The Mishaps and Misfortunes of a Mann

Chapter 3: The BFTB Continued...

Remember how I mentioned secret relationships? The thrill of the concealment and the strange power you somehow have over people for them not knowing. I felt all those things with the BFTB in our last relationship when we were in year 8.

Now, this relationship was the most secretive, and trust me, that's a pretty big achievement for me, especially back then. I seem to have gotten slightly better at keeping secrets. It was sorta intertwined with another relationship that I had, but before you all go thinking that I was having some kind of love affair, let me explain...

Things had just ended with the other guy, and I admit I was not actually the one who ended it, but we'll get to that later on. Throughout the time I was with this other guy, I was still very close with the BFTB.

He was going through a difficult time with his parents, and with this we connected. You see it was hard being 12 and having separated parents, or in his case parents who were on the verge of it. This made our friendship even stronger and as I have said before I was able to feel myself with him, share my deep and dark secrets that no one else knew, granted that a 12-year-olds secrets weren't particularly dark or deep, but nevertheless they were there.

April 2014, my family, the BFTB's family and another family all went to a remote place called Bissil on a short vacation. I already knew that I had feelings for the BFTB at this point, however I did not feel the need to express them as I thought for sure he still hadn't gotten over his ex. I'll tell you a little something about my 13-year-old self, I was extremely skinny, and when I say extremely, I mean borderline eating disorder, but don't get me wrong I loved to eat! Anyhow, as you can imagine, skinny me equalled no puberty and therefore I was thin as a rake, flat as a pancake and looked a bit like a 6-year-old boy, which, as it turns out was just not great for self-esteem or grabbing a guy's attention. Yes, boys at 13 were already very much obsessed with boobs, and as was I, seeing as I was only able to look at other people's! This made me feel a little self-conscious seeing as the BFTB's ex was extremely gorgeous and had all the right junk in all the right places as the Meghan Trainor song puts it.

But, never fear, my flirting game was rather strong, I should probably take some advice from my 13-year-old self.

These skills were clearly put to the test on our family get away, where I was able to spend some quality time with the BFTB. Firstly I feel I should mention that there was a pool, and a pool equals a half-naked me, granted my bikini top was half falling off due to the lack of substance there to keep it on! But this did not stop me, in fact it meant I had to work even harder to gain his attention, like making half-hearted attempts to keep myself from being thrown in the pool by the BFTB, obviously I enjoyed it, but he definitely did not need to know that!

Apparently my flirting was not as subtle as I intended as my aunt quickly caught on, she by the way happens to be the same age as me, but let's not get into family dynamics. She, I quickly found out, had a plan of her own to get us alone together.

We had exams called common entrance, which at the time seemed highly important and life changing, as for some reason we were made to believe that these exams were the yellow brick road to success in life. So me, my aunt and the BFTB decided, like good children, that we would study together on the roof top. The only equations that my aunt was doing however was working out how me + the BFTB would = a match made in heaven. She proceeded to tell us that she was going to the toilet. This was clearly code for "I'm pretending to go to the toilet just so that you two can be alone together and rekindle your great love story, wink wink." I guess in a way this is what happened. You see it was on that roof top that I realised that throughout my years of knowing him, 5 years to be exact, I had always felt slightly more for him than one should feel for their friends. I'm not gonna say that at aged 13 I thought I would spend my life with him, because luckily even I was not that naive, but there was a fair chance we would last a long time together.

This didn't really go to plan as we ended up breaking up about 2 months later, considering that we only actually decided to be together a week or so after the trip. This was our most secret relationship yet.

Confession time: back then I saw myself as quite the romantic, I'm now more of a hopeless romantic, and so it was natural to fantasise about the BFTB, not in some kind of sexual way, but let's just say I had my own extremely interesting way of portraying my feelings. God forbid if he should ever read this, but on occasion when I was feeling sentimental I would gaze at a picture of him. This is not all I would do. I used to love this song; Addicted to you, and yes I know it's highly creepy and slightly worrying but I would, I am ashamed to admit, sing to a picture of him!! "Hooked on your love like a powerful drug", those were some of the lyrics of the song, and I'm slightly unsure why I sung this particular song seeing as I still have no idea what love is, and I am almost certain that the only powerful drug I was taking at that age was Paracetamol.

Still to this day, there is not a time I don't listen to that song and laugh at myself, and I assure you that my sister will never let me forget it!

Despite the feelings that I had for him, he ended it in the most humiliating way possible.

We were climbing Mt. Longonot, and I have to mention that I am not the most athletic person out there or the most resilient. This called for some assistance from anyone that was close by, and this happened to be one of my guy friends, I say friend with great emphasis. Yes he had dreamy eyes and a very appealing exoticness to him but we were just friends. Getting back to the plot of the story, we walked together, and occasionally he would pull me along because I was so unable to walk due to my immense lack of enthusiasm or interest in hiking. We had a friendly chat and a great time doing what friends do best; being friends. However, very soon after it came to my attention that the BFTB did not feel the same way about our friendship.

Finally after having climbed a treacherous mountain, and so already in a bad mood, we got onto the school bus to leave. I sat at the very front of the bus with one of my friends, whilst the BFTB occupied the back row, otherwise known as the 'cool kid place to sit'. Well I was perfectly oblivious to the devastation that was soon to follow. As breakups go, this has to be by far the worst. The BFTB proceeded to carry out his mission by:

Step 1: using someone else's phone to write in notes

Step 2: write the following; "I am breaking up with you", and last but definitely not least...

Step 3: proceed to pass the phone down the bus, with the screen still on, all the way until it reached me at the front.

By this point the whole bus was looking at me with shock and confusion, firstly because no one actually knew that we were dating and secondly because they were thinking how much of an asshole he was for doing such a thing.

So there lay my heart on the bus floor along with the already chewed gum and empty crisp packets. I was humiliated, embarrassed by the fact that the whole bus now knew our secret (well that it was now over) and completely confused by the fact that I had no idea what I had done wrong. That was the very first time I felt completely unworthy of anyone and completely full of self-doubt.

It should be noted that in the days and weeks that followed, I pretended he didn't exist even in our maths class where I had to sit next to him, and I found a more appropriate song to sing to a picture of him; F*** You by Lilly Allen, a truly inspirational song.

NB: I am still good friends with the BFTB even though we no longer live in the same country, and I'm sure he secretly wishes he never broke up with me! ;)