Pehla Nasha...again

My series of self-humiliation did not end with the dawn of puberty. Hell, it was just the beginning.

At age 15 I fell in love with this senior at school. He was in 11th grade (and totally out of reach for a 9th grader), but the allure of the forbidden fruit was unimaginable.

He was something of a national champ in Judo (I found men who could do martial arts very sexy at one point of time). He was also the "bad boy" in school. He won all the sporting awards, studied at the last minute, was popular with the ladies, and still regularly got into trouble.

I used to spy on him with my best friend, till we realized we both had a crush on him. We fought like cats, and since I'm known to be persuasive, I managed to make her "drop" her crush on him so I could have the misery all to myself. In retrospect, it doesn't seem like such a good idea.

The happiest day of my life was when he smiled at me once in the corridors. I think my trailing him throughout the lunch period tipped him off to the fact that I may have liked him.

Anyway, after that, he gave me a fair bit of attention. I was just growing into my looks (read as didn't have to stuf socks anymore) and I think he was beginning to notice. For example, once I pretended to fall infront of the volleyball court, and he left a game mid-way, to rush to me to find out if I was ok (yea right, like I didn't see through that one); another time, he stood in the elections for Sports Captain, and when he came to our class for canvassing, I told him I wouldn't vote for him just to get his attention. He asked if he could speak with me later, and then when he did, he bought me a coke and told me how I was so popular that if I didn't vote for him my friends may not either (sure, that's what he wanted, a vote, as if I didn't know he just wanted to have a drink with me).

Life sprinkled with such incidences made it quite interesting. Till he went ahead and got himself a girlfriend!

God, I was heartboken. Suddenly I realized that maybe he really did just leave the game to see if I wasn't hurt badly, and maybe he just got me that coke to get me to vote for him (which I did, and so did all my friends) I remember sobbing into my pillow that night. Maybe this was my punishment for having kicked my 4th grade romeo in the balls...

A couple of months later, his batch passed out. I cried at the farewell where I was a volunteer. It seemed like I would never love again.

2 days later we found out that he'd gotten sloshed at the conti party, had sex with his girlfriend and dumped her! Boy, what a wakeup call!!

Never one to linger upon bad experiences, 3 days later I was in love again.