Perhaps I had gotten the wrong idea of how relationships work and what love truly means and stands for from films. Reflecting on how my romantic relationships were when I was much younger, I realise how ignorant and somewhat childish I was at some points. Let's rewind a little.
Levelling up from primary five to junior secondary school had to be the most prestigious feat of my life at that time. I mean, passing the common entrance examinations was no small deal. I had to dedicate my life to studying a book whose title I do not remember, but it was authored by Ugo C. Ugo, and that's what most of us called it then. So the resumption of JSS1 was a completely different feeling from the previous times.
Such a transition usually causes people to change schools. And so many of my colleagues and friends transferred to other schools, and then new people transferred to my school.
I was a small kid back then, and so I often found myself placed in the front rows. I didn't mind then, as the other boys were often troublemakers. My seat partner then turned out to be a girl—a girl I instantly developed a crush on.
She was pretty, and that was actually the only reason I liked her at first. With time, I learned that she could sing. The icing on the cake was that she was often one of the top students in class, alongside her four other girl gang members. So, the crush inflated rather than deflated. Then we had a big fight.
What was the big fight about, you would ask? Well, a new guy came into the picture. No, it's not what you're thinking. It wasn't a jealousy kind of thing. He became a seat partner instead, and that contributed to the problem that started the fight.
If I remember correctly, I started the fight. I don't recall what my thought process was prior, but I suddenly didn't like that I was always in the middle, between her and the new guy. The new guy was always at the end, close to the wall, and the girl was always by the aisle, enjoying the liberty and air that came with it. That faithful day, however, I wanted to sit at that end of the seat so I could enjoy what she was enjoying.
At that time, I didn't understand girls. If I had had my fairly bigger brain back then, I wouldn't have even started an issue with her, because there was no way I was going to win. There was absolutely no way I was going to win. I didn't realise that, though, but I forged ahead with my amazing plan.
We went back and forth, bickering over it. Trusting the girls to do their thing, the girl gang took her side, obviously, and then a teacher intervened.
I am not sure who actually won the argument; although it feels like the teacher allowed me to have my way for the day, that incident made us realise something with time. She actually had a crush on me as much as I did on her, and for as long as we had known (or seen) ourselves. Apparently, I wasn't looking bad back then, and I managed to catch her eyes.
Fast-forward to weeks later; after that altercation in JSS3, we started a relationship. We found our way there eventually. And it all started with midnight texts, when our parents would assume we were "burning the midnight candle."
We all know how such a relationship between twelve-year-olds could have been. It wasn't more than fancy texts every now and then, filled with love emojis. What was weird about it, though, was that we actually acted like total strangers in school.
At that time anyway, I didn't understand what love really meant, and I couldn't actually comprehend hers then. At a point, I was no longer understanding the experience I was feeling. In other words, "this love is becoming too much oh." And so, I told her that I was no longer interested, but I never gave her the actual reason for leaving, which was that the love was choking me.
To be honest, there was nothing choking about the love. I was just a noob in the game, and my melancholic tendencies couldn't process that kind of emotion. So I fled. And now, thinking about it, it was such a silly way to end it. I was only twelve, though, and no one ever handed me a manual for love.
We moved on to be good friends at some point and left all that in the past. We never talked about what happened. When I think of it sometimes, though, I shake my head.
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