Back in the dark ages when I was in grade school, we had this fun and slightly torturous Valentine’s Day tradition called the “Candy Gram.” For fifty cents, you could send someone a note attached to a heart-shaped lollipop that tasted like cherry chapstick. These candy grams could be sent anonymously to a secret crush, but mostly they were just sent between friends. This was a Catholic grade school after all, where we knew as much about love and romance as the nuns who taught us. Then, in the sixth grade, everything changed. All of a sudden, boys starting asking girls “to go out” with them, which meant they wanted you to be their girlfriend. Yes, couples were all the rage that year.

It all started with a boy and girl whose 8^th-grade siblings were dating. I remember the shock that ran through our social circle of maybe ten girls and a fairly even number of boys. I can’t speak for all of my peers, but I know that I had not an ounce of interest in having a boyfriend. Maybe, in theory, it seemed cool, but I had no freaking clue what a boyfriend would require of me: would I have to talk to them on the phone? would I have to talk to them more at school? Would I have to sit by them at lunch? Would I have to give up foursquare to watch them play basketball or whatever the hell the boys did at recess?

And−oh my god−would I have to physically touch them? It was all too much for my slightly anxious mind to process. But there was something worse than having a boyfriend: not having a boyfriend. Not getting asked out would be devastating. It would mean that I had absolutely no value as a human being. Life would be over, and I would be a social outcast for the remaining junior high years, talking to myself and picking dandelions out in the far field to avoid further humiliation.

The week that the first boy asked the first girl out was a tense one. My friends and I could speak of nothing else in frantic whispers as one friend, and then another fell victim to the sudden craze sweeping our small 6th-grade classroom. I was pretty certain of my lonely fate. Who would really want a frizzy-haired, chubby girl with a mouth full of braces and sarcastic opinions to be his girlfriend? Let’s not forget that I also towered at least an inch or two over the majority of the boys in class. Doomed, I was. Three of my closest friends had been asked out and I may as well have moved to Siberia. We had nothing in common.

I remember standing at the side chalkboard, probably feeling sorry for myself, when one of the three boys taller than me shuffled up to me, speaking nervously into the side of my face, “Hey I was wondering if maybe you wanted to go out with me?” It was painfully awkward. We’re talking first pap smear level of awkward. But I did my best to not turn crimson, and though I wanted to crawl out of my skin, I managed to mumble out a, “Sure.”

Yes, that was the beginning of a great budding romance that consisted of possibly two uncomfortable phone conversations, a handful of side hugs, a few attempts at holding hands, and finally culminated with one kiss on the cheek−a victory because I managed to not vomit on the poor boy when I did it. He was a nice kid, but the pressure proved too much. I promptly dumped him post-cheek kiss.

Though my hormones may not have kicked in and allowed me to enjoy much of my first experience having a boyfriend, it wasn’t all miserable. If memory serves me right, which it rarely does-I think I got about 8 candy grams that year and a stuffed animal and some other sweet bullshit that kids buy for one another. In today’s world, that would probably equate to having 3,000 Instagram likes, or something like that−and I didn’t even have to suffer an arm cramp from finding the right selfie angle.