The Preadolescent Love Experience
Virtually all of the love-shy men I interviewed had very clear and
detailed memories of their preadolescent infatuations. And there had
been a very great many of these infatuations. Better than two-thirds of
the older love-shys and close to half of the younger ones had experienced
one intense infatuation after another throughout all of their elementary
school years. In short, from the time they had first become interested
in a particular little girl, there had scarcely ever been a period of greater
than a few months in length during which the love-shys had not been
deeply in love (unrequited, of course) with some little girl. These intense
love fantasies had consumed a very great deal of the love-shys' time
and psychoemotional energy. From the time of their kindergarten or
first grade year until the time when they reached their early thirties,
most of the love-shys had devoted a great deal of their time to day-
dreaming about some specific female with whom they were too shy to
even think about making any real contact. Subsequent to the age of 32
or 33, the amount and frequency of these romantic fantasies tended to
drop off a bit. But even the love-shys in their 40s still experienced occa-
sional very strong infatuations.
Sixteen percent of the older love-shys and 7 percent of the younger
ones had experienced their first very strong romantic infatuations as
soon as they started school. Being thrown in with a great many other
fellow five-year olds, the love-shys immediately found the girls to be
far more fascinating than their own gender. Most of the love-shys had
viewed members of their own sex as being quite foreign to them. As
one love-shy man expressed it, "I viewed boys as members of another
species." And since the teachers tended to discourage efforts on the part
of the love-shys to group up with the girls, most of the love-shys became
social isolates immediately upon the commencement of their educational
careers--in kindergarten.
"I remember the kindergarten teacher used to get all upset with me
because she wanted me to play with the scooters and cars and a lot
of other junk that the boys were playing with. I remember I tried
doing those things on several occasions. And the praise and encour-
agement I got from the teacher made me feel really good because 1
really liked the teacher. But I just didn't enjoy it. In fact, I found it
painfully boring. And all the while I would be looking over at the
girls and at the things I really wanted to do.
So I guess I just decided very early that I would have to sacrifice my
need to please the teacher for my need to feel comfortable and please
myself and just be myself. And after about November of my kin-
dergarten year I never played on the floor with the boys again, I
worked with craft things. And I became really good at making things
out of clay.
I don't remember exactly when I first began to take really strong
notice of them. But there were these two twin sisters in my kinder-
garten class--Rita and Ruth. They were fraternal twins. They looked
entirely different. And before Thanksgiving I found myself looking
all the time over at Ruth who was the really pretty one. By Christ-
mastime it got to be really intense. When I went to bed at night I
would think so intensely about her before I fell asleep that I would
feel really warm and wispy and goosebumpy all over. Parts of my
body would go moist, and I would dream that she was sleeping
there beside me. You have to understand that I was just five years
old at this time. Most of the psychiatrists I've told this to think that
I'm putting them on. But I can remember Ruth as clearly as I can
remember the things I did at work today. After all these years I've
never forgotten her.
By March and April of my kindergarten year my mother was finally
beginning to suspect that something was amiss. She thought some-
thing was wrong with me because I would come home from school
and just sit on the cold front stoop which was made of slate. And
I would daydream intensely about Ruth. My mother kept insisting
that I tell her what was bothering me. But I didn't have the nerve
to say anything. Lots of times she chased me from the slate stoop
because she thought I might catch a cold. Whenever that happened
I just took a long walk and dreamed about Ruth. Sometimes my
mother would scream at me when I came back because I had been
away too long. But none of that phased me. I just wished that I
could spend forever with Ruth.
Then one day in April of my kindergarten year it all sort of came to
a head. My mother was taking me downtown to go shopping. And
I was sitting with my mother on the bus. Whenever I went anywhere
by bus with my mother she would always give me the window seat
and she would sit on the aisle seat. I don't know what the hell
happened; but this one time I was sitting in the aisle seat and my
mother was sitting in the window seat. All of a sudden Ruth and
her sister Rita and their mother got on the bus; and they sat with
their backs to the window in that seat that's just at the entrance to
the bus across from the driver.
Well, I started to blush, and I smiled uncontrollably. And I just
couldn't control myself. I wanted to act like I didn't see them. And
I started looking towards my mother--out the window. And she
noticed that I was blushing. I mean, tears were coming down my
face I was blushing and smiling so intensely! Anyway, my mother
insisted that I tell her why I was blushing. And I asked her what
she meant. I didn't know what the word blushing meant. Well, it
didn't take long for my mother to guess what was happening because
I had been okey until those three people, including Ruth, got on the
bus.
My mother guessed that I liked one of the little girls who got on.
