The Boyfriend List (cont'd.)
2. King Raymond Pt. 1
('King Raymond' is actually a face I make that is a cross between a gorilla and Johnny Bravo. It's not attractive. But that's not why I named #2 King Raymond. This boy is going to come up a lot in the course of this list and I figured that it'd be best to stick with a monicker that'd make me laugh -- especially when I start writing about some of the moments that, once upon a time, made me cry. #drama)
King Raymond and I met at a very crucial point in my life. I had grown up spiritually fragmented for most of my life 'til then. Raised in both a Catholic school on weekdays and Sunday School on weekends, I didn't have a lot of concrete beliefs about God. Theism, to me, was not a very important thing.
One day (yes, I promise: it was one fine random day), my best friend invited me to youth service and - to make an insanely long story short - I ended up agreeing to teach in Sunday School. I didn't even like kids at the time but I had nothing better to do so I said yes.
My first day was horrible -- the babies bit, kicked and screamed at me. I hated it so much that I asked the head teachers to transfer me elsewhere. That's how I ended up in the Grade 2 classroom.
King Raymond and another Chinese boy -- let's call him PJ -- were the head teachers at the time. I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on KR: he was jumping up and down like someone high on E.
I was not impressed.
Because we were forced to work together on Sundays, we got to know each other a little bit better each week. I remember when he took out his green Alcatel phone and first asked me for my cellphone number. I think that's when I started to develop a tiny little crush on him. I was 13-years-old. (We both were.)
He wasn't exactly cute (think button-down polos, a big smile and spiky black hair) but he had a certain charm to him. He was funny, easygoing and really great to talk to, which I realize now (yes, 10 years later), was a whole lot better than cute.
It wasn't long before we began talking on the phone. The very first time he called me, I had a long list of questions scribbled on a yellow pad just to save the conversation from dead air. Turns out, I didn't even need it because we got along just fine. He regaled me with stories -- about classmates and weird PE teachers. Girls he liked, girls he hated and girls he was thinking about asking to the prom.
As plenty of teen comedies go, he began crushing on my best friend (the same one who invited me to teach) and my life became the stuff of real A-grade YA lit. I was the 'bridge between two hearts' (hahaha, it sounds ridiculous, I know!) and even though it was (at times) emotionally depressing, it was also kind of fun.
He called me at 8:30 every night. We called it 'Magic Hour'. The conversations grew (we talked about EVERYTHING from flying to donkeys to cars to stuff that sound absolutely pointless here but became the foundation of our friendship) and the feelings deepened. (After hours of pointless conversational drivel with a boy who only ever made me laugh, how could I not?)
I, still enrolled in an all-girls school, really, really, really liked him.
But I had come to terms with the fact that he had permanently put me in the friend zone and, as annoying as it was on my poor teenage heart, I was also kind of grateful. After all, it was still a reason to expect phone calls, get texts and have someone to watch movies with on lazy Sunday afternoons.
He would eventually sidle into different chapters of my life but I'd like to think of these days -- the ones when we were too young and silly to worry about the future -- as our glory days.
(to be cont'd.)
('King Raymond' is actually a face I make that is a cross between a gorilla and Johnny Bravo. It's not attractive. But that's not why I named #2 King Raymond. This boy is going to come up a lot in the course of this list and I figured that it'd be best to stick with a monicker that'd make me laugh -- especially when I start writing about some of the moments that, once upon a time, made me cry. #drama)
King Raymond and I met at a very crucial point in my life. I had grown up spiritually fragmented for most of my life 'til then. Raised in both a Catholic school on weekdays and Sunday School on weekends, I didn't have a lot of concrete beliefs about God. Theism, to me, was not a very important thing.
One day (yes, I promise: it was one fine random day), my best friend invited me to youth service and - to make an insanely long story short - I ended up agreeing to teach in Sunday School. I didn't even like kids at the time but I had nothing better to do so I said yes.
My first day was horrible -- the babies bit, kicked and screamed at me. I hated it so much that I asked the head teachers to transfer me elsewhere. That's how I ended up in the Grade 2 classroom.
King Raymond and another Chinese boy -- let's call him PJ -- were the head teachers at the time. I remember the first time I ever laid eyes on KR: he was jumping up and down like someone high on E.
I was not impressed.
Because we were forced to work together on Sundays, we got to know each other a little bit better each week. I remember when he took out his green Alcatel phone and first asked me for my cellphone number. I think that's when I started to develop a tiny little crush on him. I was 13-years-old. (We both were.)
He wasn't exactly cute (think button-down polos, a big smile and spiky black hair) but he had a certain charm to him. He was funny, easygoing and really great to talk to, which I realize now (yes, 10 years later), was a whole lot better than cute.
It wasn't long before we began talking on the phone. The very first time he called me, I had a long list of questions scribbled on a yellow pad just to save the conversation from dead air. Turns out, I didn't even need it because we got along just fine. He regaled me with stories -- about classmates and weird PE teachers. Girls he liked, girls he hated and girls he was thinking about asking to the prom.
As plenty of teen comedies go, he began crushing on my best friend (the same one who invited me to teach) and my life became the stuff of real A-grade YA lit. I was the 'bridge between two hearts' (hahaha, it sounds ridiculous, I know!) and even though it was (at times) emotionally depressing, it was also kind of fun.
He called me at 8:30 every night. We called it 'Magic Hour'. The conversations grew (we talked about EVERYTHING from flying to donkeys to cars to stuff that sound absolutely pointless here but became the foundation of our friendship) and the feelings deepened. (After hours of pointless conversational drivel with a boy who only ever made me laugh, how could I not?)
I, still enrolled in an all-girls school, really, really, really liked him.
But I had come to terms with the fact that he had permanently put me in the friend zone and, as annoying as it was on my poor teenage heart, I was also kind of grateful. After all, it was still a reason to expect phone calls, get texts and have someone to watch movies with on lazy Sunday afternoons.
He would eventually sidle into different chapters of my life but I'd like to think of these days -- the ones when we were too young and silly to worry about the future -- as our glory days.
(to be cont'd.)