My first boyfriend thought he was a poet. Wait, it gets worse. My first boyfriend thought he was a poet but he dreamed of becoming a mime. He also had a long blond ponytail.

Dating this guy wasn’t, shall we say, my idea. It was my friend Kathleen’s idea. I think she felt sorry for me because I was a sophomore in high school and no one had ever asked me out, ever, not even to one of the Friday night dances in the gym. I had transferred in from Catholic school and I didn’t own a single item of Benetton clothing. Henry was in Kathleen’s class, a year ahead of me, and she decided to play matchmaker, banking on our mutual appreciation of Monty Python. I appreciated the gesture, but I also realized pretty quickly that things weren’t going to work with Henry; he talked about poetry and miming more often than I liked. That is to say, he talked about poetry and miming. Sometimes he tried to impress me by pretending to be a medieval court jester. I wanted so badly to be a normal person with a normal dating life that I pretended to laugh as he juggled invisible eggs.

One summer morning I had a fight with my mom, about what I can’t remember, but when I met Henry at the Dunkin’ Donuts that afternoon I suggested we take his dad’s car and drive down to the coast. I figured a two-hour drive would put enough distance between me and my mother, and besides, I had told her I was just going to Dunkin’ Donuts. Going to the coast instead would constitute rebellion. Also, we’d surely find a Dunkin’ Donuts along the way, so it wouldn’t have to be a lie. Sister Jeanette had told me in the second grade that liars go to hell before other types of sinners.

Henry was willing to drive me anywhere, so off we went, sans map or directions, just heading south with the assumption that we’d find a scenic coastal spot - you always do, if you head south in Maine. As is usual in driving situations, I wanted to listen to a tape. “Oh yeah,” Henry said, fishing in the glove compartment. “Um, I made a tape. We can listen to it.” He pushed the tape in. I forced a smile. Henry liked hippie music. I collected Kill Rock Stars cassettes. The first song on the tape wasn’t the Grateful Dead, though. It was Simon and Garfunkel singing “Cecilia.” This happened to be a song I had always liked; it was a favorite of my mom’s, too, and it’s a nice tempo for driving on a summer afternoon. Henry kept looking away from the road to smile at me. The song seemed to be making him very happy. I forced a bigger smile.

He took one hand off the wheel and grabbed my hand off my lap. “This is our song,” he announced. His palm was sweaty.

I was startled into silence. Our song? Why did he get to decide that? Also, why did we need a song? I was planning to get through the summer and then break things off before school started, so I could go back to Waterville High with a valid dating record under my belt. I knew this was a cruel little plot. I knew cruelty to other people was a surefire ticket to hell, Sister Jeanette had made that clear too, but Sister Jeanette had never been to public high school.

“Ceceeeeee-lllyaaaa, you’re breaking my heart!” sang Simon (or was it Garfunkel?).

Here’s the worst part. I let Henry think “Cecilia” was our song. I sighed happily every time he played it for me; that’s what normal people do when they hear their song, right? I clapped when he recited poetry from the top of the slide at the public playground. I was Normal. I had a Boyfriend. We Did Things Together and we Shared Special Moments. Look at me! Hey! Look at me, I’m over here! I’m being Normal! But I was faking, I knew I was faking, and it didn’t feel very good. When I finally called it quits in the fall, he was so upset he began mailing me drawings of bursting eyeballs - no notes, just sketches of popping veins and detached retinas. Then he started calling my radio show every week, anonymously, to request Tool songs (this was to let me know that in addition to being upset, he was angry). Ever since then, the sunny intro of “Cecilia” has made me cringe. It reminds me of what a selfish jerk I was and it makes me feel sorry for Henry, despite the eyeballs, despite the poetry. But more than anything it makes me regret being the girl who thought she had to date a wannabe mime in order to be normal, the stupid girl who thought normal was a thing that existed anyway.