I came home from the hospital so I was told weighing five pounds on the nose.  I was premature and weighed four pounds 11 ounces at birth.  This was the only time in my life that I was at weight let alone underweight.  Up until the age of five years old I was a normal petite little girl but then after that I ballooned and stayed that way ever since. 

When I started elementary school the other children always called me fatty and would not play with me.  In grade 1, Glen Potts hit me in the stomach rationalizing that he was going to punch my stomach until it was no longer fat anymore.  I guess he forgot he was fat as well.  My first real crush was on Brian Nichols, but of course he did not want a fat girl, he chose a beautiful slim blonde girl ??“ Linda Joseph as his grade 2 crush.  Even at that tender age the bar was set and fat girls were just not making it.  In my last year of elementary school at the age of I2, I was already 147 pounds and barely 5 feet tall.

Johnny the twin from next door was my childhood friend but I did not see him as a love interest, he was just Johnny.  When I was 11, I had a crush on this French boy that lived down the street. Yvon Bertrand was so good looking and so sophisticated unlike any boy I presently knew.  Yvon was much older than me.  Probably at the age of 14, he must have felt that I was just a little girl, and a little fat girl at that.  Instead of getting Yvon to notice me I ended up having his six year old sister following me around all the time.   Since I was providing free babysitting so to speak, his mother thought the world of me.  Hey Yvon did you know I even existed ??“ I tried so hard to make you notice me!

When I was 14, I started to hang out with Jackie, Johnny??™s twin more than I had ever done in the past.  She was 15 and very much into the boy crazy stage.  I was far less mature than she was.  I don??™t think I was ready to take on the actual boyfriend girlfriend phase but I certainly was old enough to have a boy interested in me and to feel special in that way that is complimenting to women of all ages.  Instead, the boys that hung out with us were crazy over the curvaceous and sultry Jackie and ignored me completely.  All I ever got from them was ???you know that you have such a pretty face, if only you were not so big, I might consider dating you???.  I don??™t know if they actually thought they were complementing me because all that did for me was to add to my already low self esteem.  Every time somebody made reference to my weight I wanted to die!  I hated myself and everything about me.

 I was at the age (14) when I wanted to have a boyfriend. All the other girls on the block had one and I felt bad because I didn??™t have one.  I carried a picture of a strange boy around with me, telling all my friends that he was my boyfriend but I didn??™t get to see him much because he lived out of town.  The truth of the matter was though I wanted a boyfriend, with my hang-ups about my weight I just was not ready to take that step and look for one.  I had no self confidence and I could not handle rejection very well.  Now at 49 years old, I still have to talk to myself and reason out a situation that I might have considered a rejection, so how did you expect me to handle it at 14!

Having a boyfriend from afar was much easier.  I had my make believe boyfriend??™s picture that I carried around and that helped me to save face.  I also had a crush on my grade 9 history teacher.  Both of these guys were safe!  They were completely out of reach and I knew it. 

It wasn??™t as if no boy ever wanted me but all my life I seemed to never want the boys that wanted me.  I often asked myself why was it that when a boy was interested, rare though it was, that I could not be interested as well.  What could be the reason for this cruel twist of fate?  Today I know the answer. The boys that wanted me were the rejects, the ones that no girl wanted, so as the saying goes misery loves company.  I had my goals set very high, I wanted the best looking boy, the boy that every girl wished she had.  Heck what did I know at 14 years old ??“ It took me over 40 years to realize that having the best looking guy didn??™t necessarily mean having the best relationship. 

I wanted the best looking guy and yet I wasn??™t ready to date.  I wanted to be just like every other girl on the block - a paradox that I could not overcome. 

Now let me tell you what happened with the two boys that did want me and how I handled it with the wisdom that is only bestowed upon a 14 year old girl!

Bernie was the brother of Brenda, who was the first girl from Nova Scotia that I had befriended after Renee had left the school.  Bernie was just Bernie to me. He was Brenda??™s older brother and although I know that he liked me in that special way I did not like him back, at least not that way.  I guess I thought of him as the big brother I never had.  He was a year older than Brenda and very wise for his years.  Since he was Brenda??™s brother I instinctively knew that if I had a crush on him I would face public ridicule from Brenda who could not fathom anyone being crazy over her ???stupid brother???.  I decided to just leave well enough alone. 

