I never considered myself a serial dater. I have always considered myself a conservative dater. I didn’t date in secondary school first because I felt a lot of my school boys were childish, but most importantly because very early in my secondary school days I had decided I was going wait till I was 18 to date any boy. Having grown up with older siblings who were in boarding school in FGCs, I was very aware and in the know of all the hot gist that came with it. However I already categorized myself as an Efiko and so even before puberty had hit me with its own hormonal ordeal I sort of put myself in the nerd box.
Nerd Alert!!!
I was very well read as a young teenager my mom is a councilor so she always had books with titles like “everything a teenage girl should know” so I knew a lot even before I turned 10 and so I felt (and rightly so) that teenage emotions were too exaggerated in and so I was not going to be one of such.
But like it is with young hormonal teenagers I started to develop crushes and what not by the time I turned 14. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you see it, I was a late bloomer/suffered the ugly duckling syndrome. Basically I was one of those girls who looked cute at maybe 5 years old but after losing my teeth and entering puberty and all its awkwardness, the next time I looked cute or became aware that I was cute, I was about 19 years old and already in the university.
I did get asked out by two guys in secondary school but I was certain those were bets (I am not going to bother explaining why). When I turned 17years old I was at a Christmas party and a family friend asked me to go out on a lunch date with him and this was exciting for me. I was still not quite past the ugly duckling stage and I was fully aware of this because I am not good at deceiving myself. I have always reminded myself to put up a front if the need arose but always tell myself the truth and because I knew I was not the cutest girl, over the years I had tried to acquire great conversational skills and I like to think I succeeded ‘cos even reading my old diaries I can see that I knew how to be witty and humorous. Any way I didn’t tell a soul (when you have many big sisters/cousins it can be overwhelming discussing things like this at home, so many times you keep such news to yourself).
I silently counted down to the day and got prepared I practiced my makeup and all, I had my little conversation topics written down and even rehearsed conversations in my head. I was out to make an impression. Now I knew for a fact I was not the least bit interested in dating this guy at all because like I said earlier, he was a family friend and I knew how he was and did not want to date him but I was still excited about the idea of being taken out to lunch.
When the day arrived I was so nervous, I couldn’t sit still I tried to keep busy looking for stuff to do blehh I didn’t work. I finally told my mom I was going out but not to lunch with so and so (let’s call him Seth). I was very careful to make it sound like it was going to be many of us both male and female “family friends” home on the Christmas holidays hanging out at Seths parents’ house. So she assumed it was like a teenage Christmas party of child hood friends holding at her friend’s house and that he was only coming to pick me up because I didn’t have any means to get there.
So I waited for 4:00pm like a hungry puppy , I kept pacing up and down my room trying hard not to let my sisters know I was nervous or else they’d make me spill the beans. But thankfully it was Christmas so everybody was either out on the town or had friends over.
By the time it’s 3:30 pm I am all dressed up waiting anxiously, hands sweating, peeing every minute lol! You’d think I had a job interview. It was finally 4:00pm I put on my lipstick, wore my perfume, styled my hair, checked my appearance, I looked good baby.
All that was left was for Seth to arrive and this date would be awesome and I would have a nice story to tell about my first date.
I was a cute nerd that day
4:30pm I see a car coming up our drive way I run downstairs quickly to open the door before he rings the bell. On reaching down stairs it was not my date it’s just another family friend coming to deliver a Christmas hamper to my mom. 5:00pm I hear another car coming up the drive way by this time I am sitting by the front door just waiting but it was my dad’s lawyer doing the Christmas rounds.
I think it wasn’t till about 7:45pm it finally hit me that I had been stood up. Gosh! My already struggling self-esteem had just been dealt a massive blow. I quietly went back to my room and picked up a book and read till I slept off. It was very important to me that I did not let myself shed any tears and also I did not want anyone asking what was wrong with me so I read to distract myself did not at so that I could avoid the kitchen. My mom came to ask why I didn’t go I lied that the party was cancelled. It hurt in ways I could not understand because I knew I did not like the dude or anything but I still wondered what I had done wrong.
A few days later we met again at another family friend’s house and Seth told me very casually that he didn’t think he wanted to go again. I later learned that he was a bit embarrassed to be seen with me (to think I was not even interested in this guy oh! I was just looking for some exciting Christmas gist) Oh well….. it is what it is I grew up eventually. But my first date shaped the way I approached dating life. Would I change it? I don’t know Maybe Yes and Maybe No. What I know for sure is that I won’t change the woman I have become