And she kept poking me about it. And I kept my mouth clamped
shut more tightly than I ever kept my mouth shut in my life. A few
stops before we had to get off my mother got up and went over to
Ruth's mother and started a conversation with her. My mother always
had a great deal more nerve than I ever did. I mean she could start
conversations with strangers like that. Anyway, she found out from
the lady that Rita and Ruth were in my kindergarten class. And
when we got off the bus she started teasing me about which one of
the two girls I liked--which was ridiculous because Rita wasn't pretty
at all.
Anyway, she starts telling me that I shouldn't like either one of them
because they were Jewish and we were Catholic. I remember I didn't
know what she meant by that. All I know was that when my kin-
dergarten year was over Rita and Ruth moved away. And for a long
time I was really depressed because I didn't have the nerve to ask
anybody where they moved to." (41-year old love-shy man.)
On the other hand, some of the love-shys came closer to developing
genuine relationships with girls during their prepubescent years than
they ever did at any later time in their lives. The following interview
quotation well illustrates (1) how the love-shys had relied upon passive-
aggressive techniques from the earliest time in their lives to issue the
attention they wanted from a girl who had attracted their fancy, and
(2) how insensitive and non-understanding adults had used whatever
tactics they could to discourage and break up prepubescent love
relationships.
The second point is of formidable significance from the standpoint
of prevention because if properly handled these early romantic hetero-
sexual interactions could have been used to keep these boys from devel-
oping severe love-shyness in the first place?It is far better for a child to
have just one extremely close friend than it is for him to have no friends
at all. And it is far better for a child to have one opposite-sexed friend
than it is for him to have no friends at all.
The following interview presents a case in which the child had at
least transcended the point of pure infatuation. In this case the child
had actually interacted vis-a-vis his girl friend. And if this interaction
had continued over time there can be no question but that some social
self-confidence would have been gained. Even if the relationship had
eventually died a natural death, this social self-confidence would have
served this love-shy man well in regard to the practical problem of
meeting and initiating meaningful relationships with other females later
in life.
"I was only in kindergarten when I first fell in love. There was a girl
in my kindergarten class and there was one in my first grade class
whom I found myself dreaming about all the time. But throughout
all my years of education the love that I remember best of all was
the one that I had had when I was in the second grade.
I guess I didn't notice her too much right away. But after a couple
of months I began to notice more and more this girl whose name
was Phyllis. There were about 30 kids in my second grade class,
about half girls and half boys. And whenever anything came up I
always wanted to be either in or near the group that contained
Phyllis. I started dreaming about her all the time. And nine times
out of ten if the teacher called on me and I was off in a world of
beautiful daydreams, it was Phyllis that I was dreaming about.
Well, one day when I was fooling around at home I saw my mother
looking in some big book she had on the kitchen table. That was
when I was introduced to the telephone directory. And I looked up
the name 'Springman', which was Phyllis' last name; and I found it
there. And it also gave me her address.
Well, I already had a detailed street map of the town where I lived.
I don't know why, but maps always fascinated me a very great deal.
Even when I was only in the second grade I started to build up a
tremendous collection of maps. I had them from every state in the
union, and I had detailed street maps from all over. Anyway, I saw
that Phyllis lived about a mile and a half away. But I had always
loved to take long walks anyway. And I had a dog at that time which
my parents always wanted me to walk.
So almost every day I would walk the mile and a half over to Wood-
side Drive. And I would walk up and down it several times with
my dog. And each time I would approach that street my fantasy life
would become extremely rich. However, if I saw someone stirring
in the window or on the front porch of the house where she lived,
I would immediately become overcome by extremely strong anxiety
feelings. And I would run like hell in the opposites direction for a
few minutes. And then I would return. By the way, all this happened
in the spring of 1948. In 1956 when MY FAIR LADY opened I imme-
diately thought of Phyllis the first time I heard the song 'On the
Street Where You Live'. And even today whenever I hear that song
I always think of the street where she used to live where I would
walk up and down with my dog Punch.
Well, about this time like when I would be staring at her in class
she would begin smiling at me. I would start to blush. And I think
the teacher became somewhat disturbed about this. Like the kin-
dergarten and first grade teachers that I had had, this teacher was
sort of peturbed about the fact that I never wanted to play with the
boys. Anyway, after a few weeks I stopped blushing when our eyes
met. I would smile at her and she would smile at me. But we still
hadn't arrived at the point where we were actually saying anything
to each other. But she knew I liked her. And I was very happy about
the fact that she seemed to like the fact that I liked her. In fact, I
don't think I've ever been so happy in my life---even though I was
still too shy to start a conversation with her.
