1.

My first girlfriend to this day seems like a magical memory.  Which I'm sure is the same for a lot of you.  It didn't matter how shitty it ended.  It was your first so you see it through rose colored glasses.  I was in the seventh grade.  I was hooked up with this girl by my best friend growing up who will simply be called J.  I don't talk to J all that much anymore, but when I do see him I have a lot of fond memories.  J. had dated this girl before I did, and he hooked me up with her because I saw her picture and said (I can tell I hadn't developed my poets touch at that point in my life) DAMN!  So that was that.  I now had a girlfriend, and life for this awkward 7th grader with braces was sweet.  We were together for about seven months.  Which in the life of a 7th grader was like being married.  I was quite possibly the shyest kid in the school.  Shocking compared to the bitter cynic you people have grown to tolerate.  I was terrified of women.  I remember one of the days that has forever shaped my life.  In the Pittsburgh area we have an amusement park called Kennywood and every year our school would go on a picnic to the park.  It was a day we all looked forward to.  Well this year was going to be special.  I was going to Kennywood with my girl.  I was thrilled, life could not get better.  We walked around the park and had a great time.  Kennywood has this pond in the middle of the park.  You could for a reasonable price rent a paddle boat and float around the pond.  We decided to do this, and boy was I lucky we did.  On that pond in the middle of an amusement park in broad daylight where everyone could see I had my first kiss.  I can still remember it like it was yesterday, and if I ever start to forget I have one of those cheesy little photos that every amusement park in the free world whores out to make money off of little kids.  This is still one of my favorite possessions.  For the rest of the day we went on rides like the haunted mill, the mind ride, and a ride called Le Cachot (I actually shed a tear when I heard that thing burned to the ground).  Once we kissed it was like we couldn't stop.  I still smile walking through the archway of Kennywood.  So we continued dating and hit a little bit of a rough spot.  Another memory I can remember plain as day was around Christmas of that year.  I went over to her house to exchange gifts, her father watched over us like a hawk.  Like I would dare making a move on his only daughter in his house.  I had this thing about wanting to live long enough to learn to drive.  At the end of the night we finished our egg nog and I kissed her.  She turned to me and said "We're gonna be alright."  About 2 weeks later it was over.  We went out again in the next year but it wasn't the same.  I found out she was cheating on me with someone who was supposed to be my friend.  I can still remember the look on that kids face when I lifted him by his shirt and slammed him against his locker.  During college we hooked up once and I completely fucked up by running away.  Who knows what could have happened.  Now she's married and even though we admit that we both still have feelings for each other it would be wrong for us to ever try anything.  Like I said.  Rose colored glasses.

2.

After pining over girl number one for a long damn time my friend J. yet again set me up with a girl.  This time it was just to get her to leave him the fuck alone.  Seeing I had no other prospects at the time and hadn't had a woman interested in me for a long time I decided to go for it.  This girl was way too young to be as old as she was.  She had seen a lot of shit in her time and we were only in 10th grade.  This was destined to fail.  The only truly good thing about this relationship was it made my mother blush.  Which is something any 10th grade boy looks for.  In retrospect I should have listened to my mother the whole time, but this is 25 year old Steve talking.  I think 15 year old Steve with his long hair and flannel would probably call me a sell out and tell me to go fuck myself.

3.

Later in tenth grade I met a girl that was much more my speed.  She was part of the tech crew on the first musical I had ever been cast in, and in which I have fondly called "The beginning of the End".  She was a fun girl, but I still having no clue what to do with a woman soon again found myself single.

4.

In my junior year I pulled the one move that a lot of kids my age wished they had the Spauldings to pull off.  I started dating girl number 3's baby sister.  This girl was not nearly as fun, but was much more of a challenge.  Those of you who know me know how much I love a good challenge.  This one also didn't last because this time I paid too much attention to her.  Just to put the icing on the cake I also dated girl 3 again later that year.

5.

Toward the end of that year I started dating another girl around musical time.  I actually stole this girl from a poor schmuck who knew even less about women than I did.  That was a sweet feeling, even though in retrospect I should have just let this poor bastard keep the girl seeing she turned out to be way more of a bitch than it was worth.  I dated this girl for a couple years.  It was great for a while until things went straight to hell, and I mean HELL.  Seventh circle stuff that would have made Dante shit his pantaloons.  She would threaten to kill herself, cut herself, and basically stalk me.  She even followed me to college, and yes feel free to think that's lame as hell.  I still do.  At one point it even got to the point where I broke up with her and she actually sat down in front of my car making it impossible to leave.  Finally I was able to get out, and get this irony.  She went to therapy and the quack actually told her that all of her problems were my fault.  Where is justice?

6.

I did a lot of fooling around in college but didn't really have a girlfriend until my Junior year.  After the last psycho I didn't feel the need to go through that again.  Fuck that.  I think 20 year old Steve would be much more sympathetic to the plight of 25 year old Steve.  However his suggestions of beer, mardi gras beads, and mouth glow sticks wouldn't exactly work in the real world.  God do I wish they would.  I found this girl that was amazing.  I was in love.  She made me feel alive like I hadn't in a long time.  She was as sarcastic as I am, fun at a party, and one hell of a " fun time" if you get what I'm saying.  Things went well for a while until her ex-boyfriend came back into the picture.  I was out, then I was back in, then I was out again so fast my head was about to fall off.  It left me truly bitter about women, and sent me into a depression that when it comes to women I don't think I've ever been able to climb out of.  Ironically, this is one of two ex-girlfriends I actually still talk to.

7.

I then found the "Rebound" girl.  She wasn't nearly as sweet as girl #1, nor as different as #2, nor as fun as #3, or as challenging as #4.  She wasn't as bitchy as #5 but she was a far cry from the complete package I had found in #6.  So, with as unimpressive as this girl was what did I do.  Oh yeah, I proposed.  WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?  You don't marry the rebound girl.  It's one of the cardinal rules, but I broke it.  This girl had enough baggage to start a claim service at a fucking airport.  I don't know how I didn't go crazy in the years I was with her.  I guess I found solace in the fact that I had something stable, not to mention the arms of other women from time to time.  Not a good thing to do I know, but I think 15 and 20 year old Steves were screaming hell yeah the whole time.  And so was modern day Steve for that matter.  Seeing I wasn't getting the excitement I needed from this girl I found my way elsewhere.  After a while I found that the infidelity was actually taking a toll on my conscience.  So I decided to walk the straight and narrow.  I was going to make this work, and I was going to marry this woman.  Shortly after I made this decision she left me because my lifestyle was too "unstable".  ISN'T THAT A FUCKING BITCH.  With all the perfectly good reasons for her to leave me she picks a bullshit one.  Life is cruel sometimes.