Ahhh, Ryan. You've heard me talk about him numerous times over here as Angel Boy. I used to think he was my soulmate. I used to think that he was the most attractive man on the planet.

I was 15 years old and in 9th grade, obsessing over a boy named Mark who was just about the hottest guy I'd ever seen. He was one of 3 boys at my school who had long hair, and of course I had to be totally in love with him.

In between Charles and Ryan, I had done a little growing. I was hot, in other words. While I did have the unattractiveness of braces, I also had gotten eye surgery that summer and it had done wonders for my self esteem as well as my appearance. It was quite painful, don't get me wrong - eye surgery isn't really all that fun. They had to take tissue from my thigh to put in my eye to act as a muscle to keep the eye from drooping. Now, if that's not good times, I don't know what is. But seriously, I was hot. I wore shorts all the time and I looked good in them. I maintained my weight at around 130 pounds, the weight I strive for today. And yeah. Woowee.

Ryan was the new boy in school. When I first laid eyes on him the first time in 9th grade History, I wasn't that impressed. There has rarely been a boy in my life that I fell in love with at first sight.. it just doesn't happen that way with me. He was cute and had on a White Zombie T-Shirt, but for some reason I just wasn't into him at the time.

But indifference soon turned into unabashed lust. Crazy, obsessive, stalker kind of lust. He had one of those mid-90s haircuts, with both sides shaved and long hair in the middle, and I was all about that, oh yes. He had earrings. He had attitude. He wasn't very smart. I knew this because I sat behind him and I graded his stuff. He tended to fall asleep in class. But I wanted him. I wanted him bad.

It started out small around November of 1994. I told my friends that I liked this new boy in class. By March, I was obsessed. And even though we never talked in class or anywhere else for that matter, we had a chemistry. I know this sounds so extremely crazy, but it was there. And we would have these intense staring contests that would have me hornier than an elderly nun during class, and it was enough to drive all my friends crazy. They had no idea how I was ever going to get him if I never even talked to him. I didn't know either, but I knew that somehow, this boy was going to be in my life.

He sat behind me for a couple of weeks. One day, we were watching Stalag 17 in class, and I felt his knee resting on the back of my chair. But the back of the chair had holes in it, and so he was kinda like.. in contact with my ass. I so wanted to jump him that day, it drove me so crazy.

I knew something was going to happen. To this day, that is why I believe in fate. Everything that happened with us is just to bazaar to not be attributed somehow to fate.

He eventually dropped out of school, like both my previous boys had done in 9th grade. I sure know how to pick em! I was devastated, but I knew we would cross paths again somehow. And a month later, we did.

At the time, my mom was working at the mall as one of those lovely perfume people. I used to go with her and spend the afternoon there while she was working. That was a staple of my childhood, in fact. Anyway, I was walking over to the music store to buy the new Tom Petty CD, and I saw him. He was sitting on the bench facing the skating rink, and he was by himself, and it all seemed to perfect. I had to walk around a little, freaking out like a crazy woman, before I eventually went over and sat down next to him. That was a particurly ballsy move on my behalf, but I knew I had to do it or else I might never see him again.

Imagine my mom's surprise when I brought him into Neiman Marcus, where she worked with all her gal pals. I was bringing in this boy with a million earrings, a leather jacket, and military boots. I'm sure she was oh so excited.

And so it goes from there. The first month of our relationship really sucked. I was too needy, he was too independent, and it just didn't work out. We broke up for a while, but then got back together during the summer. We were off and on for about 6 months, and it was a really intense 6 months for me. He was older and more experienced, but he never used that to his advantage. I would have done anything for him, but he never asked me to. He just felt me up in movie theaters and fingered me in my pool and really, that was the extent of our physical relationship.

But damn.. the chemistry between us was crazy! I have never felt it with anyone else, not even Matt. It's just this feeling I would get when he was around.. I can't even explain it, but it was just.. smoldering. Like we were meant to be together or something.

But, we weren't meant to be together. There was a lot of stuff that was going on in my life at that time, and he apparently had a lot of stuff going on in his life, and eventually it just got to be too much.

Also, he seemd to have a thing for Ms. Kat. Which is not strange, I mean, who didn't have a thing for Ms. Kat? Even I had a thing for Ms. Kat. But one day, we were at a movie and he just kinda blurted out, "Can I have a picture of Ms. Kat?" I was like.. uhhhh.. why? He wasn't even sly about it, he just kinda drug it out there in the open. That was a bad thing. My ever present self esteem took a big nose dive that day, and that was an icky problem for the rest of our relationship.

But that wasn't the end. He single handedly helped to end my next relationship just by being at that same mall (which is now closed) with his new girlfriend just a month after we broke up. Imagine this: Me on my first date with a new boy, walking out into the parking lot to see my ex-boyfriend that I was still totally in love with, making out hardcore with some other girl. It broke my heart, and I spent the rest of the date crying with the other boy. Not good!

That was the second time I saw him at the mall. The third time was a few years later while I was dating Josh. I saw him in the parking lot of another mall where I was looking for a job. He hooked me up with a job at the movie theater where he was working, a movie theater that we used to go to together, and therein started another era of our weird relationship.

During that 8 months, I eventually met Matt and Ryan eventually met some chick with a big ass named Claire. Before he met her, I was almost completely convinced that Ryan and I were going to get back together. We held hands during George of the Jungle! Why wouldn't we get back together? But he was soon promoted to Assistant Manager of the theater and I guess he didn't want to get involved with all that.

That didn't stop me from asking him, on the very last day of my employment at the theater, if he wanted to make out. He did want to make out. And even though he was still with the fat ass girl and I was with Matt, we made out all night.It was good stuff.

We didn't talk for another couple of years after that, but one day he called me out of the blue. I had been with Matt a couple of years by this time, but that wasn't going to hold me back from seeing Ryan. We saw each other twice, 2 very strange meetings wherein we tried to battle the ever present chemistry between us. We had a porn experience. You can read more about that here, but the jist of that was we watched porn at my apartment and NOTHING happened! Why would you watch porn with your ex if you didn't intend for something to happen? I was dissapointed, yet relieved.

I haven't talked to him for almost 2 years at this point. When I last talked to him, Halloween 2001, I told him that just because I didn't talk to him that much, it didn't mean that I don't ever think about him. And that was the last time we talked.

I used to think about Ryan a lot, even years after we broke up. I sometimes feel like we have unfinished business, but if we ever finished it, the mystery would go away. And I'm not sure if I really want that. It's nice to have this mystery boy in my life, one that I feel like fate brought to me so many years ago to show me that I was worth something, that I was beautiful, that I was capable of achieving the things that I went after. He taught me a lot, and really, he changed my life. But I don't think about him much anymore. I don't even fantasize about him like I used to. Maybe because I know who I really want to be with. When Matt and I had problems, Ryan would be the first person I'd think of. But we grow up, and move on, and I realize that that's probably the best for us.

Why do I think it's fate? Mostly because of the mall thing. Why did I feel so strongly that I was going to see him again, when I in fact had absolutely nothing in common with him.. we didn't listen to the same music, we didn't have the same friends, he grew up in a low income household, only had his mom, dropped out of school to work at McDonalds.. why did I think I'd ever see him again? And the mall where I saw him twice.. that mall is nowhere near him. It wasn't even really near me. And just the chemistry we had, the looks we shared, the vibe that still exists between us.. it's just all too weird to not be fate.

So that's Ryan. Next up: Joseph, the red haired wonder perv.

Also read: Eddie, Charles.