Dear Love

She is the presenter of TV’s most famous show about relationships, but when she looks back at her own, what has she learned? Here, Caroline Flack writes an open letter to the men she’s loved, lost and found

- Caroline Flack

Dear First Crush

BOYS WEREN’T ON MY RADAR BEFORE I SAW YOU. But when I spotted you, sloping along the school corridor with your blond hair parted down the middle in a pair of ‘curtains’, looking like Zack from Saved By The Bell, everything changed. “WHO is that?” I whispered to my friend. A few days later, I found out. “Caroline… there’s a boy on the phone for you,” my mum said, her eyebrows raised and a smile on her face. “He’s asking to speak to the ‘girl with the red headband’.” That was me. I wore a scarlet Alice band to school every day. My heart raced: you had noticed.

I should have known from that first conversation that we came from different worlds. You were from the town. I was from the village. You asked me what my favourite brand of trainers was and I was embarrassed because I didn’t even know you could buy different brands of trainers. And yet… slow-dancing with you at the school party to Madonna’s Crazy For You was the highlight of my time at school. I was so nervous that when you walked away, I swear you could see my sweaty handprints embedded in the back of your T-shirt. We used to hold hands, and at lunchtime we would walk up to the top fields together and talk, and because of that I assumed you were my boyfriend. I was naive about love, you see. I thought it was uncomplicated. I thought affections were matched, and that when a boy said he liked you, that was it. But you taught me otherwise. You might not remember how it ended but, 25 years later, I still do.