The Girl and Her Pheromones

High School: Precursor

The best way to start my story is to give a little background knowledge of middle school and how it led to my high school years.

I went to so and so the middle school in Sacramento. There was this Vietnamese guy named Tam. I guess he was the typical cool kid at that time because all the girls in middle school liked him; Including me. I don't know what I saw in him now that I think about it. Like, damn, those pre-teen hormones man.

He was one year ahead of me and he was my cousin Nal's best friend. I was friends with Nal's little sister Jazzy. (She had a weird obsession with him?) We all attended the same middle school. When I spent time with my cousin, I spent time with him too but we hardly spoke. 

1) I was too shy to get close to him; too scared to make a fool of myself in front of my crush. 

2) He was my cousin's friend. That in itself was weird to me.

My feelings for him lasted up until high school after we broke up. I don't remember how we started dating but we were together at one point during my freshman year and his sophomore year. I don't remember if he asked me or if I asked him; that's how irrelevantly relevant the relationship was to me. 

Now... I was a naive 14-year-old Asian- American girl and I was really happy to be in a relationship with this guy who I thought was amazing at the time. (Even though there were red flags since the beginning of time)

Any average teen girl would be ecstatic to be in a relationship with their crush of like 2+years. I thought it would be like a television drama except we weren't white actors/ actresses in our 20s. As happy as I was, in the back of my mind, I had a feeling that he didn't like me as much as I liked him. Which was just me being cautious considering I knew his track record with relationships.  

Within the two to three years that I knew him, he had gone through more girls than I would have liked to know my first boyfriend had. (Hint: he had 5 previous glorified girlfriends before me) 

If I remember correctly, he had 3 girlfriends my 7th-grade year/ his 8th-grade year, then 2 more girls his freshman year, and then 3 more girls his sophomore year (after we broke up). I was apprehensive about the relationship from the start because you know, why me? The lowest self-esteem of a normal teenage girl. Sad but true. I mean come on, with all the media that portrays impossible body image types for women, low self-esteem is normal. Why would he like me right? Then... Why did I say yes?

In middle school, I was a huge dork. I looked like I was FOB because I didn't care about how I dressed or how others perceived me. I was still a dork in high school (and in the present time but that part isn't important right now.) 

I looked as average as any 14-year-old Asian girl could look you know. I had the black bobbed hairstyle with China bangs (or fringe bangs, whatever you call it), thin-framed glasses, and all. Nothing about me was exceptional. I neither thin nor was I fat. I was not pretty nor ugly. I was too lazy to wear any makeup or dress to impress and I hated socializing with people. 

When we were together, I was too embarrassed to look at him or even hold his hand. Like, wow, intimate much? I had zero relationship skills -scratch that, I had zero social skills in general. He essentially made all the first moves like holding my hand, walking me to class, and walking me home. I didn't know if those were normal things in a relationship but those simple acts made the relationship lovely you know. 

I thought HS relationships were all about kissing, going on dates, telling everyone that you were taken and public displays of affection. Stuff that you normally see on tv. There was very little of that when we were together. Then again, we weren't together for very long. Dodged a bullet right there. Well.. it grazed me in my poor 14-year-old heart that left an emotional scar for life. But it wasn't all his fault. It was my fault for believing in tv shows and social media.

Anyhow, I thought I could be the one for him (- even considering his record of girls) and him for me. I thought, wow, maybe I can change him. What a nice high school romance it would be. High school sweethearts sounded nice but somewhere the voices told me that it wasn't meant to be. 

The first time we kissed, it was in front of my house. He came by on his skateboard and we were just talking casually by the tree in front. He said the corniest thing ever to get me to kiss him. He said hurt his lips from skateboarding and wanted a kiss to make it better. I rolled my eyes at the sheer stupidity of it but it worked regardless. I was so nervous, scared, and embarrassed; his lips were kind of chapped and it honestly felt a little gross. It feels gross even now when I think about it. Oh gosh, I was such a noob back then.

I didn't start to actually open up in the relationship until the end of our first month. At the end of that month, I tried to kiss him. I wanted to give him half as much as what I thought he was giving me but he flinched backward. I noticed but pretended not to know. 

That day he walked me home without holding my hands. It was a silent walk and when we arrived at my house he said he wanted to break up. He said he had no time for me because of work. I didn't argue; I didn't pry for answers. The only thoughts that ran through my mind at that very moment were, 'Wow. I feel embarrassed for trying to kiss him earlier... It's no wonder he dodged it...' I smiled and said, "Okay." He tried to get in one last kiss and I let him.

In my head, I was just another girl, another number to increase his ego of having a girl on his arm. I didn't want to think that way, but it was a prominent thought. 

We were only together for one month. Just one month. It was nice while it lasted you know. 

What traumatized me was the fact that I was naive. Three days after the break-up, while I walked home from school, I saw him walking with a girl. They were hand in hand. I was about ten feet behind them and I tried to keep my distance. I honestly wanted to walk faster and ahead of him just so I didn't have to watch this ridiculous scene but I didn't want him to know that I knew. To add to the unfortunate event, he took the same route as me. 

He then saw me as they turned the corner and he had the fucking audacity to text me, "What do you think of me now?" 

Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously. This fucked me up because I tried to walk even slower hoping that they would be further down the street by the time I turned the corner. I was about to cry right there.

Needless to say, I walked home with a straight face behind them the whole way. I blasted music in my headphones and just stared at them from behind. When I entered the house, I walked into the bathroom, closed the door, and sunk down into it. Tears swelled up and I cried silently up on the floor. Everything I thought I knew was a lie.  MY innocent and naivete in love and high school romance were built on fiction. (Seems obvious not, but definitely not back then for a 14yro)

That day, I made a vow to never date in high school again. Dramatic, right? But I contemplated it for a good while in the bathroom/ shower. Teenagers. All raging with hormones. Especially the boys. Then it dawned on me that, with all the breakups in high school, there is a high chance to be dating someone that might have an STI/STD because all they do is sexual acts. Well at least in my high school it was pretty prominent.

--(My high school had a high prevalence of students with STIs) Those that were checked, I don't know how many were checked but, out of all the students that were checked, 70% of them had an STI. So that number can be pretty misleading--

Which is why I gave myself that vow. Now, he was my first kiss. First boyfriend*. My first truth about the reality of teenage boys shattered my idealistic thoughts on relationships. It wasn't much really... but it was to me.   

I'm glad that I was cautious of him and I didn't let my young raging hormones all out on the first guy who looked my way. I'm glad it happened sooner than later. 

I'm glad it happened sooner rather than later. What if, I thought I had everything figured out when I turned 20 then an asshole like him appeared to fuck shit up. That would have broken my mentality more than now.

The story with him didn't necessarily end there. He appeared every now and then in high school and I'll tell you more about it some other time.

He was the precursor as to how I shaped myself into who I am today.