Wind Back Wednesdays, where I choose a memory from my childhood and talk about it.
In the spirit of this being the day I wind back on my life, I have been re-reading some of my previous posts from a couple of years ago. I have had some weird thoughts in my past. Although it's been a good way of looking through my previous years and solving that pesky problem I appear to be having, whereby I can't remember anything at all. At least my last 4 years have been well documented... except last year. I had no idea just how rubbish I was at posting in this thing until I realised that I have already written more posts this year, in the first two months, than I had in the entire year of 2013.
In fairness, I had spent a lot of last year doing the soul searching thing, so that I would be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the world of my blog in 2014. And I plan on fully redeeming myself this year. You're welcome/I'm really sorry.
Anywho, as my Wind Back Wednesdays are based in a period of my life that happened before the world of the blog, re-reading these posts have done nothing to help aid the desperate need for a tale or two from my adolescent years. As such, I have opted for a more generalised Wind Back this week. Today, we will delve into the complexities of my teenage years that made me the person I am today. As this is a pretty large topic to cover in just one post, we will focus on one area of my angst; the world of fancying people... or, as I saw it at that time, love. Man, I knew how to fall in love back then. I'm like 99% sure there was no actual love involved, but if you dared to try and tell me that at that age, I would have unleashed a world of hurt on you. I not only fell in love, I fell into unrequited love, which just allowed for a whole series of pain and chances to grab all manners of attention, which I naturally gravitated towards.
When it comes to who I liked back in my school years, there is one golden rule that you need to know about me. 80% of the guys who caught my attention, and indeed I dated, are all now very much gay. It would appear that word got around the school in the (at the time) closeted gay community within that I was the most ideal beard available for them, and so they all jumped on board, and little old me, who had no clue what was going on, but adored each of their fabulous and outlandish natures, welcomed them and fancied them with all my heart.
I don't totally know what it was that created this connection, the only thing that I can think of is that I did share many qualities with that of a diva back then. And, not meaning to play on any stereo type, but I was constantly in search for guys who would dance, sing and generally perform with me, and the guys that seemed to be interested all turned out, in the end, to also be into men.
It safe to say, however, that not just cluelessness but a large amount of denial was involved in my falling for these boys. Quite often, people would tell me that the current guy I liked clearly was gay, but I would wave them off with a line something similar to "You have no idea about the type of connection that we both hold with each other. Trust me, he's not gay."
And in fairness to me, the guy that resembled closest to a high school sweetheart to me (now gay) was awesomely romantic at times. Throughout our whole school years, we were very much that annoying couple who seemed to fancy each other at different times and kept missing each other. We did date each other a few times. And there was even this period when we were about 14 years old, where I wasn't sure if I liked him and he decided that he would tell me he liked me and ask me out at least three times a day.
During this period, SMTV Live was massive. To the people outside of Britain, you missed out totally on not seeing this programme. It was a Saturday morning kids show, consisting of three presenters Ant and Dec, and Cat Deeley. They would do sketches and bits, things like a British version of Friends, which they called Chums. It was hilarious and all any of us could talk about. On this show, there were some regular TV programmes, one of these was Pokemon. Now, if it hadn't been for SMTV Live, I would never have watched this programme. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea. However, as I didn't want to miss out on a single moment of the show, I would find myself watching Pokemon most Saturday mornings.
One Saturday however, an episode of Pokemon came on and, within it, Pikachu decided to leave Ash. I can't really remember anything else about it, other than that, but before I knew it, during their emotional goodbye, I found myself crying uncontrollably. Feeling slightly ashamed, I mentioned it via text to my Sort-Of-High-School-Sweetheart. Later in the day, I met up with him and he came running up to me, excited, and saying that he had a present for me. When I asked what it was, he said that he had felt so bad for me that I had found Pikachu's leaving sad, that he immediately got on the phone to Pikachu, because he knew him well, and asked him to do something to show me that he was okay and I didn't need to be sad anymore. With a grin, he said that Pikachu had then sent something immediately over to him with strict instructions to give it straight to me.
My-Sort-Of-High-School-Sweetheart then thrust a piece of paper in my hands. I opened it up to see an A4 picture of Pikachu waving up at me, with the words above his head that said simply "Hello Lisa!"
It was freakin awesome. I loved it. When I eventually got over myself and let my friends know that I now liked him, so that they could tell his friends, so that they would then tell him, he decided to ask me out in the middle of the field at lunchtime, getting down on one knee. Oh my days, the attention was amazing and my young self lapped it up... So, you can see how I lived in denial about his sexual preference, deciding to focus on all the above awesome things, rather than noticing that he worshipped Britney Spears and would come to mine and spend hours organising my nail varnish colours into order of preference...
As we got older, and were no longer together, but best friends, I entered into the world of pining after him more than I had ever done before. This is the period I refer to when I say I was convinced I was in love. Oh my days, I have diaries from this period that make me laugh/cringe equally. I gave a whole new meaning to 'drama queen.' Each page would be full of different ways I could describe my pain and hurt for having unrequited love and the martyr I was for carrying this pain, unselfishly and alone, so as not to make anyone else uncomfortable. Of course, I didn't carry the pain completely alone. There were friends who were aware and notes that were passed in class where we would complain about our individual loves for the boys in our lives. It was a very special time...
In amongst and after the loved up times with My-Sort-Of-High-School-Sweetheart, I occasionally drifted off to other boys... unfortunately a lot of these boys also turned out to be just as gay. I have asked one of these guys why it is that I currently hold the record on being a lot of gay boy's first (and, in some cases, only) straight kiss. He looked at me, shrugged, and said simply "I think you may have manly boobs."
I reckon that's as close as I'm going to get to finding out the answer to that one.
A lot of people might see my first attempts at romance as embarrassing, mortifying or completely scarring on my self-esteem. I don't though. In a strange way, I'm sort of proud of it. Also, there are some ex boyfriends in amongst my past who are still very much straight today... so that's something! Huzzah for me!
It is a source of humour now, when with The-Parents and we are comparing Father's ridiculously over-protective nature of his only daughter compared to the types of guys I was actually seeing at the time. There were a lot of rules around not going to boys' houses and, if they came to my house, the door would have to be open... you know, the usual. This, in normal circumstances, would be highly wise and a good way of ensuring one's daughter's innocence... although, when all that was happening within the room was my boyfriend painting my nails whilst we both talked about how fierce Buffy The Vampire Slayer is (true story), there really was no protection of innocence required... ah, good times.
It was awesome, whatever it was. He took me to prom and was the only guy out of our group to have bought his date flowers. A massive bouquet of red roses. I enjoyed thoroughly rubbing that one into their faces.
And that's the story of romance and teenage me. Not exactly hot and racy, but awesome nonetheless.
Peace out my lovelies.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment