Relationships: A Cringe-fest

My very first blog post was about my embarrassing scholastic bowl debacle. Indeed that moment ‘twas a cringe heard round the world. But, as some of my avid readers will remember me saying (by that I mean just Elizabeth. Hi Elizabeth), that moment was hardly the most embarrassing in my history, but the rest were just too painful to discuss. Well, I’ve gotten over that pain so here’s another one.

Once upon a time, boys had cooties. Elementary school boys for the most part were just immature little adrenaline junkies who laughed meanly at everything you did. Thus I saw it as my responsibility to bite their heads off whenever possible. Come to think of it, I was a downright bully. I don’t think I should be blamed for that though—I didn’t have any brothers, so how was I to know that boys were human beings with actual feelings.

Anyways, middle school rolled around. At first nothing changed. Boys continued to annoy me and I continued to glare at them until they never looked me in the eyes again. But slowly, slowly, the immature little boys began to grow into somewhat less annoying, slightly older boys. I was forced to accept this fact and resign myself to the next stage of boy interaction: ignoring them as much as possible.  Whenever they made fun of my shirt that said “Genuine Dickies” (a real logo), or my serious face, or otherwise annoyed me, I simply rolled my eyes. I was zen. They may have been becoming slightly less annoying and mean, but I still could not imagine ever wanting to be friends with them, much less date one…

Yes, I was content with trying my best to live like boys did not exist. I will admit that sometimes I wondered if I was missing out on something, like an opportunity to learn the intricacies of the prepubescent male mind or whatever (j.k. pretty much my only deep thoughts in early middle school were things like “how does one maximize the tasty potential of a single pringle?” (my mom didn’t buy chips, so sometimes my friends took pity and bestowed me one of theirs (by the way the answer to that question is you lick every millimeter of the chip’s surface very very slowly and then nibble it into nonexistence (really it’s a wonder why I wasn’t bullied in middle school (actually it’s not I was absolutely terrifying))))). For the most part, though, I believed that separation of the two worlds was right. That was just the way I thought life worked, until one day I would suddenly just BE married with three kids :-/. So that was that. Certainly there were no boys objecting to my mindset.

Then out of nowhere came James (name changed for whatever reason). Literally out of nowhere—I have no recollection of how we met. I assume we must have had a conversation at some point because all of a sudden he started saying hi to me in the hallways. At first in my mind he was just this annoying kid who kept bothering me for some reason (by bothering me I mean being very kind and interested in my life) and I kept trying to shake him off. Also I didn’t know his name for a few months so every time he said “Hi Emi” I kind of just did this

(like, no kidding. I didn’t look him in the eyes or anything and just waved him off like bah Felicia).

I really thought that he would stop at some point. I mean, if someone was that rude to me I would probably go off and cry to “1000 Oceans.” But he didn’t. I continued to not know his name and wave him off until something changed that: scholastic bowl. My friend convinced me to join, so I did, and lo and behold, James was in it. So I learned his name. Actually not really. The teacher only called him by his last name, Hong, and I wasn’t paying very close attention, so one day when we happened to be walking to the library together after school I tried to address him and called him “Hans”. Frozen was big at that point. I thought Hans was a very unfortunate name to have right then. Luckily, he thought I said Hong, and then preceded to think I was flirting with him by calling him by his last name. So he started to call me by my last name, Loucks, except he had a slight speech impediment so it always sounded like louse. I found that endlessly funny. Eventually, though, I did learn that his name was James.

Ah screw it his name was Charles no one cares.

 I’m not sure when it happened, but one day I realized that I always looked forward to passing Charles in the hallway, and his smile made my day better. I began to appreciate his tallness and buffness and, like, brain or whatever. And that’s love boys and girls.

(Nah, I know it’s not. But don’t kill the mood).

Then of course, once I had a crush on him too, everything changed. Our love was one for the ages—I would bully him, and he would sometimes glance at my boobs when I wasn’t looking. Sometimes he touched my shoulder. Mostly we were just….around each other. It’s not like we made much good conversation or anything. I would just say something vaguely sarcastic or smart-alecky and he would respond with “wow,” or “Wowww” or “wOOOWWWwwww.” It was more like being around each other just felt…electric. Like we had an unspoken connection of interest.

Point is, we liked each other. Unfortunately he never told me, and I can never tell if someone likes me and tend to assume they don’t. So I never told him. Summer came, and I missed Charles terribly. I thought I would never see him again, because come eighth grade, we would be at different schools. I forced myself to move on and accepted that Charles was a thing of the past. Uni started, and it was a fresh start and a different life. I made new connections, and the old faded with time into the realm of reminiscence.

Then, scholastic bowl season rolled around. I got a text from Charles telling me that I should come watch the team compete sometimes. I was so excited to go back (this was like six months later by the way). I went to one of their home meets, back to my old school, back to the life I had left behind—the life that I still regretted leaving at times. It was great seeing some of my old friends again. I had missed them all a lot. I had missed Charles’ “wooow.” For a few hours that one day, I almost felt like nothing had changed. The thought that I would have to go back to Uni and be sad and miss everyone all over again was hard to accept. I wished I had stayed at my old school for eighth grade to graduate with all my buddies. But it was what it was, and I resigned myself to it. I would not let myself get attached again.

It was almost time to leave and return to reality. Back to my life, and I was sure that soon this stolen day would slip quietly away and become just another insignificant and forgotten page of my history. Then all of a sudden, I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned around, there was Charles’ smiling face. “By the way,” he said. “I like you.”

Surely I had dreamed of this moment in the past. Sometimes my dreams involved butterflies all aflutter in a beautiful sunlit field like with Bella and Edward. Sometimes my dreams involved a mountain and a sunset. Sometimes the moment took place in an empty cornfield (this is Illinois after all). The point is, my fantasies never really included my response. Maybe I would leap into his arms or something. Unfortunately what actually happened was, before I had a chance to comprehend what had happened or how to respond to it, Charles turned around and started to walk away. Probably because he was nervous. It’s unfortunate because when he turned around to sheepishly gauge my response, this was the face I was making:

I then proceeded to turn around and power-walk out of the room. I went to the girl’s bathroom and just stared into the sink for, like, five minutes. I’m pretty sure I was in shock. Then a little eight year old girl walked in (the little sister of one of my friends at the time) and preceded to give me eight year old boy advice. It wasn’t very helpful.

After that, everything just went downhill. Texting was awkward. It took me a while to realize how much I, my reaction and everything afterwards, must have hurt him. That is, a lot. Sometimes I wonder why I treated him the way I did. Yes I had moved on at that point but I still cared about him. Of course, my initial reaction wasn’t a conscious decision—it was like a knee jerk reaction. But I wish I could change some of the ways that I handled things afterwards. I did apologize, though…a few years later. That was some closure at least. Until that point, every time I looked back at that initial moment of reaction, which began several months of confusion, I died a little inside. I still cringe sometimes. I hate that I hurt him right in his peak moment of vulnerability.

So, yeah. I suck at relationships. Whenever I feel the beginnings of feelings for someone I suddenly start to ignore him completely until the attraction dies. Also I can be kind of strange at times. But no matter how many times I said something totally weird or awkward or downright creepy, no matter how many times I believed that I had finally reached the limit to make him come to his senses and run for the hills, Charles just continued to treat me with all of his kindness and patience and appreciation. He was a truly special guy, and the only one I have felt such a warm connection with. I’m so glad our friendship was a part of my life, and I couldn’t have asked for a better first crush. For as long as I can, I will look back on the memory of Charles with a smile.