"Let me tell you 'bout this girl I know... This girl I used to know. Her name's.."
Ruth.
While I was in Ireland, I had a root around in the attic in my parents' house. I was inspired by a post on the TIGSource forums about games you designed as a child, and decided to have a look for a bunch of my old drawings. Between the ages of about 7 and 12, I 'designed' a large number of games; most of them amounted to little more than drawings of a title screen and an in-game shot. I think most of the design was in my head, because I'm sure they made sense to me then, but now they're mostly incomprehensible. 'Long Shot', for example, was a Space Invaders/Galaxian clone with the sole distinction that your ship's shots were very long. I envisioned 'Pacman 2' as a 3rd-person 3D maze game. 'Atari Master' appeared to be a top-down shoot-'em-up where you controlled the Atari logo wielding a gun. There were also several untitled drawings that were clearly inspired by Adventure on the Atari 2600, but where the main character actually was a duck.
Anyway, that's not the point of this post. Among my drawings I found several Valentine's cards from a 'girlfriend' I had when I was about 7. Ruth. I put girlfriend in inverted commas not because she wasn't important, but because at that age all you're really doing is imitating aspects of adult relationships that you see on TV. I shouldn't be playing that down, though, as it's important for later on in life, and I think the fact that I never really did anything like that with anyone after Ruth can be held accountable for most of the relationship anxiety I feel these days. We would do stuff like kiss each other on the cheek, or perhaps a quick peck on the lips, the kind of thing that grown-ups thought was cute. There are actually a couple of photos of her at home, when she was at my 7th birthday party; I should have dug them out. I remember one where I had my arm around her, but she looked kind of uncomfortable. She was a pretty girl anyway, from what I remember.
There were two Valentine's cards from her, and it made me feel kind of weird reading them. They were full of the kind of rhymes kids tell each other; 'Roses are red, violets are blue', that kind of thing. Something struck me as slightly odd about them, though. Possibly because I don't really remember much about how things were between us. They just seemed a little bit too grown-up for a 7-year-old, but I suppose she got suggestions from her older sister, or something. Perhaps I just feel weird about them because they were directed at me, of all people. The second card was a bit of an oddity, though. It was written in pen, and seemed to be addressed to to someone else; 'Malcome'. His name was roughly Tip-Ex'd out, though, and replaced with mine. Was she two-timing me? Was that card even from her? There was some writing in pencil on there, in what looked a bit like my sister's handwriting, which read,
"Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust,
You are the biggest pig,"
Which certainly seems like something my sister would have written around that time. I think the card was legitimate, though, she just wrote on it later. The last thing I found was a small scrap of paper, torn from a notebook, which read,
"To David,
You look lovely.
From Ruth
xxxxxxxxxx"
I'm really curious how I responded to stuff like this; does she still have a collection of Valentine's cards and notes from me? Or did I not give her any? I can't remember how things ended between us; eventually my parents moved, so I left that school. I kind of get the impression that we drifted apart before that, though, and it would certainly be more in character for me if we had.
While I was in Ireland, I had a root around in the attic in my parents' house. I was inspired by a post on the TIGSource forums about games you designed as a child, and decided to have a look for a bunch of my old drawings. Between the ages of about 7 and 12, I 'designed' a large number of games; most of them amounted to little more than drawings of a title screen and an in-game shot. I think most of the design was in my head, because I'm sure they made sense to me then, but now they're mostly incomprehensible. 'Long Shot', for example, was a Space Invaders/Galaxian clone with the sole distinction that your ship's shots were very long. I envisioned 'Pacman 2' as a 3rd-person 3D maze game. 'Atari Master' appeared to be a top-down shoot-'em-up where you controlled the Atari logo wielding a gun. There were also several untitled drawings that were clearly inspired by Adventure on the Atari 2600, but where the main character actually was a duck.
Anyway, that's not the point of this post. Among my drawings I found several Valentine's cards from a 'girlfriend' I had when I was about 7. Ruth. I put girlfriend in inverted commas not because she wasn't important, but because at that age all you're really doing is imitating aspects of adult relationships that you see on TV. I shouldn't be playing that down, though, as it's important for later on in life, and I think the fact that I never really did anything like that with anyone after Ruth can be held accountable for most of the relationship anxiety I feel these days. We would do stuff like kiss each other on the cheek, or perhaps a quick peck on the lips, the kind of thing that grown-ups thought was cute. There are actually a couple of photos of her at home, when she was at my 7th birthday party; I should have dug them out. I remember one where I had my arm around her, but she looked kind of uncomfortable. She was a pretty girl anyway, from what I remember.
There were two Valentine's cards from her, and it made me feel kind of weird reading them. They were full of the kind of rhymes kids tell each other; 'Roses are red, violets are blue', that kind of thing. Something struck me as slightly odd about them, though. Possibly because I don't really remember much about how things were between us. They just seemed a little bit too grown-up for a 7-year-old, but I suppose she got suggestions from her older sister, or something. Perhaps I just feel weird about them because they were directed at me, of all people. The second card was a bit of an oddity, though. It was written in pen, and seemed to be addressed to to someone else; 'Malcome'. His name was roughly Tip-Ex'd out, though, and replaced with mine. Was she two-timing me? Was that card even from her? There was some writing in pencil on there, in what looked a bit like my sister's handwriting, which read,
"Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust,
You are the biggest pig,"
Which certainly seems like something my sister would have written around that time. I think the card was legitimate, though, she just wrote on it later. The last thing I found was a small scrap of paper, torn from a notebook, which read,
"To David,
You look lovely.
From Ruth
xxxxxxxxxx"
I'm really curious how I responded to stuff like this; does she still have a collection of Valentine's cards and notes from me? Or did I not give her any? I can't remember how things ended between us; eventually my parents moved, so I left that school. I kind of get the impression that we drifted apart before that, though, and it would certainly be more in character for me if we had.