Later, more of Brenda??™s family from Nova Scotia moved to Montreal and I was introduced to her cousins.  Phillip was the same age as Brenda and a very attractive boy at that.  He was the total opposite of Bernie, he was good looking, out going, cheeky, and girl crazy.  He was not the smartest kid on the block, not nearly as smart as Bernie.  Remember, my criteria for choosing a boy was his looks and not much else. 

It just so happened that Phillip was crazy about me!  At first I was all excited.  Finally a boy that I liked liked me. Could this possibly be happening to me?  But then it got to be more than I could handle.  Phillip was actively pursuing me.  He was sending love notes to me everyday in school delivered by none other than Brenda herself. Far different than her reaction would have been to having me date her brother, she was actually enjoying this drama as it was being played out. 

I read the letters, noted all the spelling errors and realized that Phillip as good looking as he was, was falling short of my dreams.  I couldn??™t handle the attention either.  I was just not ready for it.  I was really too immature to date.  And I was feeling uncomfortable.  Also, I lost my friend Bernie over it.  When Bernie saw what was going on between Phillip and I he backed away.  Furthermore, he has never spoken to me since.  Talk about keeping grudges!

I finally told Brenda to tell Phillip that I was just not interested as I liked Bernie.  But it was too late. Bernie would have nothing to do with me.  I cared about losing Bernie??™s friendship but I didn??™t care about dating him.  I never wanted to anyhow. 

The other boy that liked me was Densley.  He was a boy that had just recently arrived from the island of Guyana.  I didn??™t know him all that much and was not really interested in knowing him except for the fact that Renee??™s little cousin Lavenia did.  She was crazy over him.  She was 12, I was 14, and Densley was 15.  Now Lavenia was trying hard to win Densley??™s attention.  She would drag me to their meeting spot because although she was interested in him she still felt she needed a chaperone.  I don??™t blame her because Densley was very experienced in the affairs of the heart - or was it just plain sex neither of us knew for sure. 

When we were together Densley loved to clown around with me.  He seemed to be more interested in me than Lavenia.  I had to remind him constantly that Lavenia was there and we should be including her into a conversations and antics.  Yet, I still did not figure out that he was interested in me.  Even though I had had Philip interested in me prior to that, one experience of actually having a boy interested in me was not enough to make see myself as a love interest for any boy.  It would take me reaching 15 years old before that happened and that is whole nother story as Loren Moore would say.

But getting back to the story at hand the last time I saw Densley as a teenager was when he came by my house just minutes before I had to go in for the night.  He was by himself and I was alone as well.  Lavenia was already home as she was younger.  I did not know why he came by.  I never saw him without Lavenia.  Yet he took it upon himself to see me. 

I wanted to go upstairs and into the house at that very moment but he persisted that he had something very important that he had to discuss with me.  There seemed to be no way that I could get out of it.  Instead of talking he took me by surprise and grabbed my face and forced a French kiss on me!  How disgusting, I had never been kissed by a boy before and this had to be the grossest thing that I had every felt.  The taste of his saliva literally repulsed me.  On the other hand, Densley was love struck while I was sickened.  I was so disgusted that I told him I never wanted to see him again with or without Lavenia and the next day I told her the same thing. 

Lavenia told me that she still pursued Densley for awhile and one time he actually invited her to his apartment when his parents were not home.  Apparently he tried to have his way with her and when she wouldn??™t accept his offer he throw her out.  He told her she was just a little girl and he was looking for a real woman.  

As adults, Lavenia, and I renewed our friendship with Densley.  We talked about those times and how foolish we all had had been.  Apparently in Guyana, kids of 12 and 13 were already having sex.   Being new to Canada he did not realize that the culture was very different.

At 14 years old I was not anywhere ready to have sex. I could not even handle my first French kiss!    Although that experience had haunted me for years of course it did not prevent me from wanting boys, boys, boys.  Only this time I played it safe, I waited until I was 15 years old before I would dare to chase after another boy again!

Carol Roach
winterose@videotron.ca,

Carol Roach is a published writer and newsletter editor.  You can purchase her book: Picking Up The Pieces: A Woman's Journey at www.publishamerica.com, or www.amazon.com.  You can also go to your local bookstore and order it there as well.  If you are interested in other stories feel free to join her newsletter: Storytime Tapestry at: storytime_tapestry-subscribe@yahoogroups.com, or email her directly at winterose@videtron.ca and she will be glad to accomodate you.  Carol enjoys email and responds to every inquiry.