For the longest time, as subjectively experienced, I wasn't what could be thought of as popular among girls. It was my time of going to the beach and having people kick copies of Byron in my face. It would be until I was around 16, and started using the Internet, that things changed.
And changed they did. I was still the same inexperienced guy, but suddenly it seemed scores of girls were interested in me. You know the drill: all-night chats, lengthy, personal e-mails, initial, nervous phonecalls. All that stuff, all that intimate communication you'd never really gotten a chance to take part of in the real world unless you happened to be born good-looking or live in a teen-drama-series world.
Of course it was exciting. Over the years, things went along by themselves. The first girl I ever kissed? Met her on the net. The first relationship resembling anything serious? Met her on the net. The first girl I slept with? You guessed it. Of course I got institutionalized. How could I not have?

These days though, when I think about it, perhaps there was more of a dark side to it than that. Perhaps I wanted to accomplish too much, and get too close to too many, in too short a time. At times I felt like a kid banned from the Choc'lit Shoppe for too long, and once finding a way in couldn't decide, couldn't stand sitting too long savouring one sundae before moving on to try out the others, lest he'd miss out on something. Too much to taste and smell, too much to immerse yourself in.
I know I have trampled feelings. I know I have caused sadness. I know I've gone into recluse, forcing people to distance themselves from me. There's a puddle of ink around my feet now, reminding me that I've committed black deeds and that I'm no longer innocent.

The worst part of it though, is not the rush or the hurt it can cause, but the irrevocable losses coming in their wake. You only get one chance to fall in love for the first time. I have known girls to kill for. Not to use as means to an end or staircases to higher ground in your life, but to be with. To get to know. This was what I always wanted, even from the start, but somehow, it seems, I could never have it. One by one, with time, I slowly managed to ease them out of my life, or they me out of theirs, or both of us out of each other's.
Years would go by, and I would return back into orbit around these women, circle at the edges of their lives and observe, perhaps looking for a way in, and I would find that they had fallen in love, that they had met boys for whom they were ready to do anything. They would be happy, and at ease, and I would accelerate and take off again, establishing a kind of cometary orbit where I would return every once in awhile, to check up on things.

As it were, love seemed to come to an end in as good as every case, and with whimpers rather than bangs. Left after lingering separations and several second chances were heartbroken girls I in many ways adored, but had been away from for too long to be of any help to; and boyfriends who had been weighed and measured, and who had been found wanting.
But you only get one chance to fall in love for the first time. I saw these girls' lost loves take up such incredible amounts of their time, thoughts and feelings, even long after the separation.
You only get once chance. After that your innocence is gone, and you know that everyone you touch might scar you. You'll never be the same. These girls had loved, and now they were hurt, and I found myself thinking, if I'd stuck to my guns way back then, maybe things would be different - maybe I could have been their first love, and they mine - maybe I could have made it work and kept it good, maybe I could have avoided blowing it all to hell. Maybe I could have deserved them.

There is essence in that. It is true that I in many cases placed women in my life on pedestals, enchanted by ideas of perfection. And perfection packs a hefty recoil. Sometimes, when finding out they weren't as close to perfection as I'd thought, I would throw these women from my life like smoldering coal I'd picked up by accident.
In this case, when these near-perfect girls ended up deserted by boys who didn't deserve them, I was overcome with anger and jealousy and resolved that in a world where all men deceive, where all men are on the outlook for one thing, I would be different. I would be righteous and worthy; I would find the right girl for me, and once I had her full, complete trust and love, I would not betray them, but hold on to them and honour them.

But I don't know that I can. I don't know that I am, worthy, righteous or deserving. Perhaps I've been given a shot and had my chances, and blown them. Perhaps I've never been able to give it a full go, or never tried hard enough. Oh, dare to do it, Buddy. Now, while you feel the way you do, you only get one chance. If there are others later on, it is when you - ever so slowly - have passed on from Now, and changed.