My First Crush Wasn’t Plastic, But She Was Barbie

Write about your first crush.

You never forget your first crush. Mine? Her name was Barb—but everybody called her Barbie. Not because she looked like the doll, though she was cute as hell. No, it was just one of those nicknames that stuck, like gum on a locker.

I was a scrappy skateboarder, more into grinding rails than grinding in slow dances. She was two years younger than me and played clarinet in the marching band. Total opposites on paper, right? But for some reason, it worked. Maybe it was her weird laugh, or the way she always had Sharpie doodles on her hands, or how she never gave me crap about falling off my board (which I did… a lot).

I don’t even remember how we started talking—probably some dumb joke I made and she actually laughed. Next thing I knew, we were walking to class together, texting until 2AM, and eventually calling it “a thing.” We dated all through high school. Four years of homecomings, late-night Taco Bell runs, making out in the back of my car like a cliché. I thought we’d end up getting married, living in a small town with a white picket fence and maybe a dog named Ramen.

But of course, high school love rarely survives the real world. We graduated, grew up, and drifted apart. No big blowout fight, no cheating scandal—just life pulling us in different directions. We broke up, and that was that.

Still, I look back on those years with a stupid grin. Barbie wasn’t just my first crush—she was my first taste of what it felt like to really connect with someone. And honestly? That’s a pretty decent memory to have. Even if I did have to sit through a hundred awful band concerts just to hold her hand under the bleachers.