Boys and their stupid boy penises

The first boy to ever profess his love for me was in kindergarten. He stood under my building every morning and yelled my name until I came down. This was, according to my parents, normal in our neighbourhood. We’d walk to school together hand in hand, he’d share his favourite hiding spots with me, and bring me the best rocks he could find. In class, when the teacher asked for volunteers, he’d always grab my hand and throw it in the air, and glared at anyone else who wanted to volunteer. He saved me his favourite part of his lunch, because he knew I hated the school lunch.

And then I moved to Canada, and I left him and his rocks behind.

–

My first kiss was given to a boy in grade school, who had a crush on me. One day, the older boys in the playground were trying to bully me, and he protected me the entire time. I barely spoke two words of English then, which probably made me seem weak and helpless and more like a damsel-in-distress. If only the poor boy knew how not in need I was of his chivalry.
But a girl knows when to act grateful, and so, after we ran away hand-in-hand from the bullies, I pushed him against the wall and kissed him. While I don’t remember what the kiss was like, I do remember his reaction after I pulled back.

“What was that?” He asked, completely confused.
“Kiss. I saw on TV.” And with that, I walked away. And even with my broken English, I had conveyed enough. It was just a kiss.
I never saw that boy again.

–

Then there was the boy in grade 3 who would always steal my coat hook and call me names and move my lunch so I couldn’t find it. That was the only way to treat the girl you liked, at least in grade 3. But I was smarter than him and cooler than him and I could ignore him, as annoying as he was, so I did. And this infuriated him, to the extent that boys in grade 3 could be infuriated, so one day, near the end of the year, he grabbed my wrist as I was leaving and spun me around.

“What’s your problem?” He shouted at me.
I looked into his brown eyes, that showed no anger, only an inability to express what he really wanted to say, and after a pause, I finally replied. “You.”

–

The first summer after I came to Canada, my parents sent me to a summer day camp. It was exhausting but fun, and I learned a lot of English while I was there. As the summer drew to a close, a boy I’d barely talked to randomly ran up to me one day and handed me something. It was a tiny card but a beautiful one. Inside, he’d taped a tiny jade pendant. Afterwards, he asked if he could have my number.
While we didn’t talk regularly, he did call me once or twice. He called me when he was moving, and gave me his new number. I did the same. Then we reached the age of MSN, and occasionally we’d chat. One year, for Valentine’s Day, he wrote me a letter, with a card, and a picture of himself. He didn’t turn out too bad.
Finally, nearly 10 years after we first met, he suggested that we meet again. I decided to invite him to the upcoming school dance. When he showed up, I was a bit nervous, since he was nearly a complete stranger that I’d met 10 years ago when I barely spoke English. My friends were very curious, so they hung out with us before the dance. When the dance finally rolled around, I was so nervous I couldn’t look at him. I suddenly wasn’t sure why he was there at all. Was he going to ask me to dance? Was this going to turn into some sort of date?
Being the inexperienced and childish girl that I was, I hid in the bathroom with my best friend until the dance was well underway.
When I finally came out, I found him with another girl in the grade above me (like I said, he was pretty good-looking).
“I couldn’t find you,” he said.
“I know.”
The girl on his arm tugged on his sleeve, indicating she wanted to go dance.
“Well, have fun,” I offered, so he shrugged and they left.
At the end of the dance, he walked me to the subway. “I’m sorry I danced with That Girl all night.”
“It’s ok.”
“Well, it was nice finally meeting you.”
“Yeah, same.”

Afterwards, I was consoled by my friends that That Girl was pretty slutty and it was uncool of him to dance with her all night if he had come to see me.
But I was glad. I didn’t want to dance with him anyway.
I took him off my MSN list that night.

–

Since then, I’ve had boys give me presents and flowers and poems and adoring glances. Most of the time, I feel like I play the role of the Female Friend and that boys don’t see me as a girl. But that’s not true, is it? Apparently not. Maybe I’m just incapable of love or something.