A friend of mine was boy-crazy in third grade and asked whom I had a crush. I lied and chose the person I felt was least annoying.
In retrospect, the first crush I had was entirely oblivious to me throughout middle school. In sixth grade, I developed a rivalry with a boy that began as mild teasing but became acidic halfway through the year. It didn’t help that our teachers insisting on seated us near one another (I swore this was a conspiracy against me.) Near the end of the year we bonded by snitching on his cousin, who had been throwing spitballs during biology, and he defended me against someone who called me a slur when I neglected to grant them permission to copy my homework.
It wasn’t a butterflies in my stomach kind of crush, but I still pin it as my first… even if I didn’t admit it until well after we parted ways.