Another belief I inherited from BSC books was that as soon as one crosses the threshold of middle school, one is instantly blessed with mini-adulthood (the mental age and behavior gap between the triplets and Mal was as wide as the one between Mal and Claire), and in addition, no matter how interested in boys a girl may be, and no matter how awkward and sturdy she is, she will be plagued with men fawning over her.
While not sturdy, I certainly was awkward and probably no boy even said something nice to me in middle school, let alone tipped my chin. I doubt that I am alone in this–I can remember only a handful of girls in my middle school who got genuine male attention before high school. Bearing this in mind, let’s review the BSC members.
Kristy Thomas. The consummate athlete and long suspected to be a lesbian in many fandom circles, Madame President fell hard for Bart Taylor in Secret Admirer, where his love letters were more creepy than Cokie’s psycho-stalker letters. Which is worse at thirteen–”I love you, I love you, I love you” or fingernail clippings? Despite these early declarations, Bart was only ever Kristy’s sort-of boyfriend until he got fresh. When the BSC went to Europe, however, Kristy met the man who is a fan favorite despite the fact that this is his only appearance in the series: Michel.
Claudia Kishi. One of the most vivid images in the series is Claudia sitting on the edge of her bed hugging herself in Claudia and the Perfect Boy, because it is weird. Really weird. Also weird is Claudia’s stalker in the first Super Special. After that, poor Claud had no other real romantic interest until she went back to seventh grade. I’m not sure why. There she had Mark Jaffe, who was a jerk, and Josh, who was a chipmunk. Poor Claud. In FF, she and Stace broke up over a boy, but Claud then found her true love who likes anime… ALAN GRAY.
Mary Anne Spier. I. Hate. Logan.
Stacey McGill. The woman needs no introduction. Stacey’s romantic history would take as long to write as War and Peace.
Dawn Schafer. Despite being upgraded from “interesting-looking” to “a real knockout,” Dawn is perhaps the most unloved of the girls. Sure, she and Lewis keep up a sizzling correspondence, but who wants to date a relative of Logan’s?
Abby Stevenson. Ross was in love with Abby but he meant to be in love with Anna. Abby didn’t care though. And I don’t really believe her when she says that she “had a lot of boyfriends in Long Island.”
Mallory Pike. Feeling sturdy and awkward and redheaded and glasses’d, Mal met Ben, who was also redheaded and glasses’d. Aww. It was not all romance and roses, however, as Ben and Mal fought over caroling and the proper usage of the card catalog. Ben was mysteriously absent during the Spaz Girl ordeal, although it seemed to me that Mal’s already miniscule self-esteem that dropped to the point where she did not feel worthy of his sexy Australian accent.
Jessi Ramsey. Quint is kind of gross. He tipped her chin and assumed that just because Jessi was in New York he could make out with her. Jessi also sometimes danced with Curtis Shaller, and learned an important lesson in Shadow Lake when she realized that just because Daniel was also black did not mean that they would make a good couple.
Here was my romantic history in eighth grade: … Nothing. Yet the BSCers romantic lives–especially Stacey’s!–read like Sex and the City without the sex and the city but with the relationship obsession and the frequency of new boyfriends. Why was Ann so eager to present a world where middle schoolers have so many boyfriends when we are all aware that this is very, very far from her own reality? Yes, characters like Abby who are not obsessed with boys are refreshing, but I feel like Abby represents the majority, or perhaps if we took Abby’s boyfriendlessness and added hopeless unrequited crushes it would represent the norm for thirteen year old girls. So why did Claudia feel so pathetic when she didn’t have a boyfriend? Because Mary Anne was already basically in a terrible marriage? I know fans of the BSC who like to pretend that the girls are a couple of years older than written so that things make more sense. I think that this is another instance where that is a helpful tactic to keep oneself from grabbing Ann and asking her what is up with her worship of premature relationships.
