1998 Alyse Pashman – I met Alyse while at a bar one night with my brother.  She was hosting the Karaoke singing.  She wasn’t exactly my type, but it had been a while since I dated anyone and she was very easy to talk to.  We chatted most of the night, and exchanged numbers.  We subsequently dated for a short time (less than four months).  I did have feelings for Alyse, but they weren’t growing.  And I found myself less and less attracted to her physically.  Plus at the end of our relationship is when I met Ania and started dating her as well.

Even though I broke it off with Alyse, I did reconnect with her in 2015 through Facebook.  We stay in touch a bit and chat once in a while.  She’s a good woman, but just isn’t for me.  I do wish her the best in her future.

 

1996 Dawn Stone We dated for a year.  She was the first person I officially had a relationship with and the first person I slept with.  I met her while cruising down Franklin Ave in Nutley (something I enjoyed doing).  I saw her, waved, pulled over, she got in, and the rest is history.

Though she’ll never admit it, unfortunately she cheated on me with my best friend since Kindergarten (Joe Geisel).  I subsequently broke it off and we didn’t speak for years.  But in my later 30s, we started chatting again via social media.

 

1992 Heather Lurker Heather was one of my first crushes in high school.  We both played in the band together, and though we didn’t know each other for very long, we started dating almost immediately.  Our relationship wasn’t very complicated, nor did we get to do many things together because of family and school obligations (and the lack of a car and the fact we lived 15 miles apart from each other).

But Heather was my first real girlfriend.  She was the first girl in school that I would hold hands with and share a kiss with.  We dated through the holidays of my freshman year and into the new year.  But she started to get upset with my lack of commitment.  It didn’t help that I had a very strict curfew and a mom who would not let me out of the house, even for an after school visit.  Heather was a senior while was only a freshman, and we just never got the chance to build our connection.  In fact we never even french kissed, even though I tried so many times.

In the end we broke up after only 3 months of dating.  She became somewhat abusive towards me and started getting other juniors and seniors on my case.  That is when a lot of the bullying started for me in high school.

Later in life I would learn that Heather was gay and married a woman.  She did reach out to me on social media and apologize for what she put me through in high school.  I don’t really think of her often, but once in a while her face and the good times we shared will randomly appear in my memory.

1997 Dominique (Mimi) Carissimo Simply put, Dominque was my first true love.  I had met her through a mutual friend, and though I found her very attractive and fun to be around, I never crossed the “relationship border” since she was dating other people at the time.  But we would still regularly chat and beep each other once in a while (beepers and pagers were the IN thing before cell phones).

Then the day came where our relationship would be brought to the next level.  Dominque called me hysterical crying one day after breaking up with a man she had dated for about a year.  So I came over and we took a ride to a local lookout with a nice view of NYC where we hung out for several hours.  I listened, she talked, I listened so more and gave pieces of advice whenever I could.  And before we knew it, 4 hours had gone by and it was time to return home.  But not before we would share our first kiss.

I started dating Mimi at that point, which was also a few months after Dawn and I broke up.  Mimi and I had a lot in common and shared many good times.  I would consider her the first woman I genuinely loved and wanted to have a long term relationship with.  She is someone I will never forget, and even to this day I will think about her often.

Towards the end of our relationship, we fought a lot.  Unfortunately she believed I was cheating on her and keeping secrets about other women I was seeing.  But in truth, that never happened.  I was faithful to her the entire time.

Eventually we broke up. I was always curious where she ended up, but I have not heard from her since.

 

MORE ABOUT MIMI

I didn’t really experience love until I was in college.  I had dated, minimally, during high school and had a few semi-long term relationships.  But nothing that I can look back on and say “wow – I was really in love with her.”

But that all changed when I started dating Dominque.  And I’m actually finding that it’s difficult for me to put my feelings into words for the purposes of this Footprint.  But I can honestly say that she was the first person in my life who I cared tremendously for.  She was the first girl who really meant something to me.

When we were together, we could talk for hours, or not say a word.  And either way, we still enjoyed each other’s company.  I had grown very close with her family (mainly her dad) and would regularly come by to help him around the house with things like painting or landscaping.  I would enjoy dinners with them as a family, and they would often invite me to short outings they went on as a family.

Simply put, the relationship I had with both her and her family gave me a taste of what married life might be like.  And at the time, she was the one I wanted to marry.  I wanted this to continue.  I wanted nothing more than to continue that bond and strengthen it even more.

But over time, the wall we had built together would crumble.  The good times turned sour.  We were fighting constantly, and looking back I can’t help but feel it was a combination of insecurities and our ages that contributed to most of it.  our last fight was pretty serious (never physical of course, but enough yelling), and that was the last time we saw each other.  We never officially shared a ‘goodbye’ or spoke after that moment.

However I will always hold a special place in my heart for her.  She was the first person who loved me unconditionally, and the person (that wasn’t family) I loved back.  She will always be missed, and a small piece of me hopes that one day we can reconnect to formerly close the final chapter in the book that current remains open.