When I was six, I got a ‘Stretch Armstrong’ doll after much begging and cajoling of the parental unit.

I think Santa had fucked up that year and given me a v-neck sweater, so I blubbered and stamped my feet until my folks, out of guilt or exhaustion, finally conceded and allowed me a rare off-season present. They even chauffeured me in the dilapidated station wagon to my childhood mecca, Toys ‘R Us.

In his glossy box at Toys R’ Us, Stretch Armstrong looked like the answer to all of my action-figure needs. In retrospect, his black bikini briefs, golden locks, muscular physique and malleable rubber body made him the paragon of Turkish-bath-loitering Chelsea queen, but at age 6, Stretch was the answer to the void in my soul.

My GI Joes were in bad shape. Their fuzzy little afros looked post-chemo and most of their Kung Fu grip fingers were missing, like maybe Duke had gambled away his digits in drunken bouts of five-finger fillet. Their phalanges had been reduced to curled and lonely index fingers. In short, Duke and his team of Joes looked like Nam vets working at saw mills.

Alas, no worries! NEW Stretch Armstrong– with his helmet of blonde coif and fresh smell of packaged polyurethane — was going to remedy the existential angst brought on by the demise of my dolls. At six inches and bullet-proof, Stretch would be the toy to end all toys.

Although I usually would try to milk my parents for all they were worth whenever we entered a Toys R’ Us, this time I only had eyes for Stretch. I bee-lined, breathless, to the shelf in the back middle of the store, grabbed him on tip-toes, and held him aloft like a conquering hero as my hand-me-down ‘Garanimal’ coduroys happily chafed away until my arrival at the register.

My periphery couldn’t distract me. I didn’t even ask my pushover mom for one of those bouncy “superballs” that I would normally want and then get home and throw against the wall, where it would immediately get lost behind a piece of heavy polyester furniture. Fuck that, I was on a mission.

I marched to the checkout line and my dad handed me a $20 bill so I could make the purchase all by myself. It was the first purchase I ever made and, more importantly, I think the single greatest moment of my life….

About three weeks later, that sucky piece of shit sprang a leak.

Thick jelly started oozing out from his armpits. It was red and viscous and it smelled like dead frogs.

When it first happened, I tried to delicately duct-tape the tears in the rubber, like some mini-MacGuyver. But the rips developed all over his body: his kneecaps, his groin, his shoulders. No matter how hard I tried, the end result looked like Stretch had been held hostage and beaten in the joints with a lead pipe. My Joes would watch in their perches, fingerless and silently smirking.

I continued to try, in vain, to make him do superhuman stretchy things, but he just wanted to lounge around and bleed through his Speedos. I eventually (and begrudgingly) put him in the bottom of an old wooden crate that would end up serving as a sarcophagus for the relics of many of my childhood disappointments.

When I think about some of the women that I fell for who ended up disappointing me, I experience almost the exact same blend of wistfulness and remorse with which I recall those childhood moments. Stretch Armstrong was no different. I actually think Stretch Armstrong was my first heartbreak. I don’t know what’s worse: the fact that my first heartbreak came when I was six, or that it came at the rubbery hands of a gay doll.

You never get your heart broken like you do when you’re a kid, but my most recent heartbreak feels pretty close. In some ways, it’s a similar story.

I fell in love hard with this woman. But somehow, within 7 months, she was quietly packing up her errant belongings in a matching suitcase set. We left our mutual memories in a few digital photos and a duct-taped box - one more sarcophagus for the relics of another adult disappointment.

I had met Adrienne last January 31st, 2009. Although we had corresponded for years, it was the first time I had laid eyes on her in person. She emerged from a yellow cab beautifully alabaster, six feet tall, in a black Valentino dress. She greeted me with soft brown eyes, beguiling lips, and impossibly long legs that looked like the answers to all my questions. Her raven coiffure and fresh female perfume were going to remedy the existential angst brought on by the demise of all my previous relationships. The first kiss that night was arguably one of the great moments of my life. It was supposed to be the kiss to end all kisses….

And then it sprang a leak.

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