I met The Very First One like most people meet their first loves: at school. He was new there – a pad’s brat who had recently moved back to the country, and he caught my eye immediately. I didn’t think he felt the same. He hung around with the people that bullied me until I was actually hospitalised; though, he was never a jerk to me.
One day, we struck up a conversation. He apologised for his friends. I told him, it was okay. We laughed a bit. Found out we had a few things in common. From there, we became kinda-but-not-really friends. Secret friends, if you like. I was the least popular girl (probably person) in school, he was one of the most popular kids, and we still had the same friendship groups from then. I mean, I didn’t have any friends in school because I was bullied horrendously, but you know. Acquaintances. School assholes.
The friendship soon developed into something more. Discreet handholding, secret kisses, that kind of thing. I was ready to sing about it from the rooftops, but he wanted to keep it secret. Our little thing. “Special,” he called it. He didn’t want anyone else to ruin it. So, we had secret codes for things.
Instead of telling me that he loved me, The Very First One would say, “Ditto,” because we watched Ghost together once and the idea stuck. I would also say, “ditto,” right back.
Only one of our mutual friends (a fellow bullied kid, ironically) was allowed to know about us – and he even became the excuse that The Very First One used when talking about our plans to his other friends.
For the first six months of our little love affair, we kept it entirely to ourselves. Nobody else knew about it. It made it all the more exciting, I suppose, but it didn’t take me long to realise that he was keeping me a massive secret for a reason.
He was embarrassed to be dating me.
So, one day, when he asked if I wanted to take our relationship a little further (as in, sex) I gave him an ultimatum: stop with the secrecy, or I’ll stop us.
To my surprise, he agreed to go public…
I was suddenly catapulted to a new level of popularity that I could only ever have dreamed of before. People wanted to talk to… me. They were suddenly interested in what I had to say. Bullies that once said, “skank” to me on first glance, now said, “morning!”
It was fucking weird. Something out of a bad American romcom, for sure.
I had invitations to social gatherings coming out of my ears. Shopping trips, too. Girls that once laughed as they dropped my homework into muddy puddles now helped me pick up things that I’d dropped from the floor, the fickle little fuckers. Boys that once shut my arm in swing doors or stuck drawing pins in my back in class, now wanted to date me. I was suddenly invited out to clubbing nights that I’d infamously been left out of before.
Cue the singing: She’s gonna be POP-U-LAR.
It sounds ridiculous when I say it, but it was literally like being catapulted to fame overnight. You know, “school-esque fame.” Secondary school might’ve been shit for me, but sixth form? It was the polar opposite.
Utterly mad stuff.
The Very First One didn’t like it. Obviously. Maybe I had stolen his popular-boy sunshine. Who knows? He started getting jealous and demanding that we spent EVERY minute of our day together. I might be kissing/fucking/whatever someone else, otherwise. I wasn’t, but, obviously, that wasn’t the point.
I was just as bad, in all honesty, but it was in different ways. The more he tried to tame me, the more I rebelled. He hated smoking, so I started smoking. He hated that friend, so I started hanging out with her a little more. He hated it when I drank, so, of course, I once consumed enough White Lightning to sink the QE2.
But, you know, he’d gone public like I’d asked… so it was time to take our relationship to the next level.
The next blog post in the dating timeline is this one: That Time I Wasn’t Ready.
You can read all about The Very First One, from start to finish, right here.
Thanks so much for reading my blog today! 🖤
You can read all about The Very First One, from start to finish, right here.
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