The View from a Drawbridge

When I was 13, I fell madly in love with Shaun Cassidy. And what’s not to love? I mean look at him. He was so young and fresh and romantic, in a totally non-sexually threatening kind of way. Every girl’s dream.

I would haunt the magazine stands and make sure I got every issue of Teen Beat and Tiger Beat that came out. I’d clip out his photos and paste them to the ceiling over my bed. Sometimes they’d fall down in the middle of the night. It was our private little moment. I’d read all the articles about Shaun’s dream date, or Shaun’s favorite recipe, or how he was decorating his new house. I’d spend hours trying to figure out how I’d get his attention, because that’s all it would take, of course. As soon as his doe eyes focused on me, he’d realize I was the one for him. I even wrote to him once, enclosing a picture. It must have gotten lost in the mail because he never wrote back. No doubt he would have if he had seen my picture. I was his acne-scarred, braces-wearing dream girl. Damn the postal service!

I also bought every album he put out, and even got tickets to one of his concerts! I was so excited. My life was going to change! I was going to be breathing the same air as my idol! Omigod…but then my mother broke the news to me that we were going to be visiting relatives up north instead. I was crushed. Devastated. I don’t think I ever recovered. Couldn’t I just stay behind and go to the concert alone? I was 13, after all. I could be alone for two weeks. But noooooo….My own mother destroyed my one chance at true love!

When he got married in 1979 (to a playboy centerfold who was 8 years older than him, no less! What was he thinking? What were his publicists thinking?), I was inconsolable. I think I cried for two weeks. My life was over. And he never even said he was sorry. Believe me, I tore his pictures off my ceiling that very day!

But now, 33 years later, if I had a chance to talk to him, the only thing I can think of that I’d like to ask is, “When you were wearing those spandex pants, singing in front of thousands of screaming fans, didn’t you wonder how the hell your life had gone there?” I mean, sheesh. My future husband should have had a little bit more dignity.