My First Boyfriend
1.
Chan, the boy from a different class, had been 'noticing' me for a year before he first talked to me. Just a week before our very first conversation was when I first realized his existence, when I heard rumor from some snickering classmates who said there was a guy "having an interest" in me. Shortly after the rumor spread, Chan several times led his group of friends to my class to take a look at me from the window, during the intercession between classes. To avoid embarrassment and any chance for conversation, I quickly escaped to the female bathroom upon the bell ringing every single time. One night, after the night-study-session (as my middle school is a boarding school), I was walking out of the classroom alone down the dark hallway, and a male voice suddenly called my name. Startled, I slowly turned my back, a dark shadow standing away panted heavily. "Can I be your friend?" The shadow said, voice trembling. What a weird question! I thought, Can you be someone's friend just by asking it? Yet I blurted out, "Yeah. Of course you can be my friend." A heavy sigh of relief, the shadow ran away leaving a trail of shaking "Thank you". Then I heard another guy's laughter-- "I said it's gonna be fine."
The following day, after the last class in the afternoon, I was packing up my things to return to the dorm. A classmate sitting near the window suddenly announced, mischievously eyeing me, "Yuqing, someone is looking for you." As I followed his cue, I saw Chan wearing a bright yellow T-shirt stands near the back door of the classroom. All the classmates who still remained set their gaze on me. A girl standing near me loudly cleared her throat and formally patted me on my shoulder, whispering, "here you go, good luck girl." Setting my backpack on a school desk, I gravely walked toward Chan, as if going to fulfill a deadly mission.
As soon as I walked out the classroom, I quickly dragged him to a corner away from the classroom to avoid the stalking of my gossipy classmates. "What's the matter?" As we settled, I asked and looked at him with some impatience and authority, the kind of authority you naturally possess when the person you talk to is nervous because of his affection for you. Chan smiled, a smile that says, "hey, we meet again!" Then he looked at me in the eye sincerely, yet with a trace of fear. It suddenly reminded me of how comical it was that Chan, the masculine guy in his male peer group (due to his athletic abilities and flat facial expressions, duh!) was standing in front of me with this lovely anxiety and blush on face, like a kitty waiting to be pet. Feeling flattered by the thought, I grinned. As if encouraged by my smiling, Chan broke the silence of my mind-wandering. "I like you." He said, swallowed with difficulty and stared at me with great courage, "Can you be my girlfriend?" (Right, I knew it, the ritualized line you are supposed to say at the beginning of every Chinese middle school romance)
We barely know each other! I screamed in heart and looked at him in disbelief, that he actually said it. And we can be kicked out of school if caught in a relationship! I thought further and settled my facial expression to calmness. I said, finally, with a tone of annoying, patronizing authority, "It's impossible. I need to concentrate on my schoolwork. I have to get into a really good high school."
"Where do you want to go?" He quickly and eagerly asked. Unexpectedly, shame was not his first reaction.
I listed several of the best high schools in the province and added, "Maybe I will go to the United States in the future", to "assure" him that there is not future for us. He looked down and fell into silence. I felt sorry for him and said, "If you do well on your next mid-term, perhaps we can hang out."
His eyes lightened up for a bit but soon fainted. We walked back together to my classroom without words. I could feel his disappointment and felt a sense of guilt for it. At the same time, I felt a straightforward refusal was the only correct thing to do. So he could give up on persuading me to be his girlfriend. So we could continue staying on our separate tracks without the distractions from each other.
2.
As the whole floor began to know about Chan's bold display of interest in me, my life was disturbed by the hooting of my classmates every time Chan passed by the window of my classroom. Perhaps Chan’s open and persistent pursuit of love was courageous in a context full of written and social sanctions against any expression of romantic interests at a young age (before 18). We Chinese call it a "youth relationship". From what I perceived at that age, youth relationships were stigmatized because they were automatically associated with teen pregnancy and an inability to control sexual urges. When Chan and I walked together in school uniforms in the city, we always got a lot of stares. In many cases, however, youth relationships do not always have to do with sex as those adults imagined.
"So what?" I would reply. "He's handsome." The girl would say.
"No he's not." Nobody ever shifted my own standard of attractiveness.
In December, when my birthday was coming, Chan sent a tomboyish girl from his class to talk to me and ask me what presents I wanted. Right, sending a guy would be awkward, sending a girl would be more awkward, so a tomboyish girl was just right, given that he himself did not want to have this conversation. As the tomboy summoned me outside the classroom, she stared at me for a second and burst into a laughter.
"What do you like?" She then asked directly.
Another strange question. I thought. The first one was, can I be your friend.
"This question is too broad."
The tomboy did not know what to respond, and I added, "Tell him not to buy me a present. I'm not his girl friend. Thank you." The tomboy left.
She did not give up. The truth is that she later found my close friend and asked her what I liked. My friend told her that I was recently into a Japanese anime and was obsessed with one of the characters in it. The outcome was, Chan went through all the stores on the busiest commercial street in the city, to search for a doll of that anime character for me, yet he failed to find one. Ultimately, he bought a scarf for me. "He put into real efforts into selecting this scarf for you." The tomboy later told me, "He wanted to find a scarf that just looked like you-- cute and pink." I cringed at these words but still appreciated his gift.
After my birthday Chan began to ask me out more often. When I say "ask me out", it just refers to walking several circles on the school playground, since our boarding school does not allow students to get outside the school without a teacher's written permission. So when Chan asked me out, to avoid teachers' suspicion, he always sent different buddies individually to my classroom to convey his message. For example, a guy from his class would come to my classroom to find me and said, "Chan asks you to wait for him this afternoon." It always gave me a feeling that I was carrying on an unlawful mission and going to meet the head of a gang, or things of that nature.
3.
I only felt my heart dropped with a heavy, dreary sound. At that instant my mind went blank and I froze. Seconds later intensive mixed emotions flooded in and suffocated me. There was surprise, but more was shame, that I broke the social sanction of "youth relationship". Me, one of the top students in class, teachers' favorite, was now an outcast that betrayed a moral code and much trust.
