In Which I Gush Over Early 90's Teen Dreams

Won't You Join Me?

Last month, Hairpin has an awe-inspiring collection of poems and diary entries written to Johnathan Taylor Thomas, circa 1995, all of which are hilarious and concurrently heart-breaking and heart-warming.

One of the comments?

"Maybe it's cause I wasn't fourteen until 2007, but who the hell is JTT?"

I don't know how to wrap my 90's-girl head around this question.

Granted, JTT was not "my" boyfriend; he belonged solely to my best friend Stephanie. Once her relationship with JTT was established, I never gave him a glance. My early-90s boyfriend was the far superior Rider Strong.

 Why? Glad you asked.

Rider Strong, ladies.

1.) Because his name is RIDER STRONG. Ride. Her. Strong.
His name is the single greatest pick-up line dream of hipsters everywhere.

2.) Because his favorite song (according to Tiger Beat) was Pachelbel's Canon in D minor.  Internet friends, believe me when I tell you that I already loved that piece of music prior to reading it as his fav in my teeny-bopper mag. The real kicker was how it was all so very deep and meaningful to 12-year-old me; Rider liking it (or his publicist claiming he liked it) separated him from the pack and shunned anything modern that played on The Edge 95.1 FM every single day. Any stupid boy could claim Nirvana as their favorite music, because, hello, Nirvana in the early 90s. But Rider? Rider was DEEP and SOULFUL. He liked classical music.

3.) On the way to school every morning our carpool would pass the van rental company Ryder, which was an utter sign from God that only I could interpret that Rider was waiting for me to be my forever boyfriend, who would totally slow dance with me in the school cafeteria on dance night and maybe fly in on a magic carpet and I dunno what else, but it would make everyone else super jealous in ways no one had ever been jealous before.

Logical reasons. He was also on a telly show called Boy Meets World, but that's beside the point.

As for JTT,  random-Internet-commenter-who-really-didn't-ask-me, he was the little beat-off from the misogynist-mother-load Home Improvement with really bouncy blond hair. (And The Lion King's Simba, but only talking Simba. Singing Simba was Jason Weaver, or J-Weav.)

JTT. You're welcome, Stephanie.

Other contenders for my Imaginary Boyfriends circa the early 90s were: Will Smith, Tommy Page, Jonathan Brandis, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jared Leto and Keanu Reeves. (My attraction to men older than me is a habit that seems to have held over into adulthood.)

So, who was your Imaginary Significant Other? No worries, if you call dibs, I'll keep my hands off.