Awkward

Awkward

When I was fourteen I asked a boy out… sort of.

We were on this school camp sort of thing, he wasn’t from my school, he wasn’t even from my city, but that sort of thing really doesn’t mean anything to a teenager’s mind. He was nice, a nice boy, nothing too extraordinary, just nice. So, after days of my friends egging me on and hyping me up about it (because when you’re a teenager, it’s more about who your friends think you should like and what you should do about it than your own opinion) I asked him out. I don’t really remember what I said, I do remember feeling like my cheeks were going to spontaneously combust though. He turned me down. Again, I don’t remember the words, but I remember having a very sick feeling develop in my belly. I know he was polite about it, as I said he was a nice boy, but at fourteen it doesn’t matter how nicely it’s said a ‘no’ is still a no.That was a decade ago. I don’t think I’ve asked anyone out since then, although I can’t be sure.

I never really expected to have to speak to him again, in fact I remember thinking when I was fourteen that I really really didn't ever want to see him again. But I did, a decade is a long time... here's what happened:

As is often true in the case of awkward re-acquaintance, the run-in occurred in a moment completely devoid of dignity on my part: I was crawling out of a cardboard box… it wasn’t graceful. I stood, again with incredibly little grace, and immediately took on the pretence that the fellow speaking with my friend ahead of me was a total stranger. Before long the geographical location of the conversation was such that he was standing next to me, and we were occupying a conversational vacuum. It was awkward and the pretence was getting me nowhere. So I made a choice, I turned toward him and decided that I was an adult, as was he, and we would act as such. Besides, social nicety dictates that awkward horrible teenage moments shared a decade past are not to be brought up in conversation, right?

The conversation: 

Me: So you’re Mr X (not his real name) right?
Him: Yep, and you’re Laen right?
Me: Yeah, yep that’s me.
My Friend: How do you guys know each other?
Him: From back in the day when we were at school we met at this camp thing...
Me: Yeah, so I tend to block those days out a little (sarcastically joking a little bit… maybe).
Him: Oh right.

My friend decided that this conversation was a two person job and returned to the comparable paradise of not-completely-awkward conversation to her left.

As you may well know, there is a practice, which I am quite certain is consistent through all human cultures: that is that when you meet someone, having not seen them in years and years, and the last time you saw them was an awkward horrible teenage moment, your brain takes up the business of chanting something along the lines of ‘Oh God please don’t let him say it, Dear Lord please don’t let him say it.’ while your mouth attempts the necessary small talk appropriate to the ten year interlude. That is precisely what my brain was doing up until…

Him: So, I wanted to apologise for what I said back then.

I snorted my exclamation (and disbelief) at the realisation that he may have been reading my mind and had decided to torture me!

What I would have liked to have said: Oh hey, no big. Ten years and all that…

What I actually said (when I eventually regained my powers of speech): Nnngh, sorry what… um, don’t even… I mean, uh… what, why would you … uh. (Throat clearing) Ahem, so yeah that really… why would you say that?

Him: Well you said you block memories out, and I thought it may have been because I hurt your feelings.

At this point my inner African American woman said this in my head:

 “Say what? Honey, as iiiif you be as important as aaaaaall that, you aint no thing! Like you would be worth my blocking out memories for! Ah shush your mouth you aint so important as you be thinking you is!”

What I actually said was : Yeah, so I think we could just forget about the whole thing

We returned to awkward small talk and after a polite and socially appropriate interval he made his excuses and left. I sat down, pulled out my mobile phone and stared at it dumbly and the tiny bit of me that holds the tattered pieces of my fourteen your old self’s esteem squeezed tightly around it while I contemplated going home to unearth the emergency bottle of red in my closet…