Any New Girl fans out there? What am I saying? Of course there are!

Personally, I’m a big fan of the show. It’s one of those sitcoms I can watch repeatedly and not get tired of it… for the most part. It’s one of those that I can have on as background noise while I’m doing other things around the apartment because I don’t necessarily have to pay attention to every scene to understand what’s going on or to get a decent laugh out of it.

In the last year or so, I’ve begun listening to a podcast that is hosted by Zooey Deschanel, Hannah Simone, and Lamorne Morris (aka Jess, Cece, and Winston on the show). Each week they either rewatch an episode for discussion and behind the scenes memories or they’ll welcome a guest star or writer from the show for an interview. It’s a pretty entertaining podcast if you liked the show.

Anyway, this week’s episode focused on one of the series’ first season episodes. It takes place during that string of shows where Jess is dating Russell (played by Dermot Mulroney). While he’s not in this episode, the plot involves him asking Jess to babysit his daughter while he is away and his ex has plans. Part of the episode’s conflict comes when the daughter, Sarah, develops a crush on one of the roommates in the loft, Nick. We’re talking crazy obsessive pre-teen girl crush…

But it led to the stars of the show and podcast to ask about first crushes. And it got me thinking about my first crushes…

First, let’s get into the celebrity crush. Now, I could probably list off a dozen or more names of famous women that I can honestly say I have a crush on. Women I would be too nervous to speak to if given the opportunity to meet them. That being said, I’m pretty sure my earliest celebrity crush was Olivia Newton-John. Sadly, we recently lost this beautiful actor/singer. But tell me you don’t watch her singing “You’re the One That I Want” at the end of Grease and not develop a little bit of a crush. Seriously.

Then there’s the real life crush… I was wracking my brain and I think I was able to come up with my first real crush on someone that I knew in real life. I mean… I could be wrong. My mother might read this and come back at me with a crush I had on someone when I was in preschool or something like that… But the first real crush I remember came about in the third grade.

Well… it was really the summer after third grade. I went to a week-long overnight church camp for the first time. I’m pretty sure I got homesick the first night and tried to get my dad to come pick me up, but my parents forced me to stick it out. Glad they did…

In my memory, it was a really fun week. The church I grew up in ran this camp along with the children’s ministry of two other churches in our area. So I was there with kids from my own church and from a couple other churches as well. One of the teenaged chaperones from one of the other churches was a girl named Mary Anne. I’m pretty sure I fell in love with her that week.

There was an older kid that I think went to the same church as Mary Anne who went to the same elementary school as me. I distinctly remember talking with him after that summer about how much I liked Mary Anne. He made it clear that he liked her, too. And I’m pretty sure he attempted to stake his claim. Not that this meant anything… we were elementary school kids and she was practically an adult woman.

I never saw her again after that week of camp in the summer of 1989. And I never knew her last name or where she went to school. But it’s funny… I can still picture her face and see her smile.

Who were your first crushes? Let me know down in the comments!

Feature Photo by Ioana Cristiana on Unsplash