For a whole minute I stayed in the same body position with a blank gaze. Chan was scared and began to apologize profusely. I moved my feet, slowly yet steadily toward the direction of my dorm, without saying any word further. Chan was still apologizing, yet I could not process any of the words he said. After getting back to my dorm, I quickly escaped to the bathroom, locked the door behind me, and tried to process everything that happened tonight. I thought I had decayed to the kind of "bad kid" that teachers and parents were afraid that their kids would turn into. At the same time I very carefully and repeatedly studied the feeling of being kissed by Chan. I wondered whether it was a kind of impulse that drove him to kiss me--the same kind of impulse to reach out to catch a stray leaf on the wind or to jump a puddle on a rainy day-- an impulse pointless and innocuous to Chan. But to me it was more than that. It caused a strange yet heavy feeling that I never experienced before and could not shake away for a long time.
The day after, Chan came to find me after every class but I refused to meet him. At noon, when I finally had to walk out of the classroom for lunch, Chan, who had been waiting for me for the whole time, immediately caught me and said, "Are you ok?"
I nodded slowly and reluctantly, quickening my pace and avoiding eye contact. He followed me all the way downstairs.
He nervously asked, "Will you still talk to me?"
I hesitated, but ultimately nodded again.
At the Sports Festival, I naturally failed the high jump, since I did not even know the basic correct way to do it. Nobody in my class expected me to do well, so nobody blamed me for that. But for the 800m female race, I miracally won the second place of my team and the fifth place of the whole grade-- the fastest among non-professional athletes. An embarrassing thing for me was that Chan ran with me in the inner circle all through my 800m race. While I was running nervously, I heard Chan saying "you are the best" again and again near me. His running with me attracted much attention (including those of teachers), as I later knew (and I was forced to have a conversation with my teacher regarding my relationship with Chan), but both of us were oblivious to it at the time. Chan was not even aware of that I won the second place. After rushing through the finishing line, I collapsed. As Chan lifted me to his chest for me to rest at a less populous area, I heard a gaggle of girls screaming and chit-chatting how nice Chan was to me.
After putting me down, Chan laid out the beverages he prepared, "Are you thirsty?"
"No I'm fine. Thank you." I weakly replied, brain still deoxygenated.
4.
At the end of ninth grade-- the end of middle school, all students took a provincial high-school-entrance exam that tests on Math, Chinese, English, Physics&Chemistry, Biology&Geography, Political Sciences&History. The number of A on these subjects determined what tier of high schools we could get into. In previous exams, I always got As on all the subjects except for Math. On the day of my official exam for Math, I suddenly had a stomach cramp while painstakingly solving a problem that required complicated calculations. I suddenly realized that my period had come to visit me (eww, gross!). It was bad luck but still, I got an A on the exam as I received the notification 2 months later. I got all As for my high-school-entrance exam. That means I could choose whichever school in the province that I would like to go to and pay cheap tuition. Almost without hesitation, I chose school X, where many of my friends would go.
Chan did not get all the As. He got Bs on Chinese and English and As for the rest. It was quite within my expectation that he could not get all the As. Two Bs, which might not sound too bad, nonetheless meant that he could only go to a second-tier school in the province. Even though I had expected all these for a long time, when Chan messaged me his results at a free, chill, summer night when I was listening to music in my room, my first reaction was shock and for a long time, I could not type down anything to reply. Good music faded out of ears and I felt my heart sank very very deeply. It was a very strange feeling I never experienced before. Ultimately I slid down my chair, leaned against the wall like a person who suddenly got ill. At that moment I was surprised at how sad I felt, because I thought Chan did not have the power to make me sad like this.
While slowly recollecting my memory of the past middle school life, I recalled that every time after class, I always walked to the teachers' office to ask questions. I particularly enjoyed the walk, with fear and excitement, because I wanted to walk on that hallway where I might glimpse into Chan's classroom, wanting to see him sitting inside. He was always very keen to notice my presence, as if having an internal radar. He could always find me within seconds in a crowd of students all in uniforms or even when we were far away. He would always wave at me -- in a very exaggerated manner that pulled his whole body. Right outside my classroom, Chan also always "happened to be" playing basketball tricks, laughing really loud with his friends and frequently peeking into the classroom to see whether I was noticing him-- I was aware of all his attention-grabbing tricks and often sniffed at them, honestly speaking. While sitting in the silent dark corner of my room that night, I was suddenly reminded of all these moments of us trying really hard, just to take a look at each other or get ourselves noticed by each other. I suddenly realized that without Chan, all these silly attention-grabbing routines that had unconsciously occupied much of the happiest moments of my school life would disappear forever. When I walk on that long hallway again, there would no longer be any anticipation, an anticipation that I could not quite articulate at the moment-- but finally understood at the point of separation. The hallway, from then on, would just be a mundane, quiet, pointless hallway, no matter how lively or loud it is.
I finally typed, "You've done well. You got As on History and Political Sciences, which was surprising. You must have worked hard."
Pausing several seconds, I typed again, "I hope you have fun at your new high school."
He replied, "Ok." A long sigh came out of my mouth. I thought, this might be the end of it. Goodbye, Chan.
Chan, the boy from a different class, had been 'noticing' me for a year before he first talked to me. Just a week before our very first conversation was when I first realized his existence, when I heard rumor from some snickering classmates who said there was a guy "having an interest" in me. Shortly after the rumor spread, Chan several times led his group of friends to my class to take a look at me from the window, during the intercession between classes. To avoid embarrassment and any chance for conversation, I quickly escaped to the female bathroom upon the bell ringing every single time. One night, after the night-study-session (as my middle school is a boarding school), I was walking out of the classroom alone down the dark hallway, and a male voice suddenly called my name. Startled, I slowly turned my back, a dark shadow standing away panted heavily. "Can I be your friend?" The shadow said, voice trembling. What a weird question! I thought, Can you be someone's friend just by asking it? Yet I blurted out, "Yeah. Of course you can be my friend." A heavy sigh of relief, the shadow ran away leaving a trail of shaking "Thank you". Then I heard another guy's laughter-- "I said it's gonna be fine."
The following day, after the last class in the afternoon, I was packing up my things to return to the dorm. A classmate sitting near the window suddenly announced, mischievously eyeing me, "Yuqing, someone is looking for you." As I followed his cue, I saw Chan wearing a bright yellow T-shirt stands near the back door of the classroom. All the classmates who still remained set their gaze on me. A girl standing near me loudly cleared her throat and formally patted me on my shoulder, whispering, "here you go, good luck girl." Setting my backpack on a school desk, I gravely walked toward Chan, as if going to fulfill a deadly mission.
