My very first crush was on a boy named Caleb*.
Technically, I was already engaged to marry Marcus, who I had played with many times in my pre-school group. But considering I was in fifth grade now and hadn't heard from Marcus in years, I figured I could consider the engagement null and void.
Caleb was a gregarious sixth grader in my mostly fifth grade class, and he had a remarkable talent for drawing.
Still, I might not have realized he existed had he not randomly been seated next to me for lunch one day.
In elementary school, we were told to line up in our classrooms for lunch, and then we'd be seated in the lunchroom in the exact order we had lined up in originally. Though people usually scrambled to get in line next to their friends, the ordering was still random enough that you could end up near or next to different people each time.
Caleb ended up sitting to my right, mostly talking to his friends. I didn't really have any friends in my class, so I was pretty used to eating my lunch in silence. Usually I had a library book to keep me company while I munched on baby carrots and turkey sandwiches.
To my surprise, though, Caleb included me in the conversation. For a socially outgoing person, including someone in your conversation might not seem like much, but to someone who is shy but desperately wants to connect, it's the biggest gift you can give them. I have no memory of what we talked about - he might have asked about the book I was reading, or simply asked my opinion on a topic that was being discussed - but after that conversation I knew I liked him, and not just liked him, but LIKE liked him.
I mean, what wasn't to like? He was cute, and friendly, and he could draw REALLY well.
I began obsessing. Did he like me back? Could he like me back? Could I find out if he liked me without revealing that I liked him?
Our classroom had 'mailboxes' for each student, where the teacher would pass back graded homework, and one day, I quietly slipped a folded note into Caleb's mailbox.
"Do you like Amy? Yes/Maybe/No"
For days I stewed in nervous excitement and dread. Would he respond? How would he respond? Would he respond to me, or assume the note was from someone else and not know who to respond to?
One day I approached him, and asked him for "an answer to the question". He denied knowing what I was talking about. I was suddenly fearful - did the note get lost? Did I put it in the wrong mailbox? I felt certain that I had taken appropriate precautions, but what if it wasn't enough?
After over a week of my nerves fraying, I approached Caleb during recess.
"Did you get my note? Could you answer the question?"
And suddenly, with a volume and vitriol I hadn't been expecting, he answered. "NO, I DON'T LIKE YOU, OKAY??"
Suddenly, everyone's eyes were on us. It felt like the entire playground had heard him shout at me, and a hot flush crept up my face as the tears started welling up. I ran, blindly, and found a tree on the outskirts of the playground to cry behind.
The next day I came to school, feeling remarkably stoic. Anyone who would shout at me and embarrass me in front of everyone like that is not someone worth liking, I told myself. And surprisingly, I believed it. That incident had been enough to cure me of my crush.
Caleb, on the other hand, suddenly started to show some interest in me. He tried to get my attention, but it didn't sit right. There was something about it that felt false to me - like he wanted to take advantage of my crush on him in some way - but I couldn't pinpoint how. I refused to let him get the best of me, though, and ignored his attempts to talk to me.
This sense that he was trying to toy with me grew even stronger when, after his attempts to get my attention failed, he would complain about it loudly so I could overhear. "Isn't it just the worst when a girl likes you, but then you want to be her boyfriend and she changes her mind?"
Things came to a head when a girl in my class, Annie, approached me at my desk. "Caleb wants you to call him," she said. "I don't want to call him," I replied, crossing my arms, irritated. "He wants you to call him," she repeated, and left a piece of paper with his phone number on my desk.
I stared at that piece of paper for a while and finally picked it up, resolving to call. I won't call for the reason he thinks, though, I thought. I'm going to tell him off for trying to manipulate me. I'm gonna yell at him so hard.
Working up the nerve to call was hard. Although I didn't have a crush on him anymore, I knew the situation was unpredictable, and phone calls to friends were nerve-wracking enough. I didn't know what he was expecting out of the phone call, but I had a bad feeling. Still, I was determined to call him and give him a piece of my mind.
I dialed the number on the slip of paper, my hands shaking. Almost immediately, a woman answers the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hi, can I speak with Caleb please?"
"Who is this?"
Uhh. She won't know who I am. I don't want her knowing who I am. "A friend."
"Who. Is. This."
"...A friend from school?"
"WHO. IS. THIS."
After a long pause, I finally squeaked out my full name.
"I KNOW YOUR MOTHER, YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF." *click*
The next day at school, Caleb came up to me and asked me if I had called him. "No," I said nonchalantly. "It must have been someone pretending to be me." UGH. DUMB. THAT WAS DUMB. I immediately knew I had made a mistake. He knew I had called, and he knew that even if I denied it, people would believe him over me.
In the end, whether he knew for sure or not, he told everyone that I had called him. It felt like the whole class was laughing at me for it, and whatever acquaintances I had quickly became strangers. My instinct that he had been trying to take advantage of my crush had been right, for all the good it had done me.
I'm sure when most kids in fifth grade are told by their parents that they are moving, it's a pretty disappointing or even devastating announcement. For me, it couldn't have been better timing. After feeling on the outside of things for most of my life and being treated like a total pariah for the weeks following my first crush debacle, I was more than ready for a fresh start.
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* Names changed to protect whoever.
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