Day 8 – A song that reminds me of my first love.

My first love was my best friend in high school. I had two sets of best friends in high school. The last two years, I had two female friends. The first couple of years, I had two male friends. They were rad. I had a major crush on one of them, we’ll call him M, and the other one, L, had a major crush on me. M was oblivious to all the sexual politics in our troika.

I was never very good at picking boys, and honestly, I should have just gone out with L since he was adorable, but no, I held out for M, who never liked me as anything but a friend. Eventually, M got a girlfriend. L got a girlfriend, too, and our friendship just grew apart because boobs. Also, their girlfriends hated me and worked very diligently to get me out of their lives. “Why are you friends with a girl anyway?”

M changed my life. Perhaps that’s why I liked him, out of some sort of misguided hero-worship. He introduced me to punk. Before I met L and M, I was listening to The Smiths and The Cure. I had never heard punk. M made me a mix tape. I still remember the track listing. It held such notable artists as The Sex Pistols, The Misfits, The Ramones, The Clash, The Exploited, GBH, DRI, 7 Seconds, Minor Threat, The Descendents, and the band that struck me right in the gulliver, The Dead Kennedys.

That mix tape changed everything forever. Thank you, M. You introduced me to my real first love, punk.