knew how to handle him he wasn’t an issue. I loved living on a farm and didn’t mind working in the shop and I wasn’t aware of my mother being unhappy (but really, what teenager notices their parents lives?). So perhaps things were bad. My mother found a way to leave and that was that.

A few months after we left she started trying to stop my relationship with D and his family. I guess that she had got what she wanted and had decided that it was inappropriate for us to be together after all. Um...bit late now! I was now hooked into a relationship with someone who made me feel all the things my mother didn’t have the time or energy for – I was wanted, loved, thought about. Mind you, it wasn’t perfect; he was controlling and jealous. I did try to break up with him at one stage after my mother had moved us again, to a large town close by, but he convinced me to stay. So what was the choice I made? After going to three high schools in 6 months, and feeling completely unwanted by my family, I decided to leave home. I ran away to a big city and lived with a member of my boy friends family. I sent a letter home telling my mother I was fine. That was the last contact I had with her for 3 years. I left because I felt it was the only choice I had. It turned out I was pregnant (I was 14 years old, so that was not a good thing). D and I set up home in a country town and stayed there for the next few months, waiting for baby. My partner, by this stage, had grown even more controlling, to the extent where he would have me come to work with him (as a baker he worked nights) and I would sleep in the back of his car in an alley, so he could check up on me.

Bub arrived (a boy) six weeks early. We enjoyed him for a while, enjoyed being parents, until he contracted meningitis and we discovered what hell on earth felt like as we watched him die. He actually died the week he was due, so I am grateful for the weeks that we had with him. I think our situation could have been avoided to some extent if we had family nearby, but because I was ‘in hiding’ and a minor, we had to be well away from both our parents. It left us very isolated and completely unsupported. Our relationship deteriorated and became emotionally, and at times physically, violent.

When I turned 16 we moved back to his parents home, my mother had moved on to another town by this stage, so we felt comfortable being there. After he found work in the big town we set up home there. We had the bare essentials, and it amazes me now how little we had. I was miserable though. I was scared to watch cartoons in case he got upset, I never went anywhere without him and he controlled all money. It got to the point where I had to leave and so I did, I packed a bag and went to the nearest youth refuge. Fours years after our relationship had begun, I was getting away. I started back at school and could see a future for myself. I stayed at the refuge for four months, then decided to return to my partner for a couple of months. He started seeing someone else while I was back, so we made the decision to split and I went back to the refuge. None of this was easy. I was 17 years old and had already had a lifetime of experiences that no-one should have.

And I was pregnant.

I discovered this after D and I had split finally. I told him and he made it clear he was not, and never would be, interested in this baby. His family, on the other hand, were, and were supportive of me to some extent. They had seen first hand D lash out at me, and had tried to intervene on my part a few times. But he was their baby boy, and ultimately they were never going to choose me over him. They were there for the birth of my son and they gave me some emotional support before and after and that was enough for me. I found myself a little apartment and settled in to life with my little boy.

Hmmm, didn’t I start out just having a general thought about my boyfriends? Where did this saga come from?

I spent 3 and a half years pretty much alone. I moved towns and lived with my best friend when she started uni. I completed high school by correspondence and got into uni into a degree that has almost nothing to do with what I am doing now. I had one short lived fling with a delicious Italian who drove buses (which is what got me started tonight in the first place, seeing a bus and thinking about him, lol), he couldn’t handle the age gap and the fact I had a small child (he was about 10 years older and had grown children). I kept pretty much to myself. Even though I was having a small social life with my girl friends and flat mates, there just didn’t seem to be any men interested in me. Sometimes I felt a little overshadowed by my very pretty friend, since I certainly wasn’t quite as cute as I was 5 or 6 years previously.

This is when I met DH.

His ex-girlfriend introduced us. When I was first getting to know my husband he was studying at a technical college to be a Teacher's aide. He was the first bloke to show even a glimmer of real interest in me in a long time, and I grabbed on to that and held on. Oops, my mistake.

Read a rant here, lol, but only if you want to.

These days I find I prefer admiring the tall, dark, and yummy types again. Especially ones in fireman/policeman uniform, lol.

What makes us select our mates? Is it desperation, pheromones, lust? What is the motivation for pursuing an unhealthy relationship? Fear of the unknown, lack of self confidence, lack of choices? How do you know when you have found a 'keeper'?