My first boyfriend

I just discovered Soap Opera Sunday though Patois' blog, and I want to play too, so I don't care that it's not Sunday.

When I was in seventh grade my parents enrolled me in a new school. This school was bigger than my old, tiny school where there were maybe 20-25 kids in my whole class. There were probably 20 to 25 kids in each of the 5 groups that comprised our seventh grade class. I did not know anybody. I rode the bus, and there was this boy who sat in front of me and whom I found pretentious and annoying, but kinda liked at the same time, in that "I'm bored and have nothing better to do" kind of way.

One day he asked me, through someone else, if I wanted to be his girlfriend. I remember the tingle I felt inside. He likes me! I was thrilled and sent back reply that yes, I wanted to be his girlfriend.

We spent one lunch break together as boyfriend and girlfriend. We went around the school grounds, chatted with some of our schoolmates, briefly held hands. I felt all self-conscious and awkward. I was a tall girl, taller than him and than many of my schoolmates. I had never before had a boyfriend, and I really hardly knew these kids. He had the advantage over me on that; he had been at the school longer. I desperately wanted to fit in.

The next day, he sent word with the same envoy that our relationship was over. He was sorry, but we could not be together. It never occurred to me to question why he did not communicate these things to me directly if we sat so close together in the bus. I was so naïve, so ignorant of the evil that boys do. I don't think I talked to him about it either.

I forget how I found out it was all a ruse. Someone must have told me, surely to revel in my humiliation. It turned out that he had made a money bet with some other boys that he could make me his girlfriend. After parading me through school to make sure his buddies saw, he dropped me like a hot potato, and did not even bother to do the deed himself. Shortly after that he started dating a girl. They lasted for months.

I do not know why this still bothers me so profoundly. The guy was a second-tier weasel, and I did not even like him that much. But I made the mistake of opening up to him, and he trampled on me. Never again did I give someone at school that kind of power over me.