from the first day that I saw your smiling face
"I'll Never Break Your Heart", tenderness, and the mortifying ordeal of being known on the internet
Hey there. If you’re new here, welcome! I’m so glad that you decided to subscribe, even though I’ve admittedly let the lands go fallow over here. You saw something you enjoyed and chose to believe there would be more. I really appreciate it. Since there will be more coming, I’d be so excited if you shared the good news of To All the Boy Bands I Loved Before wherever you could.
With that said: this piece has been saved in my drafts for over a month, and has made me realize things about myself that I did NOT expect at all. It’s also the most photo heavy issue, and oddly personal but I hope you enjoy it all the same.
My nine year old niece sometimes asks me to tell her stories about myself. I figure it's because she wants to understand the times that made her aunt into the person she is now. I mostly talk about school and pop culture1, because the shows I watched and the clothes I wanted to wear shaped me as much as the years of Catholic school and being an early blooming early reader. We were having one of those moments about a month ago, when I told her that I was terrified of ET when I was in elementary school. She turned to look back at the bins with my life's worth of journals in them and said something like, "Auntie, you should read one of your notebooks on a live stream!"
"Well, I kind of did something like that," I said before I told her about doing The Mortified Guide.
Impressed, she asked if we could watch the episode I was on. It was great! It made me feel like the Cool Aunt that I've aspired to be her whole life. It also reminded me that I'd have to explain a whole other pop culture moment to her…
...and, perhaps, reveal something else about myself in the process.
Celebrity crushes are emotional training wheels, acting as anchors to the ground while you find your balance. No celebrity crush could be as good of a starter on that road to self discovery as a boy band member, right? The archetypes are all laid out for you: the leader, the cute one, the bad boy, the quiet one. In five member ensembles, there's always this other guy. He may not be classically cute or easily charismatic. He's more reliably well-behaved; less stoic and more outgoing. He's frequently an amalgamation of all the types and often no one's actual favorite.
Let's call him the Free Agent.
I use that term now, but I wasn't thinking about any of that in 1997. Not knowingly, anyway. All that I knew was that the first time I saw the Backstreet Boys on Nickelodeon's Big Help, one particular member caught my eye: the guy with the dark, curly hair and kind eyes. I was already drawn to members of the opposite sex with long hair (I had capital F Feelings about Brendan Fraser in George of the Jungle, and there was Kenny from school), but this guy? He sent my heart aflutter in a way that just hit different.
The moment that truly cinched it for me came the following summer. You know how, when you were in middle school and you had a crush on someone, you wanted to never stop looking at them? But at the same time, you found yourself inwardly cringing at the thought of the grandeur of your beloved? That was me any time that the music video for "I'll Never Break Your Heart"2 came on, and I wasn't the only one in the room watching it. Howie absolutely looks amazing in it. From the solo apartment scenes when he's bathed in a warm glow, shirt unbuttoned enough to give a hint of bare chest, and also clad in black in the group shots. But there is this one moment, at 1:18, during the first chorus, when he closes his eyes and trails a finger down his cheek at the I'll never make you cry part that became a canon event for me. My preteen brain short circuited and my next thought was, Oh, for real? Alright, lover boy. BET.
My similarly Backstreet obsessed friends got it. Announcing your favorite member (your bias, if you're K-pop fandom adjacent) comes with the territory. They were the ones who would slip me the best pinups from Teen Beat and all the other magazines. They indulged my fantasies about becoming a singer/songwriter and opening for the group one day, all so I could meet my one true love. They helped me find the one music store in the mall that actually had a Howie poster. Nick and Brian were the golden boys, their solo shots available everywhere from Spencer's Gifts to Walmart. Sometimes, if you were lucky, you could find AJ, but that was it.
After finding my personal Holy Grail and bringing it home, that feeling of I adore you, but I can't look you in the eye remained. The poster was a close up shot. That didn't bother me at the store, but when I got home and unrolled it, it felt… weird. It was like the man was looking right at me. I couldn't explain why it made me uncomfortable, but the whole point of having the poster was to show my devotion, right? All I had to do was put it up someplace where it wasn't as obvious. I ended up push pinning the poster to the inside of my closet door and becoming incredibly nervous any time a family member wanted to open it up.
