The Mishaps and Misfortunes of a Mann

Chapter 2: The Best Friend Turned Boyfriend

As recalled, Crush Number one didn't last very long. This happened mainly because he moved schools and I soon realised that having a long-distance crush was very unrealistic!

So then came the first of my more complex relationships, the Best Friend turned Boyfriend. Now, this is a situation that I feel many girls find themselves in, and at the age of 10 I had this very dilemma.

We were at swimming, a sport that I already have a hard time trying to wrap my head around without being hit in the face with a kick-board. Much like I am in the current day, I highly dislike things being thrown at me, especially when already in a bad mood. So, you can imagine my dismay when the BFTB decided to casually toss something that was supposed to be in the pool, at my drenched face.

Upon returning home after this dreadful incident, I told my mum. To which her reply was; 'he likes you.' Clearly boys of the age of 10 had not quite worked out that the way to a girl's heart was not by throwing pool implements at them. However, this was an extremely interesting enquiry that I had made and from that moment I pondered the idea of liking this boy.

He was, particularly to me, an extremely sweet boy, slightly misunderstood, but sweet none the less. Before there was any romance, there was a friendship, one that lasted throughout the rest of the years in prep school, with of course stages of what I would then call 'dating' or 'being together.'

We understood each other, an understanding that allowed me to be truly comfortable with him, and with both our mums being teachers, we spent a great deal of time together. We would sleep in tents together, play random games of hide and seek, and even have long conversations about life, all at the age of 10 before the awkwardness that came with puberty and unsaid feelings.

Personally, one of my favourite games to play was to guess who the BFTB liked, because of course I needed to know all the gossip! He would never tell me, but I always persisted, the stubbornness growing more and more inside me, until one day I eventually realised that the reason I wanted to know so badly was because I secretly hoped it was me! Of course I never expressed these feelings, I had far too much pride for that, and besides shouldn't it always be the boy who tells the girl these things? Later in life I would come to realise how anti-feminist that was of me, and let's just say it led to many future complications with some of the other boys in my life. Anyhow, the day he finally confessed his love for me was whilst walking down the corridor at school, highly dramatic if you ask me. I kept pestering him to tell me until eventually he turned to me, looked me right in the eyes and said "you." My heart did a little summersault but before I had time to respond to this utterly shocking news he ran away. Yup he just took off down the corridor without a second word, leaving me like a deer in headlights. That moment was the beginning of our years of unsaid, but sometimes spoken, extremely complicated and might I say, frivolous romance.

Now I guess you could say that the BFTB was the right sort of guy. By this I mean I liked him because of the connection that we had, not purely because of his looks or his popularity, not to say he was lacking in either respects, but simply because my 10-year-old self felt so normal and comfortable around him. These are a few good lessons every girl should know, and might I add, some lessons that my teenage self probably should have thought of!

I remember the night I stayed over at his house, yes ladies and gents, I stayed at a boy's house. Not only in his house but in his room! I know you must be thinking, oh how very scandalous of you, but in reality, I found it perfectly normal. As I said, it was something you never really think of as being unusual when you're a child, staying in the same room as a boy, because things like hormones have not entirely started to kick in. Had we been older, I do wonder what direction things would have gone...

Our wedding was carefully planned, right down to the colour of the bridesmaid dresses, by my sister and the BFTB's sister. I often look back on that idea of a wedding with him and I'm not entirely sure if it could have worked out, seeing as we broke up so many times through the course of 5 years, divorce would simply be far too complicated!

The concept of secret relationships is one I have become extremely familiar with, and it all began with the BFTB. There's this stigma about having a girlfriend or boyfriend when you're young, where people are too scared to tell their parents because they might get angry or feel like its a waste of time! Its rather stupid if you think about it, seeing as all you do with your so-called partner is say hi, talk slightly more than usual, hug in public and if things got really serious, you might just hold hands! Anyway, the BFTB was one of those people, which might I add slightly offended me because in my dramatic style I wanted to be shown off to the parents, uncles, cousins and friends, I mean is that too much to ask?

It never began as a secret relationship because I guess somehow at the beginning it wasn't embarrassing, but as more and more people found out, the storm came rolling in. His sister found out, and unbeknown to me, this was some kind of disaster. The reason being that she teased him too much. I know what you must be thinking because I was thinking the exact same thing; get over yourself and grow a pair. But of course, being the terribly sweet girl that I was, I said nothing and agreed to go through with the complicated mission of pretending to the world we had broken up, cause a big dramatic scene, but still date anyway, only this time in secret.

It was off and on ever since then, with other girlfriends and boyfriends inconveniently getting in the way, but there was always something.

I remember one valentine distinctly, a point in time when me and the BFTB were not dating but feelings still lingered. I was at this point, like I had been throughout the whole of prep school with him, very unsure of what I meant to him. These were very serious problems for me as an 11-year-old, which come to think about it, just wasn't something I needed to be worrying about if anything at all. Anyway, on this romantic valentine's day, probably the only remotely romantic valentine's I'd ever had, I was hit with some overly exciting news, of which I later wrote in my diary;

Dear diary,

Michael said that the BFTB said that he wants to be my valentine,

Can you imagine?!

Can you imagine? I really couldn't simply because the prospect of having a valentine was just very exciting. Also, I apparently hadn't yet learnt that saying 'said' too many times in a sentence was practically a literary tragedy. But who cared when I had the world in the palm of my hand and a valentine?

Not much came from this valentine situation and I guess I clearly forgot about the whole thing all together. However, the diary entries and the secret clubs where we shared which boys we liked did not end there.