Ethan, 12, had been single for two weeks. And after two weeks, it starts getting in your head, he said.
That's when you start wanting a girlfriend again.
So why not ask the girl he'd liked since first grade? She was single. He was single.
Perfect.
It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Somewhere in between eating vanilla cupcakes for his friend's 12th birthday, playing Wii and roughhousing, Ethan Fleetwood decided to go for it.
“Ethan, you need a new girlfriend,” fellow sixth-grader Cale Snyder told him. Cale had been texting his own girlfriend all night.
Ethan, 12, had been single for two weeks. And after two weeks, it starts getting in your head, he said. That’s when you start wanting a girlfriend again.
So why not ask the girl he’d liked since first grade? She was single. He was single. Perfect.
Ethan, a brown-haired boy with wide eyes, owns a red LG Neon cell phone he keeps in his pocket. Its background is a photo he took of a toy iguana lying on a video game controller.
This night, though, his phone battery was dead. So he borrowed Cale’s, letting his crush know it was Ethan before typing: will u go out with me.
Then he hit send.
* * *
The fifth and sixth graders at Lakeview Elementary School are no strangers to love.
They are a few years away from real dating and a few years past the simplicity of second-grade hair-pulling, chasing-at-recess puppy love. It’s the age when secret crushes, hand holding and “Truth or Dare” reign.
One recent afternoon, six 10-, 11- and 12-year-old boys gathered for an interview on young love. As Valentine’s Day approaches, they’re trying to figure it out.
“Can kids your age fall in love?” they were asked.
“Yes!” the boys answered, heads nodding, eyebrows raised.
Everyone in the group agreed, except one — fifth-grader Jackson Mahuron. The thin blonde with glasses described love as “mushy junk” and shook his head at the sixth graders who go on dates and express their love for girls.
“We’re at school. It’s kind of pointless,” he said. “You walk around the playground and that’s it.”
Someday Jackson will fall in love — in high school, he guessed. But for now, he’ll hand out his Fun Dip Valentines to each of his classmates and appreciate the holiday for one thing:
“Chocolate!”
On another evening, a handful of Lakeview’s fifth- and sixth-grade girls shared their perfect Valentine’s Day.
“I think it’d be pretty neat if the guy I liked asked me out on Valentine’s Day,” one girl said.
“And if you said yes, they pulled out a chocolate rose or something,” another added.
The volumes of the girls’ voices gradually rose as they built off each other’s ideas.
“I’ve always pictured Valentine’s Day as you’re in a red convertible and driving down a road on the side of a mountain and your scarf is blowing,” Bailey Silvers, 11, said with a smile.
The girls giggled.
“You watch way too many love movies!” one friend teased.
The girls hugged pillows and lounged on the couch in fifth-grader Sydney Way’s house for an interview similar to the boys’.
They could dream for hours about Valentine’s Day, yet they all said they hate when girls try too hard for boys’ attention.
“I don’t understand why girls in sixth grade wear makeup,” Sydney said. “You’re young.”
They are young — too young for real love. All of the girls agreed.
“I’ve never really felt what love is,” 10-year-old Sophie Keller said. “But in movies and books and stuff, it’s like right when you meet the person you ... ”
“ ... click,” interjected Samantha Kabrick, 11, nodding her head. “You don’t care if your friends think that person’s weird or doesn’t look that great ... ”
“ ... because I think if you did, you wouldn’t really love them,” Sophie finished.
“You keep wanting to see them,” Sophie went on. “And you feel really safe with them.
And you’re never sad.”
* * *
After Ethan asked the girl out, he put down the phone and launched into a wrestling match with Cale.
One minute passed, then two, three ... no response. Not that he was counting.
Ethan is an old hand at this — he’s said the “L” word many times.
How many?
“623,” he estimated.
He hoped to make this crush his second girlfriend of the year, right in time for Valentine’s Day.
If she agrees to be his girlfriend, he said maybe they could spend time together on the holiday, aside from talking in class when the teacher’s not looking.
On Valentine’s Day, the ultimate celebration of love, elementary school romances will spark. Kids will ask others out, secret admirers will be revealed, loving words will be exchanged.
There will be the Sophies and Samanthas, who save the best Valentines for their girl friends; the Ethans, who hope to give special somethings to their sweethearts; and the Jacksons, who hand out the candy their moms bought.
Despite their differences, the kids agree — the holiday is an important one, whether now or later on in their lives.
After all, said 11-year-old Tanner Gilpin, “There has to be a day for love.”
Ten minutes after Ethan sent the text, he had almost forgotten he’d asked a girl out.
Then the phone vibrated.
He opened the phone and read her response.
yes :)
There was no celebrating, no yelling or jumping up and down. Ethan replied.
OK
And then he put the phone down.
Though he didn’t show it, inside Ethan was smiling.
In the morning, the texting would begin.