As soon as I walked out the classroom, I quickly dragged him to a corner away from the classroom to avoid the stalking of my gossipy classmates. "What's the matter?" As we settled, I asked and looked at him with some impatience and authority, the kind of authority you naturally possess when the person you talk to is nervous because of his affection for you. Chan smiled, a smile that says, "hey, we meet again!" Then he looked at me in the eye sincerely, yet with a trace of fear. It suddenly reminded me of how comical it was that Chan, the masculine guy in his male peer group (due to his athletic abilities and flat facial expressions, duh!) was standing in front of me with this lovely anxiety and blush on face, like a kitty waiting to be pet. Feeling flattered by the thought, I grinned. As if encouraged by my smiling, Chan broke the silence of my mind-wandering. "I like you." He said, swallowed with difficulty and stared at me with great courage, "Can you be my girlfriend?" (Right, I knew it, the ritualized line you are supposed to say at the beginning of every Chinese middle school romance)
We barely know each other! I screamed in heart and looked at him in disbelief, that he actually said it. And we can be kicked out of school if caught in a relationship! I thought further and settled my facial expression to calmness. I said, finally, with a tone of annoying, patronizing authority, "It's impossible. I need to concentrate on my schoolwork. I have to get into a really good high school."
"Where do you want to go?" He quickly and eagerly asked. Unexpectedly, shame was not his first reaction.
I listed several of the best high schools in the province and added, "Maybe I will go to the United States in the future", to "assure" him that there is not future for us. He looked down and fell into silence. I felt sorry for him and said, "If you do well on your next mid-term, perhaps we can hang out."
His eyes lightened up for a bit but soon fainted. We walked back together to my classroom without words. I could feel his disappointment and felt a sense of guilt for it. At the same time, I felt a straightforward refusal was the only correct thing to do. So he could give up on persuading me to be his girlfriend. So we could continue staying on our separate tracks without the distractions from each other.
2.
As the whole floor began to know about Chan's bold display of interest in me, my life was disturbed by the hooting of my classmates every time Chan passed by the window of my classroom. Perhaps Chan’s open and persistent pursuit of love was courageous in a context full of written and social sanctions against any expression of romantic interests at a young age (before 18). We Chinese call it a "youth relationship". From what I perceived at that age, youth relationships were stigmatized because they were automatically associated with teen pregnancy and an inability to control sexual urges. When Chan and I walked together in school uniforms in the city, we always got a lot of stares. In many cases, however, youth relationships do not always have to do with sex as those adults imagined.
"So what?" I would reply. "He's handsome." The girl would say.
"No he's not." Nobody ever shifted my own standard of attractiveness.
In December, when my birthday was coming, Chan sent a tomboyish girl from his class to talk to me and ask me what presents I wanted. Right, sending a guy would be awkward, sending a girl would be more awkward, so a tomboyish girl was just right, given that he himself did not want to have this conversation. As the tomboy summoned me outside the classroom, she stared at me for a second and burst into a laughter.
"What do you like?" She then asked directly.
Another strange question. I thought. The first one was, can I be your friend.
"This question is too broad."
The tomboy did not know what to respond, and I added, "Tell him not to buy me a present. I'm not his girl friend. Thank you." The tomboy left.
She did not give up. The truth is that she later found my close friend and asked her what I liked. My friend told her that I was recently into a Japanese anime and was obsessed with one of the characters in it. The outcome was, Chan went through all the stores on the busiest commercial street in the city, to search for a doll of that anime character for me, yet he failed to find one. Ultimately, he bought a scarf for me. "He put into real efforts into selecting this scarf for you." The tomboy later told me, "He wanted to find a scarf that just looked like you-- cute and pink." I cringed at these words but still appreciated his gift.
After my birthday Chan began to ask me out more often. When I say "ask me out", it just refers to walking several circles on the school playground, since our boarding school does not allow students to get outside the school without a teacher's written permission. So when Chan asked me out, to avoid teachers' suspicion, he always sent different buddies individually to my classroom to convey his message. For example, a guy from his class would come to my classroom to find me and said, "Chan asks you to wait for him this afternoon." It always gave me a feeling that I was carrying on an unlawful mission and going to meet the head of a gang, or things of that nature.
3.
A big event of the following semester—the first
semester of the ninth grade—was the Sports Festival. For the Sports Festival,
every class elected students to compete in various sporting activities. I
signed up as a competitor for the female 800m running. To be extra
hardworking for practice, I ran circles on the track every day, even
on weekends. One Saturday night, I asked Chan to train with me and
asked him to wait for me by a statue in the school at 7:15 pm. I accidentally left early and arrived
at 7 pm but saw Chan already there
waiting for me.
"Why did you come early? I said 7:15." To start our conversation, I said.
"Of course. Because it's you," he said flatly and matter-of-factly. My face blushed.
"Ok." I said, turning my face away, "Let's walk to the playground."
"Why did you come early? I said 7:15." To start our conversation, I said.
"Of course. Because it's you," he said flatly and matter-of-factly. My face blushed.
"Ok." I said, turning my face away, "Let's walk to the playground."
As we were walking to the playground silently
and about to turn left at a corner, he stopped.
I stopped and looked at him. He stared at me and a sense of doom rose up in my mind, as I could predict what he was going to say.
"Can you be my girlfriend?"
The second time. I repeated to myself in my mind. Why couldn't you see that it was impossible? There's no future for us. We are so young, and just one semester later is our separation. What's the point of us being together? It would just be more painful at the point of graduation. I yelled these words in my mind yet kept my mouth shut, anxiously thinking of a way to refuse him again. But finally I said,
"If you get into the school I am getting into. I can be your girlfriend."
I stopped and looked at him. He stared at me and a sense of doom rose up in my mind, as I could predict what he was going to say.
"Can you be my girlfriend?"
The second time. I repeated to myself in my mind. Why couldn't you see that it was impossible? There's no future for us. We are so young, and just one semester later is our separation. What's the point of us being together? It would just be more painful at the point of graduation. I yelled these words in my mind yet kept my mouth shut, anxiously thinking of a way to refuse him again. But finally I said,
"If you get into the school I am getting into. I can be your girlfriend."