I never talked about crushes with my family. My first major crush on an IRL boy was in first grade, and it occurred to me that perhaps it'd be in my best interest to not scare my parents if I told them that I'd met my future husband, and he was the freckly redhead who sat across from me. My dad was, well, my dad. I couldn't tell my brother anything because he was my brother and two years younger; therefore, liable to tease me endlessly about anything that I held dear. My mom is judgmental to a tee. Even if she likes you, once you're out of earshot she'll rattle off all your faults to anyone who will listen. A few years later, when I got bolder and got a newer poster (this one less close up, less intense), all that my mom said when she saw it was, "Who is this white boy?"
The snarky part of me wanted to correct her and mention that he was half Puerto Rican and that counted for something, right? The part that longed for connection wanted her to ask me why this presumed white boy.
She never asked.
Why, indeed.
Besides his looks, there was a degree of tenderness that I saw in Howie that I liked. One of the first feature stories I read about the Backstreet Boys took place in late 1997, right when they were first picking up steam in the US. The group had done Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden, and there was a girl who had sustained a minor injury or fainted. She ended up missing their set and waiting backstage for medical attention. After their set, the group passed by her and the first member to acknowledge her was Howie. The fact that he took the time to comfort this girl who was bereft at having missed the show stuck with me.
For better or worse, I've always been a softie. Far more often than not, my marshmallow center left me open to heartache. In school and at church, most of my bullies were boys. I got called Jolly Green Giant for being taller and heavier than everyone else in third grade, and Beaver because of my crooked, slightly oversized front teeth. Boys got a perverse kind of glee from tormenting me, and I grew weary of adults telling me that they teased because they didn't know how to express their feelings. Even as a child and a young teen, I knew there was something sick about claiming that cruelty was just a crush concealed. But a dashing, dark-haired man who sang songs about promising to wipe away your tears, who had beautiful but intense eyes, and was, for all I knew, such a kind person that he was nicknamed Sweet D? That guy would never make me feel less than.
No wonder I wrote multiple drafts of the perfect, unsent fan letter that would make him fall in love with me. Or that I wrote a Cinderella type story with me as the girl who just wanted a dress and a night off and him as the Prince Charming. The situations ran rampant in my head during long school days and frequently on phone calls and instant messages with my friend Amanda. It was a shared multiverse where we met our faves and embarked on adventures. Think of it like one step up from being seven and playing Barbies with your best friend. There was an alternate universe story where Howie was a centuries old vampire and I was a human he ran into working at a corner store. Decidedly unglamorous, but throw in a vampire hunter also vying for my affections and a reincarnation plot, and from that alone, soap opera style shenanigans ensued!
In retrospect, I can trace a line from that fantasy to my college years loving The Vampire Diaries, and preferring the sensitive but trying his best (despite suppressing his near-constant blood lust) Stefan over the hedonistic fixer-upper that was his brother, Damon. The more things change, the more you stay the same, right?
I read somewhere once that if you're prone to anxiety, you may find comfort in finding patterns. Learning this made me feel less… unhinged when I had moments in the middle of the night trying to make sense of the kinds of men that I was attracted to. I figured that it was a cheat code. Like: Figure out what your Type is, and you can get closer to self-actualization and finding your dream dude! The results of hours of reflection on the guys I've known in person is inconclusive and so not the point of this piece. Going from the celebrity angle, though, that was revealing.
For the sake of comparison, a list of recent-ish celebrity crushes: Michael B. Jordan. Pedro Pascal. Chris Evans. Charlie Cox. Oscar Isaac. If you're particularly pop culture attuned, you're probably thinking, Girl, you have a Marvel actor problem. I'm not gonna deny that at all, but let's break this down on a macro level. What do these five men have in common besides portraying men with superpowers?
On surface level: four of the five have brown eyes. Three are not white and of those three, two are Latin American (Oscar Isaac hails from Guatemala and Pedro Pascal from Chile). They all speak fondly of their families, which is part of their promoted charm. Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal have alluded to having issues with anxiety. Charlie Cox and Pedro Pascal's star signs are Sagittarius and Aries, respectively, meaning that both are fire signs (like me). All three have an easygoing sort of charm and humor about them.
