I think I was 8. My parents went to a Robbie Williams concert and dropped me off at their friends house for the night. I was super close with their daughter, who was 9, and I remember sitting on the floor with her on her plush carpet like we had 1000 times before. But this time we were going through all of our knickknacks from our adventures together (board games we’d invented, crafts we’d done, photos of the two of us and her older brother). I said something like “I’ve seen girls do this before” and kissed her straight on the mouth. My heart broke when’s she pushed me back and spit onto the floor, then ran to the bathroom to dramatically wash her mouth with water.

I got over it very shortly after, and didn’t think twice that I might have been the big gay (obviously I was not thinking about falling in love at 8).