"Boyfriends" by Susan Toth

Susan Toth’s essay, entitled “Boyfriends”, is about Toth’s teenage years during which she wanted and obtained a boyfriend. First, her motivation behind obtaining her boyfriend, Peter, seems manufactured by the expectations of others. She fears reaching sixteen and never kissing a boy, and her interest in Peter seems rooted in superficial qualities such as “older” and “an athlete”. Toth valued her relationship to Peter for what it was, an experience she needed to fulfill as a teenager and a time-filler before going to college. “I could sense new vistas opening before me, glowing horizons whose light completely eclipsed a boyfriend like Peter.” Toth ends the essay on a sentimental note, however, using the cross necklace as a symbol for how nice it is to be cared about by someone.
My own first boyfriend experience was very similar to Toth’s. I too felt the pressure to obtain a boyfriend and a first kiss before getting “too old”. Part of the urgency to obtain a boyfriend was the desire to assert my independence and maturity, which Toth and her friends felt they needed to do as well, as can be seen by their need to drive. “Driving gave us a feeling of freedom.” Even though I knew throughout my relationship that we would need to break up as there were “new vistas” elsewhere for the both of us, I did not experience the same level of detachment to my first boyfriend as Toth seems to have had with Peter. My first boyfriend is currently one of my best friends, and as far as I can tell, there is no great eclipse over that section of my life.