I said this as I knew that he could not get in,
and if he indeed got in, we then would not have to separate from
each other, and being in a relationship would make more sense.
"Really?" He uttered, voice shaking in excitement. He looked at me in the eye with joy and anticipation.
"Really."
"You promise." He reached out his right hand to me with his little finger sticking out. I reached out my hand and rounded his little finger with mine. Our little fingers tightly locked and our thumbs clicked—the childish ritual of making a promise. At the instant of our thumbs clicked, however, he jumped toward me and quickly kissed me on my left cheek.
"Really?" He uttered, voice shaking in excitement. He looked at me in the eye with joy and anticipation.
"Really."
"You promise." He reached out his right hand to me with his little finger sticking out. I reached out my hand and rounded his little finger with mine. Our little fingers tightly locked and our thumbs clicked—the childish ritual of making a promise. At the instant of our thumbs clicked, however, he jumped toward me and quickly kissed me on my left cheek.
I only felt my heart dropped with a heavy, dreary sound. At that instant my mind went blank and I froze. Seconds later intensive mixed emotions flooded in and suffocated me. There was surprise, but more was shame, that I broke the social sanction of "youth relationship". Me, one of the top students in class, teachers' favorite, was now an outcast that betrayed a moral code and much trust.
For a whole minute I stayed in the same body position with a blank gaze. Chan was scared and began to apologize profusely. I moved my feet, slowly yet steadily toward the direction of my dorm, without saying any word further. Chan was still apologizing, yet I could not process any of the words he said. After getting back to my dorm, I quickly escaped to the bathroom, locked the door behind me, and tried to process everything that happened tonight. I thought I had decayed to the kind of "bad kid" that teachers and parents were afraid that their kids would turn into. At the same time I very carefully and repeatedly studied the feeling of being kissed by Chan. I wondered whether it was a kind of impulse that drove him to kiss me--the same kind of impulse to reach out to catch a stray leaf on the wind or to jump a puddle on a rainy day-- an impulse pointless and innocuous to Chan. But to me it was more than that. It caused a strange yet heavy feeling that I never experienced before and could not shake away for a long time.
The day after, Chan came to find me after every class but I refused to meet him. At noon, when I finally had to walk out of the classroom for lunch, Chan, who had been waiting for me for the whole time, immediately caught me and said, "Are you ok?"
I nodded slowly and reluctantly, quickening my pace and avoiding eye contact. He followed me all the way downstairs.
He nervously asked, "Will you still talk to me?"
I hesitated, but ultimately nodded again.
At the Sports Festival, I naturally failed the high jump, since I did not even know the basic correct way to do it. Nobody in my class expected me to do well, so nobody blamed me for that. But for the 800m female race, I miracally won the second place of my team and the fifth place of the whole grade-- the fastest among non-professional athletes. An embarrassing thing for me was that Chan ran with me in the inner circle all through my 800m race. While I was running nervously, I heard Chan saying "you are the best" again and again near me. His running with me attracted much attention (including those of teachers), as I later knew (and I was forced to have a conversation with my teacher regarding my relationship with Chan), but both of us were oblivious to it at the time. Chan was not even aware of that I won the second place. After rushing through the finishing line, I collapsed. As Chan lifted me to his chest for me to rest at a less populous area, I heard a gaggle of girls screaming and chit-chatting how nice Chan was to me.
After putting me down, Chan laid out the beverages he prepared, "Are you thirsty?"
"No I'm fine. Thank you." I weakly replied, brain still deoxygenated.
4.
At the end of ninth grade-- the end of middle school, all students took a provincial high-school-entrance exam that tests on Math, Chinese, English, Physics&Chemistry, Biology&Geography, Political Sciences&History. The number of A on these subjects determined what tier of high schools we could get into. In previous exams, I always got As on all the subjects except for Math. On the day of my official exam for Math, I suddenly had a stomach cramp while painstakingly solving a problem that required complicated calculations. I suddenly realized that my period had come to visit me (eww, gross!). It was bad luck but still, I got an A on the exam as I received the notification 2 months later. I got all As for my high-school-entrance exam. That means I could choose whichever school in the province that I would like to go to and pay cheap tuition. Almost without hesitation, I chose school X, where many of my friends would go.
Chan did not get all the As. He got Bs on Chinese and English and As for the rest. It was quite within my expectation that he could not get all the As. Two Bs, which might not sound too bad, nonetheless meant that he could only go to a second-tier school in the province. Even though I had expected all these for a long time, when Chan messaged me his results at a free, chill, summer night when I was listening to music in my room, my first reaction was shock and for a long time, I could not type down anything to reply. Good music faded out of ears and I felt my heart sank very very deeply. It was a very strange feeling I never experienced before. Ultimately I slid down my chair, leaned against the wall like a person who suddenly got ill. At that moment I was surprised at how sad I felt, because I thought Chan did not have the power to make me sad like this.
While slowly recollecting my memory of the past middle school life, I recalled that every time after class, I always walked to the teachers' office to ask questions. I particularly enjoyed the walk, with fear and excitement, because I wanted to walk on that hallway where I might glimpse into Chan's classroom, wanting to see him sitting inside. He was always very keen to notice my presence, as if having an internal radar. He could always find me within seconds in a crowd of students all in uniforms or even when we were far away. He would always wave at me -- in a very exaggerated manner that pulled his whole body. Right outside my classroom, Chan also always "happened to be" playing basketball tricks, laughing really loud with his friends and frequently peeking into the classroom to see whether I was noticing him-- I was aware of all his attention-grabbing tricks and often sniffed at them, honestly speaking. While sitting in the silent dark corner of my room that night, I was suddenly reminded of all these moments of us trying really hard, just to take a look at each other or get ourselves noticed by each other. I suddenly realized that without Chan, all these silly attention-grabbing routines that had unconsciously occupied much of the happiest moments of my school life would disappear forever. When I walk on that long hallway again, there would no longer be any anticipation, an anticipation that I could not quite articulate at the moment-- but finally understood at the point of separation. The hallway, from then on, would just be a mundane, quiet, pointless hallway, no matter how lively or loud it is.
