When I was in Jss2 I had a huge crush on the new girl who transferred to my school. She was the most beautiful girl in my opinion , everything about her to me was perfect, her face, smile, the way she spoke, and then her name (Chloe)was unique to me since I was raised in the northern region of both my state, Kaduna, and Nigeria. Most of my friends were Muslims and they all had Arabic names like Mohammed, Yusuf, Zainab, Hajara and although they were little Christian’s like myself but none like her.
Back then, I only had two motivations for getting out of bed in the morning and going to school: To hang out with my best friends and to learn everyday, yeah I know learning was supposed to be first but the fun time I had with my bros playing table tennis 🏓 during breaks and being a typical back bencher had more value to me than learning maths and so on, but Chloe became my third reason to wake up everyday and go to school and even though I hadn't fully realized it yet, deep down I knew I was a goner; she had my heart already.
For about a week, everything were going well in class every day and all I did for the entire week was stare
and say hi a couple of times, laugh harder at her jokes and deny the fact I was crushing on her when I was with friends. It wasn't simple, and the feelings were intensifying more quickly than a car changing gears. At this point, I was too full to continue holding it in. I needed to tell her, but how? This kept me up at night, and I finally came up with the perfect plan to use my buddies to keep her away from everyone during lunch break while I talked to her and eventually ask her out.
My heart was beating so loudly that I could hear and feel it, my palms were sweating, and I had to lower my voice, but I managed to get my chance to be alone with Chloe. It was a straightforward plan that obviously worked. While Chloe and I were alone, I looked at her and told her that I really liked her. At this point, everywhere seemed to be in complete silence, and I was waiting for her response.
However, what she said was entirely different from how I had anticipated it would proceed. She looked back at me and said,”i knew you were going to say you like me, but I don’t like you; I like Kelvin instead,”
and yeah it sucked but little did I know that she told her friends and they told their friends and before the end of the day the whole class knew. Bro that was first rejection, and it became public.
I was laughed at and I I can still recall begging for the day to end so I could leave for home right away. I got home sad, and was bugged with the thought of how I’ll have to face everyone again the next day. I tried pretending to sick be but my mum didn’t buy it and she made me go to school. As I was leaving, I promised myself that I would act as like it never occurred and that if anyone brought it up, I would laugh it off.. This worked and the whole thing was slowly forgotten but that changed me because after her, I haven’t gone ahead to ask any girl out except she shows interest. Like you’ll have to like me more than I do before anything can happen. This has
been my defense mechanism for that rejection.
