What's your type?

According to my late Mum, my first love interest was a Maltese boy when I was around 4 years of age. I even have photographs of him somewhere in what looks like a tiny fisherman's jumper and me in my adored baseball cap in pale blue with badges sewn on from all the places I visited. I don't remember any affection for this boy - I think it was a case of my parents showing far too imagination.

My first boy that I had a crush on came when I was around 7 years old. He was a server on my lunch table at school. Hence, he was older by around 4 years and part of a double act of lads somewhat like Ant and Dec only with Yorkshire accents. I won't name the lad as we don't want to terrify him should he happen to chance on this but old schoolfriends can probably work out who it was. Anyway, maybe this experience set me on a path of older men? Maybe I just liked boys who had power? Anyway, this lad was the first of many not to requite my great passion. He used to call me "Mork" referring to my general moodiness I think or maybe that I used to enjoy sitting upside down about that time!

The next one came along the Summer before starting secondary school. We had moved to a new area and I met him when playing out. I decided to like him when somebody told me he liked me. That seemed a positive step up from the primary school one. So I played with him innocently along with a gang of us playing tennis trying to be the next Chris Evert. I remember him running off with my Slazenger racquet and me chasing him and then getting attacked by a dog. That should have taught me never to chase men! I think he was a bit of an eccentric and probably not able to be so comfortably in view of the restrictions of a Northern mill town. He used to wear lots of digital watches and sported a skinhead haircut. So what, you might say? But these little things impress when you are 11 and lovestruck. Of course, nothing was ever going to come of it as I was and remain the shyest person in the world. He, as boys and men will, got bored and went off with another model - more blonde, more glamorous. I continued to mentally obsess about him until his untimely death at the age of 16.

From around 1985 and with puberty well in force, I could just about persuade myself to fancy anyone who gave me a kind word. I had a penchant for those who looked a bit different or talked in an interesting way. So if you were nice to me when my dog died or had long hair or an earring, you were in whether you wanted to be or not. Again, I did nothing about these affections. Even if any lads at school had liked me in that way which still seems highly unlikely, I would have missed the clues or just bottled things.

In Sixth Form, there was a trip to Blackpool. Finally, I gained a bit of acceptance from the girls by slow-dancing (well slow-shuffling as couldn't dance either!) in a pub with a Dean from Sunderland. He was again an older man and I thought he looked very fetching in his yellow T-shirt. I can remember my best friend being totally shocked that I had let anyone that close to me. She looked similarly stunned on my wedding day two years ago. Well, as Dean and I were on separate coaches going in different directions, this one was not going to be very long-term. I came back to school where my Dad was waiting for me in the early hours of the morning. "Have you had a nice time?" Boozed up, I replied excitedly "Yes, I got off with somebody".

So that covers about half my lifetime's loves and lusts. We can deduce several things ...

1. That nobody fancied me although if they were on a bus out of town, they might give me a go.
2. That lads that were older than me tend to feature
3. That I liked lads with status of some sort
4. That I adored anyone who was confident enough to be that little bit different in terms of style

So off I went in 1987 to university and then into the big wide world. Who will Katy fancy next? And will it still be older fellas with summat that bit different about them?