First Crushes, Chemistry, and an Utter Lack Thereof (Mary Strand)

This month at YA Outside the Lines, we're supposed to talk about our first crush ... and, in turn, how remembering our first crushes might help us write about chemistry in our novels.

I loved chemistry class in high school (so much so that I even took it in college, which was a bit odd for a political science major), but, ALAS, I don't think we're supposed to talk about THAT kind of chemistry.

I also assume I'm not supposed to write about my actual first crush: Bob Crane of Hogan's Heroes. I was six. Or even Davy Jones and other celebs like that in my teens.

No, I'm supposed to slice open a vein and talk about my first crush on someone I actually knew.

Is this a good moment to mention JUST HOW MANY of my high school classmates are also Facebook friends of mine? Yes?

One particular guy was my first big real-life crush, when I was a sophomore in high school and he was a junior. But should I instead write about the first classmate I liked? As in, really liked? That was sixth grade, and he played baseball, and so did I, but the patriarchal society in which we lived didn't let me play Little League, so I actually sat in the mini bleachers watching him play. Day after day. Believe me, I do not like watching other people play ball rather than playing it myself, so I obviously liked him. No one ever found out about that crush, I DON'T THINK, but he was always nice to me, so maybe he guessed, and he was a good guy about it. But the word chemistry definitely had no application.

So. Sophomore year. I can't really give any details because it might be too easy to figure out. But he called me "superstar," probably because of basketball, but he kinda-sorta-maybe had a slightly funny look on his face when he did, because he loved basketball but wasn't a superstar. That's probably when I first figured out that it was perfectly cool for a girl to be good at sports, but that most guys didn't want to compete with a girl in sports, even when it was just for fun, like shooting hoops or whacking a tennis ball around.

And I guess this relates to chemistry, maybe, possibly, because when a girl has to hide who she is or what she can do in order for a guy to like her, I would call any resulting relationship false chemistry. A lot of YA books and movies deal with that issue (with both genders faking something in order to attract their crush), and you know what? I hate that. Because faking is lying, and I don't lie, and I didn't in high school, so sometimes it just meant that the absolutely adorable guy I had a mad crush on never asked me out. Even though I'm pretty sure it was a mutual crush, aside from the whole "she could beat me at basketball" thing.

My teen heroines tend to be honest (go figure), NOT faking anything, so they have to deal with crap like that. And it is utter crap. So I guess I never dealt with chemistry in this blog. My crush and I did have chemistry, but if he'd ever asked me out, maybe I'd have had some serious chemistry to write about.

And we're not talking Bunsen burners.

Mary Strand is the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Push-Up Bras and three other novels in the Bennet Sisters YA series. You can find out more about her books and music at marystrand.com.