most people don't know this, but my first major breakup was in... 4th grade, i think. i had two friends for a few years in elementary school. one was ryan, who was probably the biggest character of a friend i've ever had. he was a genuine hypochondriac - so much so that he would carry a bag a tissues in his pocket and wipe off door handles before he touched them (you can imagine how much we traumatized him when we stuck a sock in his mouth while he was asleep at a sleepover party). i would occasionally go over to ryan's house and we'd sit in his garage making intricate mazes on lined sheets of paper for each other to solve (very intricate actually; 1/16th in. wide corridors that filled up an entire 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper).

the other friend was paul. paul was this little tiny understated boy with freckles. i guess i spent most of my time with him and at his house. the new popular game at the time was The Legend of Zelda for NES and we'd all go over and play... or rather, he would play and we would coach him from the sidelines (video games were a big part of our childhood). we did other things too - he would occasionally come with me and my mother on trips to pismo beach where we would take a boat out to see the whales. i could safely call him my best friend at the time.

but, one day, me and ryan were out in front of his house burning insects with a magnifying glass and paul comes out in his way-too-understated-and-calm-for-a-fourth-grader way telling me that i needed to go home. so, i said, "... umm... o... kay?" and went home. later, i decided to call him and see what exactly happened, only to be told that i should never go to his house again and if it was at all possible, i should avoid him at school. my first questions was "why?" and he answered with silence. my second question was "are you mad at me?" and he answered with, "i don't know..." and i could hear the half-hearted shrug through the reciever. so, i was quickly starting to cry and was confused and everything. but he said he had to go and this was it, bye.

so, i was really upset; this seemed to come out of nowhere. i reacted as if it were a relationship and in my frustration, went and tore him out of any pictures that we were both in together. it was very strange for me. he gave no reason whatsoever and, the more i think about it, this may be a reason that i'm desperate to know the details when someone has broken up with me now... but of course you never really get them.

this whole incident left me alone; ryan decided to still spend most of his time with paul and i would mope about the playground or at home by myself for the next year or so. i saw paul a few times on the bus in high school, but i never talked to him. i never found out why it happened either. it's still a complete mystery to me.

this was the jumping off point in my long spiraling fall of consistent rejections in both friendships and relationships. i could tell many more stories just like this with other people, but this was the first one. i guess this maybe helps explain a little why i'm so paranoid?