But it happened, and it's true.
Old boyfriends can shape who you are.
I happened to have my first old boyfriend in high school and it lasted about six years. Yes, I dated someone for a long dang time and never married them. We talked about it, but we were kids, and in the end it didn't work out. We wanted different things.
It taught me a lot though, what I wanted in relationships, what I didn't.
It made me value myself.
It gave me a best friend who had the same likes and dislikes.
We worked out at the local gym like obsessed gym rats. I learned how to cook and had someone around who loved to eat it, we grilled all the time. I had a movie watching buddy. Someone to go to youth group with. Someone to vent to when girls where mean to me in high school.
A boyfriend at that age, at least a long term one, it was basically a partner in crime to help you survive the awful high school years. When everyone else hated you, you had your boyfriend to agree that the world sucked too.
In the end, I don't think I had some big love where I learned so much about myself. Instead I had a partner in crime as a teenager that allowed me to not feel alone in a block of years that many kids feel awfully alone.
