To look at me now you might think otherwise, but I’ve never been a jock, at least in the ball-tossing sense of the word. Whenever any type of flying object was hurled at me back in PE class, I’d feign to run after it, but always in slow motion or in the wrong direction so my teammates would get it first. This tactic resulted in a far less humiliating sense of shame than me dropping the object while trying to catch it, chasing the damn thing as it rolled away on the ground like a maniacal rabbit, and then attempting to throw it to a teammate, inevitably lobbing it back into the ground or out of bounds.

Although I was uncoordinated at sports, I picked up at least some coordination and strength as a teenager by delivering newspapers seven days a week. This job required lugging heavy stacks of newspapers door-to-door, pedaling a bike weighted-down by newspaper baskets, and pulling a wagon piled so high that it toppled over more than once from the strain of 100, two-pound Sunday editions. After two or three hours of this, I looked about as jock-like as I’d ever get: sweaty, sore, and smeared with ink stains that I proudly showed my parents as if they were bruises I’d endured on the playing field.

Not long after starting junior high school, I was already overhearing rumors about what high school was like: some kids drove cars to school, students smoked pot in the bathrooms, and everyone was required to take swim class. Swim class would be my worst nightmare. It didn’t matter that I’d flailed and cried through swimming lessons several years earlier, forcing my parents to give up on the idea of me joining the Coast Guard. It didn’t matter that everyone would snicker at seeing my skinny white body in a skinny blue swimsuit. Nor did it matter that I’d have to shower in front of my classmates, or else reek of chlorine and have bad hair all day.

As luck would have it, my high school canceled the swimming requirement the year before I entered. Instead, we got to choose which sports we wanted to take: football, baseball, wrestling, tennis, volleyball, badminton, golf, – even bowling. The thought of possibly wrestling hot jocks was highly appealing, but the idea of wearing a singlet and getting a bloody nose eliminated that fantasy. Instead I chose tennis, badminton, and bowling. Of course none of the hot jocks chose these sports, but at least the only downsides were a sore hand or some gutter balls.

If I missed the hot jocks in badminton and in honors classes, I still saw them swaggering and towering like demigods in our school’s narrow halls. In the cafeteria the jock gods held the choicest tables, segregated by popularity. The jock gods were the center of the school universe in their colorful team jackets, radiating an unspoken power and attracting legions of girls, all drunk on cool-jock Kool-Aid. Oh Yeah.

I wasn’t immune to the jock Kool-Aid either – I just learned to hide my addiction. My first jock crush was Chris, who by eighth grade already had a toned jock body, smooth dark hair, beautiful eyes, and pouty lips. Our chorus teacher Mrs. Mercer loved me because I always held my music high and seemed to be paying attention, but I only did so in order to look at the music and at Chris at the same time. In high school Chris joined the swim team, and I longed to go see him at swim meets. I didn’t dare, so I consoled myself with fantasies in which Chris would privately teach me swimming strokes, among other things.

In high school I was lucky enough to share morning homeroom with Paul, who was, to me anyway, the best-looking guy on the varsity football team. Paul was hunky, had emerald-green eyes, and an easy charm that won him dates with all the popular girls. I dreamed about Paul ditching his dates to teach me football, after which we’d go for sausage pizza. A year younger than Paul was blonde, blue-eyed Barry, who also played football and sang in chorus. Like most jocks at our school Barry was a bit dumb, but in a loveable way. I would have tutored him in return for backrubs.

I finished high school and college with my jock fantasies unfulfilled, which is probably why even now a guy with the right kind of jock-look can still make me thirsty for the Kool-Aid. I’m not sure how else to put it, but there’s just something about a guy with strong legs, muscular arms, and a baseball cap that says he might be great with a ball and a pitch – and would cover all the bases.