I finally typed, "You've done well. You got As on History and Political Sciences, which was surprising. You must have worked hard."
Pausing several seconds, I typed again, "I hope you have fun at your new high school."
He replied, "Ok." A long sigh came out of my mouth. I thought, this might be the end of it. Goodbye, Chan.
Then he replied, "Does your high school accept transferred students?"
My tears burst out at that moment. At first they orderly ran down my cheeks that I could still feel them individually, but soon I found them rushing out and it was hard to suppress my hoarse crying voice. It was not only that I knew for sure that the high school would not take any transferred student. The artlessness of these words also moved me. Unlike some of the guys I met later in my life, who glibly used techniques to pique girls' interests or control their emotions, Chan did not know how to maneuver language to make me excited, guilty, or to care more about him. Even at this point, he did not say, "I don't want to leave you. I will miss you." but rather a very constrained "Does your high school accept transferred students?"
While faking a calm, normal tone as I typed down "I am sure you will have great new friends" and pressed the "sent" button, streams of tears shed on my keyboard and made my hands slippery. I wiped them out as more tears ran down.
5.
While Chan did not come from a very rich family, his parents managed to bribe the officers of my high school and got him in. While I was aware of Chan's real intention, his parents clearly had no idea and perhaps thought Chan finally awakened and determined to treat his schoolwork seriously, or why else would he insist in attending a prestigious school.
Chan and I were on the same floor again, but ironically, we stopped talking to each other. Every time I met Chan in the hallway and saw the amount of efforts he put into controlling his facial expressions and ignoring me, I always felt how ironic it was that he tried so hard to get in here.
It all began in the summer right before, the same summer when I cried for him. The thing was, my parents awarded me a summer camp trip to the United States, due to my excellent performances on the exams. In the US, I visited schools such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, and UPenn...Long story short, I decided, with more certainty and determination, that I would like to attend college in the US and get into one of these schools. As I told Chan about this decision with excitement, he did not reply-- he was pushed down a cliff and truly made aware that there was indeed no future for us. Our separation was doomed-- if not high school, then certainly university. As I was angry at his feeling grumpy as opposed to feeling happy for me-- for my bright prospect, I was not motivated to save our relationship if he did not want to talk to me.
After one incidence, however, I realized that I had to talk to Chan. That was when he and other two guys from his class were criticized in front of the whole school for smoking and drinking in the dorm. My first reaction was shock, even though I was aware that Chan's friend group always had a gang-like, anti-establishment characteristic to it for unknown reasons. I was already aware of that in middle school and told him that I did not want him to smoke or drink, and he said okay. Hearing this news, I thought he had broken his promise to me. Driven by anger and anxiety, I found him in his classroom that day and asked him to talk to me after school.
The clock struck 5:30 when I came out of the classroom. Most students had left the building to either have dinner or take showers, and I saw Chan, with hands in his pockets, walking toward me in the long, empty hallway. When he was finally near me and stopped, peering down at me with a flat, cold face, I was struck by how much he had grown in the past summer. He was much taller. He stared at me silently, waiting for me to speak, his eyes no longer had the trace of anxiety or anticipation that he usually had when talking to me. For the first time, paradoxically, I was struck by his attractiveness, that how handsome he suddenly became.
My tears burst out at that moment. At first they orderly ran down my cheeks that I could still feel them individually, but soon I found them rushing out and it was hard to suppress my hoarse crying voice. It was not only that I knew for sure that the high school would not take any transferred student. The artlessness of these words also moved me. Unlike some of the guys I met later in my life, who glibly used techniques to pique girls' interests or control their emotions, Chan did not know how to maneuver language to make me excited, guilty, or to care more about him. Even at this point, he did not say, "I don't want to leave you. I will miss you." but rather a very constrained "Does your high school accept transferred students?"
While faking a calm, normal tone as I typed down "I am sure you will have great new friends" and pressed the "sent" button, streams of tears shed on my keyboard and made my hands slippery. I wiped them out as more tears ran down.
5.
While Chan did not come from a very rich family, his parents managed to bribe the officers of my high school and got him in. While I was aware of Chan's real intention, his parents clearly had no idea and perhaps thought Chan finally awakened and determined to treat his schoolwork seriously, or why else would he insist in attending a prestigious school.
Chan and I were on the same floor again, but ironically, we stopped talking to each other. Every time I met Chan in the hallway and saw the amount of efforts he put into controlling his facial expressions and ignoring me, I always felt how ironic it was that he tried so hard to get in here.
It all began in the summer right before, the same summer when I cried for him. The thing was, my parents awarded me a summer camp trip to the United States, due to my excellent performances on the exams. In the US, I visited schools such as Harvard, Yale, MIT, and UPenn...Long story short, I decided, with more certainty and determination, that I would like to attend college in the US and get into one of these schools. As I told Chan about this decision with excitement, he did not reply-- he was pushed down a cliff and truly made aware that there was indeed no future for us. Our separation was doomed-- if not high school, then certainly university. As I was angry at his feeling grumpy as opposed to feeling happy for me-- for my bright prospect, I was not motivated to save our relationship if he did not want to talk to me.
After one incidence, however, I realized that I had to talk to Chan. That was when he and other two guys from his class were criticized in front of the whole school for smoking and drinking in the dorm. My first reaction was shock, even though I was aware that Chan's friend group always had a gang-like, anti-establishment characteristic to it for unknown reasons. I was already aware of that in middle school and told him that I did not want him to smoke or drink, and he said okay. Hearing this news, I thought he had broken his promise to me. Driven by anger and anxiety, I found him in his classroom that day and asked him to talk to me after school.
The clock struck 5:30 when I came out of the classroom. Most students had left the building to either have dinner or take showers, and I saw Chan, with hands in his pockets, walking toward me in the long, empty hallway. When he was finally near me and stopped, peering down at me with a flat, cold face, I was struck by how much he had grown in the past summer. He was much taller. He stared at me silently, waiting for me to speak, his eyes no longer had the trace of anxiety or anticipation that he usually had when talking to me. For the first time, paradoxically, I was struck by his attractiveness, that how handsome he suddenly became.
"Why did you do that?" I said. It was the first sentence I uttered to him in several months.
"Do what?" He frowned, and I found when he appeared annoyed, he was even better-looking, as annoyance added more sense of masculinity to his face. I also noticed that he no longer wore braces--his teeth were neat and white.
