The Mishaps and Misfortunes of a Mann

Chapter 4: The Wrong Romeo

Remember all those boyfriends that got in the way in between mine and the BFTBs final relationship?

Well, this chapter is all about one of them.

He came to school in year 7, so he was relatively late to join the school, but he fitted in pretty well, which I can't help thinking was partly my doing.

It was two days into the new school year in 2012, and let's just say I had already made acquaintances with him. However, as I would find out later that day, acquaintances was not all he had in mind for us.

Picture it almost like a Romeo and Juliet scene, apart from the fact that he didn't exactly play the role of Romeo, he left it up to his friend; hence how he earned his name in the book: The Wrong Romeo. So there I was on my way to get my bags to go home, when I heard my name. I look up at the balcony and there he is with his friend. Now the next few words weren't exactly a Shakespeare monologue, and weren't actually spoken by The Wrong Romeo himself and instead were spoken by his friend; "The Wrong Romeo wants to go out with you."

Back then, 'go out with' did not mean go on a date, but simply that you be together i.e. boyfriend and girlfriend, or something of that description.

It took me a while to process this question whilst looking up at the balcony, and let's just say my first instincts weren't to yell "Oh Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo", although it may have been wise, seeing as The Wrong Romeo wasn't really fitting the role.

Anyhow, after a 30 second deliberation with myself, I thought; I'm young, single and damn sexy, and besides he's new and innocent so why not?

And so there began our extremely interesting rendition of Romeo and Juliet.

As mentioned previously, the general thing that occurred when one was 'dating' in prep school was mostly just to hug more than usual just to make sure you were keeping up appearances and fulfilling your role of being in a relationship. And that is precisely what we did, not much more, until my birthday party, which I will explain in a little while.

The Wrong Romeo loved to give me gifts, and by gifts I mean mostly jewellery. There was something extremely special about the necklaces that I received from him, not that they were from Swarovski or Pandora, but as I was soon informed, they weren't actually bought, at least not for me. He seemed to have a great skill of stealing either his mums or sister's jewellery in order to give it to me. Now I kept telling myself that it was the thought that counted, however I couldn't help thinking that the necklace with the charm that said princess was probably given to his sister on her 5th birthday, or that the gold and silver chain was actually pure gold and silver and his mum was probably tearing the house apart in order to find it. Nevertheless, I was grateful, even though I wasn't actually sure why he felt the need to give me so many things in the first place. He was such a sweet guy, and I'm sure he always had the best intentions in our relationship, but the spark just wasn't there.

Although, as mentioned earlier, my birthday party was our first truly intimate moment together, and was quite honestly the first time I had ever been in such an intimate situation...

It was my 12th birthday party and I had planned an elaborate affair with food and drinks (unfortunately non-alcoholic) and also had the bright idea of 10 boys and girls all sleeping in a tent together. With situations like this, usually comes the very entertaining game of Truth or Dare. At the age of 12 this was probably the most scandalous thing you could possibly do, as it usually ended with multiple people kissing. I know, it's quite shocking.

It seemed that I was the most innocent of the bunch, as many of my other friends were quite familiar with this kissing thing. Still to this day I'm a little scarred by seeing two of my friends 'French kissing' as we used to say, and watching their tongues somehow intertwine with each other. To be quite frank, they butchered the seemingly elegant title of French kissing and added their own element of tongue acrobatics.

Before you all get excited or shocked by the prospect of me partaking in this tongue acrobatics, I'll start by disclosing the fact that it was nowhere near that slobbery, long or tonguey.

Being the person that I am, I picked dare, this of course led me to my first ever kiss with a boy. We all gathered in the dimly lit tent, huddled together to watch the magic unfold. Magic. That is very much an overstatement. I remember being slightly unsure of what exactly to do and slightly nervous as I was the main attraction to 8 other eager 12-year-olds. To say the least, it wasn't what I expected. In fact nothing like it at all. Before I continue, I would like to tell all the young innocent girls out there who watch wonderfully romantic Cinderella stories and sleeping beauty scenes, that it is just not even remotely the same. Don't get me wrong, even now I would quite like a knight in shining armour to whisk me off my feet but I deem that highly unlikely.

So there we were, looking intently into each other's eyes, something I learnt that you weren't supposed to do when kissing someone, but anyhow, we leaned in close and for about a mili second our lips touched. In all honesty, I'm almost certain that our foreheads connected for longer than our lips, but nevertheless I still imagined fireworks going off above our heads and an orchestra playing in the background to set the mood. That was what I like to call my first 'touch on the lips' with a boy, as it didn't quite make it on to the list of actual kisses.

As you can all probably tell, it was no Romeo and Juliet or Cinderella story, but it was certainly one of the most entertaining, should I say 'relationships' I've had. However, not to blame it on the kiss or the lack of chemistry, it soon ended only days before valentine's day.

Just as The Wrong Romeo didn't ask me out, I didn't exactly break up with him. Yup, extremely dick move. I just had no idea what to say. How could I tell him that we just weren't working out, or that I just couldn't be bothered with relationships? I wasn't exactly going to pull one of those stunts and hit him with the "it's not you, it's me" line because quite frankly, it was him. Instead I sent my best friend to let him down gently whilst I hid in the girl's bathroom, slightly ashamed and guilty. Clearly she did not get the message of a gentle let down, as if I remember correctly her exact words were; "your girlfriend is breaking up with you," and his whole world came crashing down. He'll never admit it, but I was told by sources that he shed a few tears.

I would like to add that although it didn't quite work out, at our leavers dinner when we were writing each other kind messages before we left the school, he wrote; "you were the best girlfriend ever."

So there you go, at least it was worth it for one of us.