I was sitting on my own unprovoked when my brother came into my room talking about, "My friend's brother saw your picture on my phone and liked it. He said I should connect you to him.".
Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have agreed to sharing my number. But naive 16-year-old me was excited that a boy asked for her number. I immediately told him to go ahead while simultaneously trying to play it cool.
The next morning I got a text from "Michael.". He introduced himself, and we got to talking. Michael was 17, a year older than me, and for some reason, the fact that an older boy was hitting on me made me so giddy.
He was a charmer for sure, and he knew how to make me smile and burst out laughing. Looking back in hindsight, he was definitely a player, but teenage me didn't know any better.
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I very quickly grew a liking to him, and in no time I looked forward to his good morning messages. He would leave two blue heart emojis beside it, and I would just about lose my mind over it.
We would have long-ass phone calls that dragged late into the night; thank God my mom's room wasn't right next to mine. I can't remember if video calls were a thing back then; we didn't do them.
Instead we would take random pictures of our environment and send them to one another to kind of get a real-time experience of what the other was doing.
This went on for weeks on end, until one day he asked me out on a proper date. Oh my God, a guy just asked me out on a date; I was freaking out. What would I wear? Where would we go? How did I look?
That was the first time in my adolescent life that I became physically aware of my body and looks. Now mind you, at this time I was already extremely insecure about my height. I had stopped growing when I clocked 11.
I stood at a petite height of 5 feet on the dot. Because of this, I would decline to meet up with my mates because everyone else was so much taller than I was.
I had even tried to subtly throw it into one of our conversations that I was quite petit. He didn't seem to mind. But when the day to go on the date rolled around, I suddenly was gripped with fear. This was the first time we'd be meeting in person.
What if he didn't like the way I looked? I had decided I wouldn't be able to land a tall guy with how short I was, but would this be an exception?
Anyways, I ditched my thoughts for a second and made my way over to the cinema where the date was. We had agreed to meet up there.
I asked a friend of mine, 
Fear gripped me by the collar, and I said a quick prayer that he would like me when he saw me. When my friend and I then got close enough to them, he turned around with an initial smile on his face.
When his eyes finally landed on me, his facial expression quickly sobered up and he all of a sudden looked like he had seen a ghost. I eventually got to where he stood, and we awkwardly hugged each other.
Now, the height difference between the both of us was exponentially massive and significant. We couldn't even hug well, I'll say that.
I introduced myself and my friend; he did the same. Girl tell me why this guy turned around and said, "Oh, I just realized that I didn't bring enough money for all four of us ðŸ˜, I don't think we will be able to watch the movie so my friend and I will just head back home."
And then the both of them left us there and dipped. That was the legit worst day of my life. Rehashing it now makes me remember the huge knot that I felt in my throat at the time.
I felt so embarrassed; one attempt at telling me "sorry" would have opened up the floodgates of tears in my eyes. My friend simply held my hand and told me that there was no way we would come all the way there and not enjoy ourselves.
So we both headed into the mall anyway, even though we had no money in our pockets. We basically walked all around the mall and did some satisfying window shopping. She tried her best to cheer me up given the circumstances, and we eventually left when I felt genuinely better.
I blocked his line and never spoke to him again. I also didn't bring it up to my brother because I imagine it would have caused some issues between him and his friend.
Anyway, I'm happy for growth and maturity. I wish the grown-up me could give teenage me a hug at the entrance of that mall and tell her that we would turn out amazing. 😂. I'm relieved to know that that event is now but a mere distant unpleasant memory.
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