"What was broadcasted to the whole school today." I replied, making my tone sound cold and blaming.
"Oh," he relaxed, even smiling a bit, "That thing."
"You promised that you would not do it."
"I didn't do it," he said, "I was just in the room, and my roommates were doing it. The teacher thought I was doing it too. I thought there was no point arguing with him."
Feeling relieved and trusting that he would not lie to me, I nonetheless did not know what to respond at that moment.
"Is that all?" Noticing the silence, Chan asked.
I nodded.
"Then, see you." He left three brief words and walked away.
6.
It was strange that I became the one reminding him of my promise and asking him to be my boyfriend. Of course I did not say it directly-- I implied it rather tactfully. To my great surprise he did not immediately give me an answer. I imagined that he would be ecstatic, eyes lightening up, and he would hug me and smile-- but none of these happened. After I said my words, he paused for several seconds and brushed if off. After he left I truly wondered whether he got my point.
It turned out that he indeed got my point, as he replied a week later with a stuffed panda as a gift and a card saying that he was very happy to be my boyfriend. He had that familiar timid, joyful smile on face when he handed me the present, but I was genuinely puzzled by his late reply. I thought he had wanted to be with me this whole time-- ever since the eighth grade, and now it was the tenth. I had a very strong urge to question him-- "Why a week later?", but I did not say anything, fearing that it might put us into an unnecessary argument. I also forced myself to not let this confusion bother me any longer. I should be more looking forward to the future of our relationship.
After we were officially in a relationship, paradoxically, all my middle school classmates who used to snicker, hoot, and get excited about Chan and me no longer had any more interest (yes many of them went to the same high school as I did). They were not necessarily happy for my relationship-- perhaps they never seriously cared about it at all. Instead of saying, "Wow, you two are finally together!" They said, "Why did you accept him?" with the disappointment of no longer able to watch an interesting show. But an official relationship also meant that I officially turned myself into an outcast who was openly defiant toward the school and social norms. It was going to be a difficult war.
That was not the most difficult part. That was just a minor problem compared to all the other problems I faced in high school. I was forced to admit my mediocrity, for example. In middle school, I was always the top student, not only in my class but also in the whole grade of more than 1000 students. I was the smart and versatile one that others were jealous of-- yet very well liked at the same time. Upon entering high school, however, the first thing striking me was that I ranked the 20th among the 50 students in my class on the first physics exam. In my prestigious high school I became only an average student, which totally made sense, but at that age, I had great difficulty accepting this fact. I grew ever more hard-working at the costs of my health, staying up late and getting up early to solve math problems and memorizing SAT vocab under a dim light. Preparing both domestic-track schoolwork as well as applications for American universities, I was at the edge of over-exhausting myself at any moment. Even for an American native-speaker, preparing for SAT and college-app essays would be a pain in the ass. Not to mention for me, a foreign student who is ignorant to all the complicated procedures I need to go through on my own, and I was not an adept English-speaker, and I need to deal with challenging math and physics problems that domestic-track Chinese students are required to do.
7.
7.
Chan could not offer me much help, since he was not very good at schoolwork. But in our relationship, I developed a strong sense of attachment to him. My high school forbade cellphone, but I carried mine all the time. Every time I saw the notification of a new message, I knew it would be from Chan, and it brought me this indescribable, secretive thrill, as I hid my head below the desk to check it while pushing away my deskmate who always tried to peek at my phone. When I ran into Chan in the hallway, we pretended to not see each other due to the relationship ban at school, but no matter how hard we tried we still could not hide our smile when seeing each other. Once we got out of the campus, our hands would tightly lock. In my memory we always silently walked on the street. He wore a black backpack and a nice blue scarf, tightly holding my hand, sometimes looking at me, smiling, but no words. Chan was a quiet lover. I like this part of him-- a very good listener. Very patient, very sensitive to any tiny bit of detail in my words, and very considerate. Throughout our relationship he never started an argument with me or say anything mean. He never tried to hurt me for whatever reasons (some guys would hurt you in small ways to get you jealous or like him more, for example). He always supported me. When I was angry at him, he always sincerely tried to find fault with himself first.
Years later I always wondered how could a mere 16-year-old boy be so emotionally mature in his first relationship. Perhaps one explanation was that he indeed had loved me back then. But at that age I thought all boys in relationship were like that. Because I thought so, even though I indeed liked him very much, I did not treat him the same way he treated me. I threw tantrums and started fights to get things my way. I said mean things to intentionally hurt him, for example, whenever I saw him interacting with the girl whom I suspected liked him. He responded me seriously, "Even if she likes me, do you think I will like her? Why so unconfident about yourself?" He was implying his love for me even in face of my unreasonable tantrum, but I didn't soften because of that, or in other fights that I started.
Initially Chan responded my tantrums as I expected, by giving me even more attention and trying even harder to find fault with himself. But at one point of time he told me he was honestly too emotionally exhausted. The more he cared about me, the more tired he got from every fight. Therefore, "to save myself from exhaustion perhaps the only way is to dilute you in my mind." He used the word "dilute", meaning not letting me take as much space in his heart. He did not mean it as a threat, but with a sense of genuine sadness. That was the first time I realized perhaps I had been truly wrong in what I did. I thought I could easily make things go back to before as long as I stopped being unreasonable in the future. But I didn't expect that these things had left deep marks in the trajectory of our relationship, as least for Chan.
Years later I always wondered how could a mere 16-year-old boy be so emotionally mature in his first relationship. Perhaps one explanation was that he indeed had loved me back then. But at that age I thought all boys in relationship were like that. Because I thought so, even though I indeed liked him very much, I did not treat him the same way he treated me. I threw tantrums and started fights to get things my way. I said mean things to intentionally hurt him, for example, whenever I saw him interacting with the girl whom I suspected liked him. He responded me seriously, "Even if she likes me, do you think I will like her? Why so unconfident about yourself?" He was implying his love for me even in face of my unreasonable tantrum, but I didn't soften because of that, or in other fights that I started.
