About a week ago, I asked about what people remember about their first relationship. It had more engagement than I had anticipated. I also mentioned that I would talk about my experience a bit more in depth in the future. Well, I guess this post is that future.
To summarize, the lesson I learned from my first relationship was that I don't want tsunderes.
A tsundere, in essence, is a love interest that's mean to the person they like. There's like an entire wiki you can read about it. The term can apply beyond anime and manga.
It was back in seventh grade when I met her. Let's call her Ashley. We were in the same homeroom because of our last names. In fact, by that arrangement, she literally sat one seat in front of me. To make things more static, we had almost all the classes together. Wherever the teachers didn't allow us to choose our seats, she winded up sitting one seat away from me. Hell, even our lockers were next to each other. There was no escape from her.
That's all fine and dandy, except she didn't seem to be the most friendly person. At first, it would be simple cold shoulders, which I didn't mind. I was only 12 at the time, girls weren't exactly on the top of my list. I was more interested in being a Pokemon master.
Then, things started to escalate as she would bump me out of the way when she needed to get past me to her desk. Sometimes, she made remarks about items I own and whatnot. I didn't think too much about it at the time. It wasn't the first time someone would target me because of my ethnicity. But, it felt annoying nonetheless. Lunch time was a period of peace as I sat with a group of boys, far away from her.
This dragged on for the entire fall semester. To the point that she'd start commenting on the clothes I wear. I didn't think she was bullying me because she had a reputation of being snobbish. So, I figured it was her being a pretentious jerk. Besides, who would I tell about a blonde, skinny girl, bullying me? Despite her reputation, she was always seen hanging out with some of the nicest girls I knew in our classes.
By the time winter break came along, I had forgotten about Ashley and her antics. Two weeks can do wonders in a school year.
When classes started after the new year, things seemed like the same before. The cold shoulders, the comments, etc. I tuned her out. She would even sometimes make snide remarks about my performance on tests. It's a good thing I wasn't a perfectionist. An A is an A and that was good enough for me.
One day, during math class, she turned around and asked if she could borrow a pencil. I guess her mechanical ones ran out of lead. I complied and there were no incidents that day. I didn't question it, but it was refreshing not feeling like someone was judging you the whole time.
From that day forward, Ashley would turn around in class from time to time and doodle random shapes on my notes. They were on the margins of my notebook paper, so I wasn't too concerned. To me, at the time, it was better than her critiquing random details about me. We would have small talks here and there. I didn't bother to analyze her behavior.
On a (almost) spring day before Easter, something unexpected happened. While I was taking notes, Ashley turned around and started doodling on the margins of the papers like before. She moved on to writing my name on the back of my left hand with a ballpoint pen. Then, she added her name underneath it. As I did my best Fry squinting face, she grabbed the said hand and held it.
For the first time, I looked at her in the face for what felt like a long time. I thought to myself, "wow, she's actually really cute". Words could not explain my confusion. If I had to sum it up in a .gif, it would that of Megumin from Konosuba.
By this point, the teacher had noticed the extended interaction in the back of the room. He literally told us to go flirt on our own time. The entire class looked at our direction. I couldn't see her face as she turned back. But I was definitely embarrassed.
Needless to say, we definitely had a talk after class. And the rest is history. Our classmates were likely as confused as I was. They ranged from confusion to making it sound like a weird kink. You had a girl with the reputation of being somewhat arrogant with an introverted guy.
Into our relationship, I learned that she didn't know how to get my attention. At least, not in a positive way. All the different jabs and interactions we had was her way of trying to grab my attention. Even though many of those actions could be seem as bullying today, I'm glad I kept my cool. But, I did wish the way she approached it was more straight forward.
To her credit, she kept on trying. I was so dense and couldn't understand her intent until she made a move. And she made a move because she finally consulted some of her girl friends. Thank goodness for kind people who set things straight. But hey, we were 13 and it was our first time.
This may seem cute and all as a "first time" story. I can't imagine dealing with someone like that as an adult. In fact, I'm willing to bet that things would turn very ugly because I would become very offended. I prefer someone more approachable instead of wearing down her mean exterior.