Sorry I didn't do the assigned reading

I basically went boy crazy?

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I’ve had a running joke for years — years! — about how I started out as a big-time reader. That from the time I was a kid I used to read everything I could get my hands on. Books and more books, cereal boxes and restaurant placemats, road signs and album liner notes. Then I just … stopped. The punchline? I realized boys existed.

Of course that isn’t entirely true. I always knew boys existed. I never hated boys like some girls did. I never thought they were disgusting or at least disgusting enough to not like them. I had boyfriends in preschool and kindergarten and whether or not they knew they were my boyfriends was irrelevant to me. I had crushes on boys all through elementary school and had my first kiss in 6th grade when a boy who rode my bus came over to my house after school and I essentially shoved him up against the back of my house and gave him actual tongue because I watched way too many soap operas.

My point being, I always liked and loved and was curious about boys. I remember feeling sexual and curious even as a young girl, which is a thing no one talks about because grownups get very throat-clear-y when subjects like kids’ curiosity about their own bodies (or the bodies of others) come up. But I remember those feelings, very clearly. I mean, playing doctor isn’t new and it didn’t invent itself, people.