Initially Chan responded my tantrums as I expected, by giving me even more attention and trying even harder to find fault with himself. But at one point of time he told me he was honestly too emotionally exhausted. The more he cared about me, the more tired he got from every fight. Therefore, "to save myself from exhaustion perhaps the only way is to dilute you in my mind." He used the word "dilute", meaning not letting me take as much space in his heart. He did not mean it as a threat, but with a sense of genuine sadness. That was the first time I realized perhaps I had been truly wrong in what I did. I thought I could easily make things go back to before as long as I stopped being unreasonable in the future. But I didn't expect that these things had left deep marks in the trajectory of our relationship, as least for Chan.
8.
I took two months off from school in the second semester of the eleventh grade, to concentrate on my preparation for an impending SAT exam, which I needed to travel to Hongkong to take. My teacher permitted my departure from school, since I gave up on the domestic-track and would not take the Chinese college-entrance exam.
This departure had another meaning, which was that Chan and I were now sort of in a long-distance relationship, because he was still in our enclosed boarding school but I was outside. To be honest, I really missed him when I could not see him. We texted a lot at first, then less and less. Behind the screen, I could tell that Chan was growing colder to me, but I was not totally sure about this feeling. When I asked him why he replied my message so slowly, he said he was very overwhelmed by his schoolwork and suggested that we chat less frequently. I complied with his request.
Until one night, a night not any different from any other night, I was again studying in my room. Suddenly on my computer screen jumped out Chan's message. Seeing his message almost made me faint at that instant. It was conveyed in a very calm tone yet made my mind explode.
He said, "We should break up."
I could never forget about the feelings when I saw these words. It was so sudden--coming out of nowhere-- and I felt my very basic trust about this world was crumbled. It threw me into a kind of appalling existential dread and I had all kinds of urges-- to cry, to yell, to beat him, and to beg him at the same time.
I typed with my heart racing, as if going crazy, "Why? Is it because I'm not good enough?"
"No. Don't ask more. I don't want to say more." He replied coldly, with a kind of dominance that was utterly annoying, yet I at that time could not perceive it, I desperately wanted an answer, a justification.
"Because I'm going to America?"
"Not totally. Partially. Please, don't ask me any more. Continuing this relationship would be unfair to you."
My heart dropped at this sentence. My world totally fell silent. I nervously put my hands on the keyboard and started typing with hands shaking.
"Does it have anything to do with another girl?"
After sending this sentence, I quickly and desperately typed down again, "As long as it is not related to another person, whatever between us could be solved by us. We have already conquered a lot-- all the resistance from teachers and parents---"
Before I finished my sentence, he sent, "Yes. It does have to do with another girl."
In my mind a lot of images appeared. I imagined him kissing that girl. I had no idea who that girl was and what she looked like. I only imagined a vague yet attractive face, and I felt in my mind a lot of hatred for her. I imagined how hard I would slap Chan's face the next time I met him. I would shake him, kick him, and called him ugly names. But ultimately, I may still ask him, "Can we get back together?" I hated myself, for my lack of assertiveness and lingered longing for such an asshole. But "asshole" is an oversimplifying word. I thought of the Chan who secretly put bubble tea or watermelon juice on my desk in hot summer days, who quietly put food in my backpack when knowing that I skipped meals, who nervously looked at me when we first met, who tightly hugged me when I was upset. I started crying and continued crying for the rest of the night. It was the first night I did not sleep for a single second and witnessed the sky change from black to grey to white. Then the sun rose, my tears were still running down. I did not have any expectation for the new day. I knew things wouldn't be any different.
Several weeks later after we broke up, I was on a bus one day and discovered a beautiful park while looking out of the window. My first reaction was still "Chan and I could hang out here some time". Only seconds later was I struck by the awareness that it was no longer possible.
I talked to Chan's best friend, asking about the girl he broke up with me for. Then I realized that I once saw that girl's photo as one of Chan's feature photos on his social media wall at the beginning of high school, but I never bothered to ask about it, because she was not even pretty. I realized that there were more reasons to Chan's indifference and coldness to me at the beginning of high school — not only his perceived lack of a future for us but also his already falling in love with another person, a person with whom he shared more similarity — at least similar family background and life trajectory (e.g. going to a domestic university). When I talked to him, which was out of his expectation, he still chose me over her after a whole week's contemplation. In his relationship with me, he had indeed been very appreciative and tried to be a good boyfriend. He had indeed loved me. But in the long and ever exhausting process of dealing with the negative sides of my personality, that girl was still playing the supportive role of a friend. He developed affection for her. And she, as I later knew, had been loving him too. After he realized his feeling for her, he hated himself, because he realized that he no longer loved me fully. In this self-hatred he did not know how to react to my messages which are still full of the assumption of his full love for me. He decided to break up, because continuing this relationship, in his understanding, would be unfair.
I inferred all the parts of Chan's decision-making from the pieces of information I could gather, but the self-hatred, he told me himself. At a chill night after our breaking up, I demanded to meet up. He waited for me at the old spot, with that nice-looking blue scarf around his neck. He stood there, silently looking at me. Every part of this scene felt familiar, just like any one of our after-class hanging out-- when I walked toward him, he would tightly hold my hand and gave me a warm smile. But this time, the last time, it was different. I silently stood in front of him. He didn't reach out his hand. I didn't yell at him as I thought I would either. Without words, we began walking in the same direction. From the appearance, we still seemed to have the compatibility of a couple. After our conversation, he still could not help hugging me tightly and got on the bus to accompany me to the final step on my way home. Even at our final separation, in the way he looked at me I still felt a large part of him might still love me. A small part no longer, already taken by someone else. But this small part was sufficient to end our relationship.
Years later, when I tried to describe to others my relationship with my first boyfriend, it was always hard into simplify this complicated story into single sentences. If the story ended before high school-- if Chan did not go to the same school as I did, my impression for him would stay as the very sincere and kind boy who persisted in liking me for years. If I wipe out of the middle school part, Chan would sound be more like a womanizer with his volatile romantic interests. Today, I finally decide that I would not label him as anything, but rather tell this lengthy, complex story between us two, as a documentation, also a disclosure, before I forget about the details of it as time passes. I experienced some of the happiest as well as the most painful moments in my relationship with him. After we broke up, I hardly ever experienced any of those feelings to that intensified extent, and I never cried for another breakup. It was harder and harder for things to disturb my emotions. I am not likely to be particularly happy nor particularly sad. Perhaps that is what growing up means.
