My Best Relationship Was in Third Grade
Some couples make it look so easy!
Like most women, I’ve had good relationships and bad relationships. Hopefully I’ve learned something from each one. We have all been told by older and wiser women that we have to go through those relationships ourselves in order to learn the lessons. They can’t just tell us what we need to know.
As I’ve grown and changed with each relationship, I realized that I am re-learning lessons I knew a long time ago.
It may be strange to say, but I did have a very healthy relationship in my past. When I was in third grade. The things that came so naturally back then are the things I won’t settle on now.
We were friends first. That may sound kind of crazy, because what else is there when you are nine? But you might be surprised. Me and my first boyfriend, we only progressed to hand holding and pecking, thankfully. There were kids our age doing more. But we didn’t start with the elementary school love note that asked: Will you go out with me? There was no yes box or no box, or even a maybe box for us. We were already best friends.
I set the standards for how I’d be treated. And I stuck to them. There was also another girl who liked my boyfriend. He was the cutest boy in school, after all, and the first one to grow his hair into a rat tail. He tried what many men have tried on womankind since. He tried to date us both. He and I were not only friends, but we lived down the street from each other. So, he proposed that I be his Home girlfriend and the other girl could be his School GF. I told him no. It was all or nothing. He couldn’t have me and someone else. And guess what? He chose me.
I never did anything before I was ready. Even at the age of nine, boys tried to see how far they could go. My third grade boyfriend told me how he heard about something called French Kissing. He said he wanted to try it. Once he explained it, I knew it wasn’t for me. Not at nine years old. I told him no and not to ask me again. I’d let him know when I was ready. Probably around the time we turned fifteen. He may have been disappointed, but he never told me about it. Because he knew I wouldn’t back down.
As an adult I can look back on my first relationship and see that it taught me a lot. Pretty much everything I needed to know about romance I learned in third grade.
When was your first relationship? What did your first love teach you?
Insightful post, Emma! My first love taught me that the former “loves” weren’t love at all. Sure, there was infatuation, attraction and friendship, but love is so much more. I’ve learned that true love allows us to be ourselves and grow as individuals. And the best tends to happen when we are secure and happy in our skin. Once I became happily single, strong on my own two feet, Mr. Awesome/Right appeared. Sounds cliche, perhaps, but it really does happen.
It doesn’t sound cliche, because it is what is supposed to happen, right? It’s when you’re happy with yourself that you can be happy with someone else.
Good one, Emma. By fifth grade, I was as sure of myself as you were in third. Later, I lost that confidence. Like you, though, I got it back, at least when it comes to relationships.
Yeah, I wonder what it is that makes us lose it. Puberty? Is there some way we can help girls hold on to who they are?
Oh Emma, why does the world make us grow up so fast? Thank you for not giving in a nive years old girl! You have renewed my faith in humanity.:)
I know, kids do grow up too fast! We need to remind them to just be kids.
This is great! I love how you’ve taken lessons from your first relationship because they’re smart for everyone to follow regardless of age.
Yes, I think they are good lessons. That’s why I’m remembering them now. They are still important as an adult, maybe even more so.
I wasn’t ready for French kissing when I was a 14-year-old! Hahaha!
Fun post.
Neither was I! Thanks for pointing that out.
Emma, I laughed at your BF asking you to be his Home-girl. Wow, that’s pretty smooth for a third grader. Makes me wonder what he was like in high school. LOL!
That is a good question! We didn’t go to high school together, so I don’t know. But, I’m sure he was player!
What wonderful and valuable lessons to rechannel. I wonder why we lose that? It’s so weird. I remember being in Grade 7 on a class trip to Quebec. My best friend swindle my boyfriend from me because she was willing to show him her boobs and I wasn’t. And at that time, I remember clearly thinking “well if that’s what he’s all about, good riddance!” and never looked back. She and I stayed friends. If she wanted to date a moron, have at er’!
But later in life, in my teenage and early 20s, I’d have fought to the death to keep that douchebag. Weird.
I will say as I came into my late 20s (28-30) that spunk came back and I rose to the challenge demanding only the very best in my partner. It meant a very nasty divorce, a lot of people who didn’t understand or even agree with my choices, and the loss of a number of friends but in my heart of heart’s, I knew I was doing what was right for me. I was back to being that 12 year old girl who thought she deserved the BEST!
Here’s to knowing and living those lessons!
[...] Burcart describes the best relationship she ever had – back in the third grade. What I love about this post is that when we’re that young, [...]