How a Picture Speaks a Thousand Words (Part 1)

So I saw this picture on Facebook yesterday.

Of course I clicked the "share" button right away. How true, I thought. I ended up pondering about the quote which, as simple as it may sound, really hit me on a personal level.

I will discuss the above quote in this post. There are three statements there.

1. When you want someone, they don't want you.

2. When someone wants you, you don't want them.

3. When you both want each other, something has to come around and mess it up.

As I spent some time thinking about it, I then realized that I have, at some point of my life, experienced all the three scenarios. Allow me to tell you my stories.

1. When you want someone, they don't want you.

I am sure that this is the most common situation most guys, if not all, have found themselves in. There was the pretty and popular girl, surrounded by her girl friends (and some guy friends too) standing along the corridor. You wanted to talk to her, but didn't seem to have the courage to do so. Talking was awkward. In the end, all you could do was talking to her through texts (sms, Blackberry Messenger, Whatsapp, MSN, you name it). After months of PDKT (it's an Indonesian terms which means "making a move for your crush"), mainly through indirect means, you took the gamble and confessed to her. You were rejected, with reasons like "I think we'd better remain friends". You decided to distance yourself from her, and the story ended with the two of you not friends anymore. Sounds too familiar?

I won't give you a lengthy lecture of what that guy should have done, because I have been in that situation before, and I did exactly what he did. It happened all the way back in Primary 4. There was this pretty girl who was put in the same class as me. She was a quiet girl, and so was I. Because of that, we only talked once during the year we were classmates (it was only for that occasion that I can recall clearly what we talked about). She was smart too. I got the first rank in class and she second. Somehow I always find smart girls attractive, even until today. That was the beginning of my six-year-long crush on this girl. I didn't make any move then, because I was a shy boy. And there goes my year in Primary 4.

In Primary 5, I remember coming up with a now-seems-idiotic plan to buy her a box of chocolate for Valentine's Day. Thankfully, what was a plan remained a plan. We were not classmates in Primary 5, and the year passed by so quickly.

Primary 6 was the year in which we not only became classmates once again, but also bench-mates. We spent a lot of time talking about many things. I also remember how I wanted to act cool in front of her by helping her with her assignment but ended up embarrassing both of us. The year ended in no time, and we welcomed the start of Junior High School.

In the first year of Junior High School, I faced a storm on a personal level which had nothing to do with her. At one of the lowest points of my life, I made a stupid decision out of desperation to make a confession to her through sms. She never replied. The next morning, all her friends knew about the sms. Things became awkward, and we didn't talk anymore ever since.

I still harbored the same feeling for that girl over the next two years. I still did things which I thought were romantic, such as buying her flowers anonymously for Valentine's, or getting a cute bag with a printing of her favorite pet for her birthday. Yet, those were all done in desperation. In fact, looking back, I didn't even know why I liked her, or whether I really liked her. As you may have expected, when our time in Junior High School ended, so did our friendship. We never talked again, not even once, since then. She is now happily studying in the States, and me in Singapore.

As I reflect, there is no regret even though it was an embarrassing experience because of two things. Firstly, I realize that I don't fall for a girl easily, but when I do, I don't fall out of love easily either. The crush lasted for six years, but it's more than just the number; it's the experience of liking someone so long it hurt. Yet, I discovered that the longer you like someone, the more you fall in love with that special person. Secondly, I learned how to interact with girls through all the mistakes I did with her. I was raised up in an almost-all-male environment with my one and only sibling - a brother. I'm not used to discussing about the matters of the heart with my mom, either. Looking back, I realized that most of what I know about how to make a move for a girl, I learned it during that six memorable years of my early adolescence.

Liking someone who doesn't like you back is always sure to hurt a lot. Yet, someday the hurt and the pain will all make sense, and be worth it, when the right guy or girl walks into your life. Believe.