High School days

High School days

This incident happened when I was in grade 10. My first direct proposal from my classmate. I studied in a school, where we girls won’t mingle with boys much.  So many years in the same school, still no guy came to me and spoke, the main reason my brother was in the same school. When I was in grade 10 my brother had already left school for his college.

I started observing, many of my friends already had boyfriends and I felt are they crossing the limit!! Aren’t we supposed to study hard and get prepared for our future was all in my head? That was the way I was brought up. My mom’s mantra was don’t fall in love, there is an age for it, study hard- was the words, I used to hear that all the time. I followed her words.

Last few months to our final grade exams, we were so busy preparing for our mock exams, yearbook etc. So as usual for me talking to boys to get the Yearbook signed (friendship book/autograph book, see below to know more about this book) was the biggest task than my grade exams. It is funny when I think of it now. I didn’t have much strength to go and ask guys to write something for me. So, I just got help from my friend and asked her to cover for me.

After the lunch break, the teacher came for the next lecture, and suddenly this boy from the next row passed my book. For a few minutes, I just left it on my desk. Then out of curiosity I opened and ran through the new filled pages. One page at the end one guy had written a few numbers, which I couldn’t understand. I thought he had written his Telephone number. But the numbers were too long. My friend who was sitting near me grabbed the book, scribbled something in her note, cross-verified it and she was so furious. I asked any problem, she told me to wait until the class is over. He had written “I Love You” by replacing alphabets with numbers. Once the teacher left the classroom, she just looked at the boy and told, “You are just a seedling, and do you need love at this age?”

Oh, my goodness, the whole class looked at me and my friend. I started crying. I ran to the washroom. I lived in a conservative society. I felt so embarrassed, I had a feeling, the whole school was looking at me. I even felt guilty for no reason. That was true in a way, the news had already spread to all the higher grades and boys started gathering in front of my class. The next few days till my exams, it was a very hard situation.

Two days after this incident, the boy became so normal. I guess his friends already started encouraging him and told him to impress me. He was student-athlete in our school. We had our final inter-house sports event and shield distributions the next week of the incident. This boy was just staring and smiling at me the whole event, every time he got some trophy, he was smiling at me from the dice. From weird looks, this became a talk in our school. They were all curious about how I would react to this boy. But I had to concentrate on my exams and follow my mom’s mantra. I completed my exams with a high score. But I shifted to a new school for my higher grades.

Do you think, because my friend shouted at that boy, the situation became worse? Is that why I felt guilty? What do you think my friend should have done to handle that situation? Do you think even I would have attracted to this boy, but I just diverted myself because of my conservative surroundings?

Now we are all grown up and have families of our own. We have a school WhatsApp group; I don’t have any issues talking to that boy in the group chat.

But some of my other friends say boys always have a butterfly feeling when they talk to their first love, even in their old age. Is that true? Any comments?

Take care Until I meet you with yet another incident from my life…

Note:

Autograph book

An autograph book is a book for collecting the autographs of others. Traditionally they were exchanged among friends, colleagues, and classmates to fill with poems, drawings, personal messages, small pieces of verse, and other mementos. Their modern derivations include yearbooks, friendship books, and guest books. They were popular among university students from the 15th century until the mid-19th century, after which their popularity began to wane as they were gradually replaced by yearbooks. Today's autograph books are typically found in the hands of children collecting signatures from their favorite cartoon celebrities in amusement parks.