Love Me: The Manoir

A False Start

I was planning something prefect related with my friend Izzy when Andrew sent that first message. I stared at my phone incredulously, wondering why on earth a boy I had sent nudes to a couple of years before was messaging me out of the blue. I opened it hesitantly to be greeted by an incredibly random message.

'Heard about your yearbook aha.'

Both Izzy and me scrunched up our brows before laughing for a solid few minutes. My yearbook page was a mess of jokes and disses, and under a section named 'Lowest Depths' Andrew's name did feature a couple of times. But I had no idea how he had accessed that information. Nor why he would message me about it.

I replied nonchalantly, trying to dig out who had told him that information and why, but he decided to dig into a more broader conversation about where our lives had gone over the past two years. We reminisced about how cringey we were at fifteen, but used those memories to hold onto the tiny ounce of connection between us.

Over the course of the next week we spoke more and more, and something had changed in him over the past two years. He actually seemed to want to learn about my life. The idea that anyone would or could care enough about me to actually want to know anything was beyond me, and I relished in this newfound and random flirtation that was occurring.

For the first time in my life I did not fall head over heels with him in the first week of speaking. My lesson with Wyatt was enough to steer me clear of that path, but I enjoyed talking with him nonetheless.

He fed my ego in our late night conversations where I would ask him over and over again to tell me what he liked and disliked about me. We eventually spoke about sex again – how we both hadn't had it, how we were both obsessed with the idea of it at such a young age, how we were both low-key horny.

It was odd. For once it felt like the other person was putting in as much effort as me, sometimes even more. I barely ever needed to start the conversation. Sometimes he would take days to reply, but I was used to that by now. It makes me feel slightly uneasy how much I was now accustomed to being picked up and dropped whenever the other person felt like it.

This careful plan about how to not catch feelings didn't stop me shitting myself for the first time I would properly meet him. A friend was throwing a 70s themed party, and while usually I would go full out Mick Jagger or Bowie costume, this time I decided on something much more basic. I wanted to cement his perception of me from online – I wanted him to be as interested in me in real life.

I even let my friend do my makeup that night. To some people that doesn't seem like a lot, but I hated people being anywhere near my face. My skin was still atrociously bad but I had stopped caring as deeply. While Wyatt did leave unannounced and turned out to be a not very nice person, he had shown me that I could be attractive with acne. That people could look past the spots.

I got rather drunk before to combat the nerves that were shaking around me. I tried to hide them, trying my best to look around the room to find him without seeming too obvious.

And then he walked in. I felt my stomach do flips because there he was. Behind the cool girl act I was trying to put on to everyone including myself, I was terrified. It took someone else to drag me over so that I could introduce myself. He turned and looked at me, the smile on his face widening and I would later learn that this would be a smile that I would fall in love with every time I saw it.

I couldn't tell you what our first proper conversation was about. It probably mostly consisted of how strange it was to see each other like this. He was pulled away after 20 minutes by his friend wanting a smoke, and I resisted the urge to hold my arms out after him as he was ripped from my clasp by nicotine and social pressure.

The thing about Andrew was this: he was little bit too cool for me. His friends and him were all dressed head to toe in clothes by designers I had never heard of, smoking cigarettes and listening to music that most definitely wasn't the Taylor Swift I jammed to most days.

We didn't speak again for the rest of the party, and I felt the slight despondent weight on my chest as I tried to get to sleep on a sofa there. What I didn't realise about this meeting was that it was a watershed. A week later we met up to 'hang about'.

The problem with the idea of hanging around town with someone is it's very hard to establish the nature of this meeting. I wasn't nervous anymore about meeting up with people, even cool ones like Andrew. In my head I had basically decided that in less than a month it wouldn't work out anyway so I wasn't going to get too hung up on it.

We walked around a few parks and chatted about all kinds of things with a notably friendly tone. He ate M&Ms while I ate strawberries, or maybe it was popcorn. The idea of having a meal with him scared me, and if we walked I didn't have to look him in the eye.

The thing about hanging out with someone cooler than you in a city where everyone knows everyone, is that he was always a little on edge. I was like a little dirty secret that had to be kept quiet to everyone including his friends. This didn't bother me, just so much as reiterated the way I already felt. I knew that people would only ever want me for is there own personal use, something to fill dull hours in the background.

The next time we met up was for dinner, and to this day stands as the only time anyone has ever taken me out for dinner. There was a small part of me which felt warm and fuzzy when I noticed that he had put on a shirt for the occasion. There was a stilted nature to the conversation which I tried to ignore the best I could, and when I looked back on it at home that evening I decided to tell myself the awkwardness came from the formality of the situation and his nerves.

We finished the date having ice cream and sharing a hug before he bolted into Tesco to avoid the cold, and I was left wondering what the hell to make of any of it. He was giving off mixed signals left, right and centre. One minute we would be having a staring competition (just an excuse to look at his eyes to be honest), and the next he was hung up on checking his phone to see if anyone he knew was around us.

But I was proud of myself. I was still remaining fairly level-headed, largely because there was a small part inside of me which knew that he was slightly too far out of my league.

We arranged to have coffee after school one day (despite the fact that I hate all hot drinks), and I remember planning out my outfit the night before. Straightening my hair. Bringing my makeup to school and excitedly telling the people around me. I was beginning to get more excited about him, about the prospect of breaking my two date curse.

But he cancelled. I stood under my umbrella in the pouring rain with my friend beside me trying to lift my dampened spirits. She took me to a bakery and bought me my favourite cake before then going to McDonald's with me as I lamented how annoyed I was that yet another potential relationship had fallen through.

Maybe there just wasn't anything special about me to make people stay for more than two dates. Maybe people realised after then that I wasn't worth the time.

Andrew and I remained talking, but it was more sporadic. A Levels were coming up, and that soon took over the thoughts of everyone. I would go on to spot him on a bus after my Geography (or maybe it was English) exam, and he waved excitedly. As I was sat in those study periods feeling sad about not having a date for prom, I learned more than just the dates and facts on the page. I learned that I was no longer going to get my hopes up for any flirtation again.