Well, one day when I was walking down her street with my wire-
haired fox terrier her mom came outside and called me by name. At
first I was extremely nervous and started to walk the other way. But
she seemed very friendly, and she called me by name. She told me
not to be afraid, and that she wanted me to come in and have some
cream soda and cookies. Well, I felt extremely shy. But something
made me turn around and start walking her way towards the house.
Her mom seemed extremely nice, and when I walked in the kitchen
Phyllis was there and she smiled and said 'hi'. And I finally became
involved in my first real conversation with a girl!
That was in March of my second grade year. And from that point
on we became very close friends. Every day as soon as school was
over I would walk down to her house, and we would play together
until dinner time. And then I would go home. My mother found
out about my friendship with Phyllis. And she was glad 1 finally
had somebody to play with even if it was a girl. One day my mother
asked me to invite Phyllis home for lunch, and I did. And I remember
we had lamb chops. And my mother seemed delighted with her. I
was very happy. You have to understand, we didn't always agree
about everything. I mean there were things I wanted to do that she
didn't want to do. But it didn't matter. For about three months we
were inseparable.
By the way, wouldn't it be great if even by the time you got to be
of college age all you had to do was walk up and down a girl's street
a few hundred times with your dog and you'd get invited in by her
mother?! That's one reason why I'd like to see arranged marriages
become available in the United States--at least for shy people.
I remember I became eight years old pretty close to the end of the
school year. And my mom threw a birthday party for me. Actually
this was quite unusual because she only threw two parties for me
while I was growing up: one in the second grade and one in the
fifth. This particular party was a really special time for me because
it was one of the very few times while I was growing up that I was
really happy. My mom invited a lot of kids, some of whom had been
teasing me quite a lot about spending all of my time with Phyllis.
But I didn't care. I was glad to have them at my party. And strangely
enough, I felt kind of pleased about things even though they were
teasing me. Even though I had just turned only eight, I sort of
suspected that some of the kids who were teasing me might have
been jealous of me.
Shortly after that time my school let out for the summer. And my
parents forced me to go away to summer camp. I always hated camp,
but my dad always insisted that I go because he thought it might
make me turn magically into his idea of a real boy. As you can see,
that never happened. But what did happen was that when I arrived
home at the end of the summer I didn't have the nerve anymore to
go visit Phyllis. I had been looking forward to seeing her all summer
long. But when I arrived home for some reason I somehow lost my
nerve. Nevertheless, one day around Labor Day I did say that I was
going to take a walk down there with my dog. And my mother told
me she did not want me to go. She told me that she had this outing
planned that would involve a lot of boys my age and their parents.
And she insisted that I get ready to go on that. She was still after
me to become a real boy.
I guess the real clincher, though, was the school. Both Phyllis and
I continued attending the same school throughout our third, fourth,
fifth and sixth grades. But the school made sure that we were assigned
to different teachers for all four years. I mean there were two third
grades, two fourth grades, two fifth grades, and two sixth grades.
And I don't think it could have been pure chance by the wildest
stretch of the imagination that we were kept separate for all four of
those years. And you know even to this day I still feel very angry
about that. Like if we had been together again in the third grade it
would have been very easy for me to continue seeing her. Even if
we had been separated for the third grade and put back together
again in the fourth grade it would have been easy for me to start
seeing her again. But the way they worked it, I just lost all the
confidence that I had built up the preceding spring. One day when
I was in the third grade I heard through the grapevine that both
Phyllis and her mother were wondering why I didn't come around
anymore. When I heard about that I felt really depressed. But I just
didn't know what to do because by that time I had lost my nerve.
And I was afraid that if I did try to see her again I wouldn't be able
to think of enough things to say to her. And silence has always made
me extremely nervous." (43-year old love-shy man.)
This case interview poignantly illustrates how parents and other
well-meaning adults often do far more harm than good in their dealings
with love-shy and pre-love-shy boys. It also illustrates how trying to
force a small child into becoming something which he is not can almost
always be counted upon to give rise to very disappointing results. If the
friendship-love relationship in this case had been encouraged or at least
not discouraged, this 43-year old man might well have grown in the
ways that nature had intended for him to grow. And today at 43 he
would not be a severely love-shy, single, never married virgin.
This particular case study was interesting in still another way. As
I have stated, virtually all of the love-shy men whom I interviewed could
remember with great clarity each of the many love infatuations that they
had experienced throughout their elementary school years. However,
this particular man had saved photographs of his Phyllis kissing him at
his eight-year old birthday party. While I was interviewing him he brought
out several copies of two different photographs. And he suggested that
it might dress up this research report in an appropriately incisive manner
if I printed them. They appear on the next page. One shows him being
kissed by Phyllis while some of his male peers look on. The second one
depicts him standing with Phyllis and her girl friend.
