Loving Zack Morris

I'm fairly confident my mother was convinced I'd grow up to be either a spinster or a lesbian.

[Not that there is anything wrong with either of those lifestyles. Hell, both of those choices would have freed me from any male related drama I have encountered in my life thusfar. But I digress.]

As a child, I had quite an adverse reaction to the male species. As an uptight six year old, those rambunctious hooligans were just too primative for my tastes. So while the other little girls gathered in groups and giggled over how cute Billy was, I stood there with my arms crossed, a look of disgust plastered on my face, and informed them that they were too young to be so boy crazy.

Yeah, I was that girl. In elementary school.

Once, in Kindergarten, a fellow classmate named Jesse told me that he wanted to see me in my bathing suit. What could have possibly brought this up whilst learning how to glue and cut in a straight line, I have no idea. But needless to say, I was horrified.

Then, in the 5th grade, one of the most popular boys in our class asked me to "go around" with him. This occurred while walking down the stairs from our school's library. Want to know what my reaction was? I screamed [literally], "EWWW GROSSSSSS!!!" and ran down the stairs back to our classroom. I was in such a state that my attempt to sit huffily down in my chair led to me actually falling out of said chair. But that's beside the point.

This extreme distaste did not only exist within my general age group, but included adult males as well. Doctor holding my hand to prick my finger for a blood sample? Gross. You get the picture.

My point in detailing these embarrassing antecdotes is this: While outwardly displaying nothing but hostility and disgust for all things boy, I was inwardly pining over one.

Zack Morris.

I lived for coming home to watch Saved by the Bell. Maybe I kissed the TV every time he appeared on screen. Maybe.

That blonde hair, those blue eyes, his popularity! What was there not to love??

I hated Kelly Kapowski, of course. The behavior of of automatically not liking the girl who has your dream guy starts at a young age, I tell you.

Perhaps I was too young to realize that Zack was not and would not ever be real. But that's ok. He was so much better than all the driveling dummies I had to go to school with [seriously, that's how I thought of them].

Funny thing is, with the exception of my very best friend, I never told a soul about my Zack Morris obsession. My poor mother, who told me it was more than acceptable to have boys as friends and that maybe I should try it, probably would have been comforted in knowing that I did indeed find a tiny bit of interest in a boy [albeit a fictional one}. But this was my own secret to harbor.

I like to credit Zack Morris [yes, I know he is a real actor with a real name, but I prefer to refer to him by the name in which I know him best] with teaching me that guys were not necessarily evil on earth. Who cares if because of him, all my first true loves were celebrities? You have to start somewhere!

Did I ever end up having a cute little elementary school boyfriend? Hell no. Did I have one in middle school? Negative. But you know what, I am more than ok with that. At least by the 8th grade I had my first real full-fledged crush on a guy! Did I ever really speak to him? No. Did I blush every time he spoke in class? Yep [he's married now, p.s.].

You can stop worrying about my social development now. By high school, I was a completely normal, horome-controlled girl. I had more crushes than I could even keep track of. One of them even turned in to a serious relationship [my first].

So thank you, Zack Morris. Guys can still be infinitely dumb sometimes, but at least I know that they're not evil and their "cooties" aren't going to kill me.