And let's look back at Mr. Dorough: brown-eyed, with Latin roots (he tried out for Menudo but his Spanish wasn't strong enough!). The youngest of his family and super close to them. Admittedly kind of neurotic, as I learned from the two part episode of Frosted Tips he appeared on. A Leo (I will go to my grave remembering that his birthday is August 22, 1973) and a fire sign. Laid-back and with a slight mischievous streak—for proof, watch this Entertainment Tonight clip where AJ tells a story about Howie encouraging him to get revenge for a years old slight against Leo.
Yes, that Leo. 1997 was a Time.
Let's go back to the start. The Mortified Guide of it all.
If you're not acquainted with Mortified, here's what you need to know: it's a storytelling show where adults present an audience with works from their formative years. These artifacts include screenplays, poetry, and journal entries. In 2016, I read primarily from journals that I kept during the peak of Backstreet mania twenty-five years ago. Mortified wants for you to end your set on something of an upbeat note, so when it came time for me to offer some sort of conclusion to my thirteen year old writings, I felt that I had an excellent wrap up:
August 2013. Adulthood has some perks, and among them is the opportunity to make money and maximize your concert experience. For me, this meant buying a ticket for the post-show after party, all without knowing which of the guys would actually be there. As the crowd started to make their way to the exits, an announcement came over the speakers that Nick, Kevin, and Howie would be in attendance.
A moment after I let out a scream of sheer surprise, I felt mildly embarrassed. I was twenty-eight years old, after all. And yet, the knowledge that I'd be face to face with the guy from the poster that I hid inside of my closet because my feelings were so overwhelming that I could not look at him made me feel thirteen again, and completely out of my depth. Even waiting in line, a girl ahead of me told me that she was certain I was going to cry when it came time for us to get our photos taken with the guys. I gasped "Oh God, I hope not,” though I was on that edge of losing it and feeling genuinely worried that I would.
I didn't cry, for the record. I also didn't play it for comedy points and tell Howie "You know what? I was supposed to be married to you by now." All I did was make a beeline straight for him and choke out, "I'm SO happy to meet you!" and try not to swoon a little when he replied, "Oh, thanks!" or something like it. The words are hazy, but I remember him giving me a hug—a really good hug—and feeling like sometimes, it was nice to know that dreams really could come true.
Which is kind of cheesy! Writing this piece has been both incredibly cathartic and cringe inducing for me, but it goes with the territory. During the Backstreet Boys' imperial period3, a lot of fans dismissed Howie as cheesy. Which, okay, sure, but also: he's the one who spawned the BSB fan motto of "keep the Backstreet pride alive." If you've liked the group, chances are less than zero that you've said or heard that.
My man got a rough deal from the fans back in the day. Everything from ragging on his looks and voice, to questioning why he was even there to begin with. This has made the post heyday reevaluation of him so satisfying for me. When Never Gone promo photos came out, I remember the threads on Oh No They Didn't that straight up said, "When did Howie get hot?"4 Hell, as late as this past December, when the main Backstreet Boys Instagram account posted a clip of the group singing "Winter Wonderland", the comments about how his countertenor pops off on the song were all over the place. His voice is more subtle than that of his *NSYNC countertenor counterpart, Chris Kirkpatrick, but it's a solid anchor. Listen to "Incomplete" and pay close attention to that first chorus. Yes, Nick is there, but Howie's backing him up. Go all the way back to "All I Have to Give" and listen to him and Brian harmonizing on the fade out. Did you know that before Brian joined the group, Howie was being primed as the front man? If you didn't watch the bonus scenes from Show 'Em What You're Made Of5, you might not have known, but I want you to sit and think about that.
All of this to say: give the guy his due! But don't forget that some of us always saw the potential.
And to the corner of Tumblr that voted for him over Justin Timberlake in the FIRST ROUND of the hot-boyband-tourney? You are unmatched and unparalleled.
Also, if I don't teach her that Mariah Carey is more than just "All I Want For Christmas is You", then who will?
The US version of the video from 1998.
This phrase, in regards to music, was first used by Chris Molanphy, critic and host of the podcast Hit Parade in an episode about Elton John and George Michael. April’s episode was about the Backstreet Boys and the chart histories of boy bands across all eras.
Just trust me and this person on Tumblr.
The 2015 BSB documentary; also the name of a single from their 2013 album In a World Like This—the first album of theirs since Never Gone that had all five members.