Just look at that face!

Neil was in my eighth grade homeroom class and he made my heart flutter whenever I thought about him. He was shorter than I, but he had the cutest face in the world. When we took a class trip to Washington, DC, he told me I was a “nice girl” as we were exiting the bus to see the Lincoln Memorial.  I was beside myself. I stared incessantly at the trip photos for months. I vaguely remember Neil to this day.

By tenth or eleventh grade, my heart moved onto to Fred. He was heads taller than Neil, a bit gawky, but oh so cute. I recall his straight dark hair and dark eyes. We were friends but he was definitely not physically attracted to me.

Smart and well mannered, Mark was attracted to me in twelfth grade, and I heard that he wanted to ask me to the prom. Sadly, I wasn’t attracted to him. I went to the prom with some friends.

David asked me out the first day of classes at NYU and we dated for months. He thought I was the world’s greatest beauty, and acted like a puppy around me, but I couldn’t will myself to return the feelings. He was cute, with curly dark hair and a round face, but I just didn’t feel the spark. When I told him I thought we should stop dating, he looked like the world ended.  I still remember his face when I gave him the news.

I met gorgeous Barry when I was a sophomore at NYU. He had blond hair and blue eyes, fair Irish skin and a drop-dead smile. I thought I would faint when he wanted to have sex with me (his girlfriend was away), but nice Jewish girls, in 1966, weren’t sleeping with anyone before marriage, no less Irish Catholic boys. I don’t know how I ever got over Barry. He married his girlfriend.

Douglas, another blue-eyed blond, asked me out when I was a junior and I was attracted to him right away.  This was the first time I paid attention to traits other than looks .  Douglas made me laugh, he was smarter than I and he lived in Manhattan, which I thought was pretty cool. We married, had two children, divorced and are now friends. I still like his face.

Edgar’s face got me from hello on the plane ride from Atlanta to New York. Even when we parted 12 years later and he was grossly overweight and lived with Beverly behind my back, his face still got to me.

Leon looked like Robert De Niro. Enough said. But we didn’t last because I met David.

David and I connected through match.com. When I first saw him, I was disappointed. He’s completely bald with a big nose. I later learned he wasn’t attracted to me either, because he thought my curly hair, and outfit, made me look a little like a wild woman. We’ve been together over eight years.

What’s really behind our faces?