Man, all these top comments of people with great, liberal parents...

Anyway, back in 1996:

I started dating my first girlfriend(I am female) when I was thirteen. It was thirteen year old dating, so very emotional but not physical beyond kissing and a little necking. She lived in another state, and we had met online. We communicated through IMs, and visited each other occasionally -- my parents, despite being conservative in all the other ways, were actually pretty okay with me meeting online friends, which was good. I made most of my friends in my teenaged years online, and visiting them or having them visit me was always the highlight of my year.

Anyway, I adored this girl. We were with each other for about ten months, both of us turning fourteen, and got to visit each other two times in that period, before her parents found one of our IM conversations and found out about us.

Since we had visited each other, her parents and my parents had each others numbers and had talked with one another. However, her parents told me that they wouldn't inform my parents, but they wouldn't let me see their daughter again unless I told them. IE, they were putting it in my hands -- either inform my parents, or I'd never see my girlfriend again. I loved her so much, the idea of never seeing her again made me feel like I was going to die.

My mom was out of town, so I went downstairs and told my dad. He was actually very calm through the whole thing, even as I sobbed on him. I don't remember what he said, but he didn't yell at me.

There were a few days of strange calm, waiting for my mom to get back home. My dad asked me if I wanted to tell her or if he should. I asked him to do it for me.

The next several weeks were full of yelling and "discussions" and being sat down on the couch and talked to. I never did see my girlfriend again, of course. I now know that there was no point in having told my parents at all.

As the weeks went on, I slowly stopped feeling anything at all. Everything faded out. My parents never physically hurt me or anything like that, nor was I threatened with being kicked out or being cut off. There was no real "punishment" per se, just so many "talks" where I had to just sit there and listen, and sometimes my mom screaming in my face.

I honestly couldn't tell you what they said. It just went on and on, day in and day out, and I think what they said mattered less than the fact that almost every day I was sitting on the couch facing the two of them, fourteen years to their fifty-four and fifty-five, being chipped away like brittle sandstone -- a pillar weakened and bowed in the center, moth eaten and gnawed at the sides.

Eventually I realized I didn't love my girlfriend anymore. I didn't feel much of anything. She'd been nothing but loving and supporting through the whole thing. She never did anything wrong. She never started a fight, never hurt me, not once. She truly loved me and cared about me. I broke her heart and ended the relationship, because every time I said "I love you" to her I didn't feel it. I didn't feel anything about the break up.

I haven't really had any relationships since then. I'm thirty two and the biggest love of my life was when I was fourteen. I don't really form crushes on people. I have friends, and I enjoy being around people, but I never really feel anything more than that.

As an adult, I get along with my parents. I help them out, and we see each other often. We never talk about the whole thing. We just sort of act like it never happened.

I'm not sure how to describe myself, really. Not in any way that would translate well in text. I'm here, and I laugh at jokes or get mad or frustrated when people are dicks. I have conversations and smile and go out to lunch with my mom. I have favorite TV shows and like playing board games and get pissy when things aren't going my way. I never cry.

I'm here, in almost every way that a human would be, but somehow not quite. I'm here, but I am a stuck pixel, an odd grey spot, unmoving in the mass of bustling, living humans, shifting around me in a colorful flurry.

I don't think I'm ever going to change. I thought I would, once. But it's been nearly twenty years. I'm approaching my mid thirties and I haven't had any relationships, nor sexual encounters. I don't really feel bad about it. I just don't really feel anything about it at all.

I'm just here, eventually I won't be, and I think that will be nice.