Everybody (Backstreet's back), Alright.

The Backstreet Boys taught me how to love.

I was that girl that everybody hated. That fanatic that screamed -- the way a person might scream if their arm were being sawed off -- at the mere glimpse of five oversexed men called the Backstreet Boys. I was the girl frantically calling the radio contests to be the 107th caller. And once, I even won.

It was 1998 when boybands began ruling the world, and none of my peers seemed to care, because they were just as engrossed. Though the boys at school called them "gay," I've found out in more recent years that even they couldn't escape the trend -- they sort of liked them, too.

But I didn't "sort of" like them. I watched every TV spot, owned every movie, memorized every dance move and attended three concerts (two of which, I was in the front row). I even suckered my parents into driving to Reno, NV one year -- because the 'Boys weren't coming to Sacramento. I let all the other girls believe that they were singing to them, but knew that they were actually singing to me. It was totally obvious.

I knew their birthdays, favorite colors, speech patterns. I could complete their sentences while watching interviews. My dad once quipped that I knew more about them than they did; I did.

Every time I played a song or watched a contrived music video (they dropped $1 mil for the "Larger Than Life" music video, by the way), my heart would flutter and my pulse would rise. It was my first (unrealistic) taste of unrequited orgy love.

Before them had been Leonardo DiCaprio, of course, but he never sang to me. I suppose that was his fatal mistake. It would have never worked between us.

Embarrassing as it is to admit my tragic obsession, music has a remarkable effect on people. It only helps that I was an adolescent; which is their target market. Music can heal wounds, and in some cases, the cheeky lyrics that blared through my headphones did just that.

During the summer of 2002, I met Nick Carter backstage at a local concert. It was a moment I'd dreamed of for years. Walking out of the room, looked at me and blew me a kiss. At age 15, I could die happy at that very moment. It was the culmination of my obsessive tendencies -- the closure that I needed to begin letting go of my "non-existent relationship" relationship. It was the beginning of the end.

We had some good times and some bad times, but I don't think I'll ever get the useless Backstreet Boy trivia out of my head. Once that shit is burned into your psyche, it stays there forever. Overall, years have passed and my obsession has gradually faded. But they'll always have a special place in my heart, where all my guilty pleasures are stored.

After all, they did teach me how to love. And for the record, Kelly Clarkson taught me how to feel. But that's another story.