If you’re not familiar with To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, well, what are you waiting for? It’s the perfect feel-good Netflix movie to watch. Anyways, the TL;DR is that it’s a rom-com in which the protagonist, Lara Jean, writes letters to all the boys she’s had a crush on in order to get them out of her mind. (The letters are meant to be private, but they get mailed out, which of course leads to many shenanigans.)
Inspired by that movie, one girl and her friends made a PowerPoint chronicling all of their crushes and romantic endeavors over the years. The moment I saw this TikTok, I knew I had to try it with my friends.
@beanburrito0613
I set up the Google Slides and instantly got to work typing up my goofiest reviews of all of the crushes I’ve had over my lifetime. My title slide reads “Morgan’s Loves” and then in smaller words, “Don’t worry, I’m disappointed too, y’all.” Is it a silly thing to do? Yes. Did I also have so much fun trying to remember elementary school crushes and cringing at middle school me? Also a resounding yes.
i can neither confirm nor deny whether i spent the past 5 hours writing out a summary of each of my crushes ever for my friends’ “to all the boys i’ve loved before” type slideshow.
— mcnamary (@mcnamaary) April 14, 2020
But entertainment wasn’t the sole benefit of this project, surprisingly enough. I’d consider myself only an average amount of unlucky, romantically speaking. However, it’s easy to look back from where you are now and only see the negative parts. They stand out because they hurt, and that sticks with you.
That’s why I was shocked at all the good memories that came up from creating this goofy slide show. Looking back, especially on my most embarrassing, classically middle school crushes, made me smile and reminded me of a lot of good people and good times. Sometimes, especially when certain misadventures are recent in your mind, it’s easy to look back at your past (in any capacity, not just your romantic past) and see it with a kind of dark cloud hovering over everything.
This PowerPoint led me to do a surprising amount of self-reflection (while also writing sentences like “He used to behead his sister’s barbies and brag about it on the bus”). It gave me a more optimistic view of myself and helped me laugh about things that hurt at one point but are now, honestly, quite funny. It also helped me learn about my best friends’ pre-college lives, and it’s always fun to have a good-natured laugh about how we looked and acted in middle school.
In the end, I’d definitely recommend this as a quarantine activity for anyone to do with their friend group. At the very least, you’ll have some fun and laugh with friends, but there’s also the possibility that some self-reflection could lead to even better results.
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