Two months after our breaking up was New Year. At 00:00, Chan sent me a message wishing me happy new year. I politely replied back. That was the January 1st of 2013, the last time we talked to each other.
I took two months off from school in the second semester of the eleventh grade, to concentrate on my preparation for an impending SAT exam, which I needed to travel to Hongkong to take. My teacher permitted my departure from school, since I gave up on the domestic-track and would not take the Chinese college-entrance exam.
This departure had another meaning, which was that Chan and I were now sort of in a long-distance relationship, because he was still in our enclosed boarding school but I was outside. To be honest, I really missed him when I could not see him. We texted a lot at first, then less and less. Behind the screen, I could tell that Chan was growing colder to me, but I was not totally sure about this feeling. When I asked him why he replied my message so slowly, he said he was very overwhelmed by his schoolwork and suggested that we chat less frequently. I complied with his request.
Until one night, a night not any different from any other night, I was again studying in my room. Suddenly on my computer screen jumped out Chan's message. Seeing his message almost made me faint at that instant. It was conveyed in a very calm tone yet made my mind explode.
He said, "We should break up."
I could never forget about the feelings when I saw these words. It was so sudden--coming out of nowhere-- and I felt my very basic trust about this world was crumbled. It threw me into a kind of appalling existential dread and I had all kinds of urges-- to cry, to yell, to beat him, and to beg him at the same time.
I typed with my heart racing, as if going crazy, "Why? Is it because I'm not good enough?"
"No. Don't ask more. I don't want to say more." He replied coldly, with a kind of dominance that was utterly annoying, yet I at that time could not perceive it, I desperately wanted an answer, a justification.
"Because I'm going to America?"
"Not totally. Partially. Please, don't ask me any more. Continuing this relationship would be unfair to you."
My heart dropped at this sentence. My world totally fell silent. I nervously put my hands on the keyboard and started typing with hands shaking.
"Does it have anything to do with another girl?"
After sending this sentence, I quickly and desperately typed down again, "As long as it is not related to another person, whatever between us could be solved by us. We have already conquered a lot-- all the resistance from teachers and parents---"
Before I finished my sentence, he sent, "Yes. It does have to do with another girl."
In my mind a lot of images appeared. I imagined him kissing that girl. I had no idea who that girl was and what she looked like. I only imagined a vague yet attractive face, and I felt in my mind a lot of hatred for her. I imagined how hard I would slap Chan's face the next time I met him. I would shake him, kick him, and called him ugly names. But ultimately, I may still ask him, "Can we get back together?" I hated myself, for my lack of assertiveness and lingered longing for such an asshole. But "asshole" is an oversimplifying word. I thought of the Chan who secretly put bubble tea or watermelon juice on my desk in hot summer days, who quietly put food in my backpack when knowing that I skipped meals, who nervously looked at me when we first met, who tightly hugged me when I was upset. I started crying and continued crying for the rest of the night. It was the first night I did not sleep for a single second and witnessed the sky change from black to grey to white. Then the sun rose, my tears were still running down. I did not have any expectation for the new day. I knew things wouldn't be any different.
Several weeks later after we broke up, I was on a bus one day and discovered a beautiful park while looking out of the window. My first reaction was still "Chan and I could hang out here some time". Only seconds later was I struck by the awareness that it was no longer possible.
I talked to Chan's best friend, asking about the girl he broke up with me for. Then I realized that I once saw that girl's photo as one of Chan's feature photos on his social media wall at the beginning of high school, but I never bothered to ask about it, because she was not even pretty. I realized that there were more reasons to Chan's indifference and coldness to me at the beginning of high school — not only his perceived lack of a future for us but also his already falling in love with another person, a person with whom he shared more similarity — at least similar family background and life trajectory (e.g. going to a domestic university). When I talked to him, which was out of his expectation, he still chose me over her after a whole week's contemplation. In his relationship with me, he had indeed been very appreciative and tried to be a good boyfriend. He had indeed loved me. But in the long and ever exhausting process of dealing with the negative sides of my personality, that girl was still playing the supportive role of a friend. He developed affection for her. And she, as I later knew, had been loving him too. After he realized his feeling for her, he hated himself, because he realized that he no longer loved me fully. In this self-hatred he did not know how to react to my messages which are still full of the assumption of his full love for me. He decided to break up, because continuing this relationship, in his understanding, would be unfair.
I inferred all the parts of Chan's decision-making from the pieces of information I could gather, but the self-hatred, he told me himself. At a chill night after our breaking up, I demanded to meet up. He waited for me at the old spot, with that nice-looking blue scarf around his neck. He stood there, silently looking at me. Every part of this scene felt familiar, just like any one of our after-class hanging out-- when I walked toward him, he would tightly hold my hand and gave me a warm smile. But this time, the last time, it was different. I silently stood in front of him. He didn't reach out his hand. I didn't yell at him as I thought I would either. Without words, we began walking in the same direction. From the appearance, we still seemed to have the compatibility of a couple. After our conversation, he still could not help hugging me tightly and got on the bus to accompany me to the final step on my way home. Even at our final separation, in the way he looked at me I still felt a large part of him might still love me. A small part no longer, already taken by someone else. But this small part was sufficient to end our relationship.
Years later, when I tried to describe to others my relationship with my first boyfriend, it was always hard into simplify this complicated story into single sentences. If the story ended before high school-- if Chan did not go to the same school as I did, my impression for him would stay as the very sincere and kind boy who persisted in liking me for years. If I wipe out of the middle school part, Chan would sound be more like a womanizer with his volatile romantic interests. Today, I finally decide that I would not label him as anything, but rather tell this lengthy, complex story between us two, as a documentation, also a disclosure, before I forget about the details of it as time passes. I experienced some of the happiest as well as the most painful moments in my relationship with him. After we broke up, I hardly ever experienced any of those feelings to that intensified extent, and I never cried for another breakup. It was harder and harder for things to disturb my emotions. I am not likely to be particularly happy nor particularly sad. Perhaps that is what growing up means.
Two months after our breaking up was New Year. At 00:00, Chan sent me a message wishing me happy new year. I politely replied back. That was the January 1st of 2013, the last time we talked to each other.
Comments
Post a Comment