Milla, Seikkailija

pfellows:

The next object I discovered will probably be one of the cringiest things you’ll ever lay your eyes upon; an early rejection note from a girl I fancied at school. I’ve ‘bleeped’ the name, to save her embarrassment.

A little bit of the background behind this painful adolescent experience-

Upon failing to get into Reading School, I ended up at Ranelagh, where I learned that being chubby, having bad hair and being a bit socially awkward doesn’t endear you to women. This note is evidence of this gradual discovery; I had a crush on the young lady in question, and had done for a few months. Instead of properly attempting to get to know her, or going down a more normal route for such a situation, I decided that bi-polar style swings of criticizing her fringe to suddenly telling her she was brilliant pretty much at random and within the same sentence, was a better policy. It obviously wasn’t.

I remember the exact moment when I received this rejection; it was the last period of the day- a History lesson, about half way through year 8. Alex Boundy, Ben Lam, Joe Cole and myself were sitting in the row ahead of the girl I’d hoped to snare, along with three of her friends. We were being taught about African American history by the brilliant Alan Long. Egged on by the others, I’d decided to pluck up the courage to toss a note to the young woman, saying something along the lines of- ‘You probably don’t want to hear this but I like you. If you have a bf that’s fine, just wanted to let you know. Sorry about my mates; they’re massive bellends.’

A couple of minutes, and many muffled giggles (and nervous sweating) later, the note landed on my desk, folded up neatly into a tiny square, with ‘Peter’ written on the lid.

I’m sure you can imagine the embarrassment, shame, and pain of it all. I think this note sums up quite a universal experience- early teen rejection, which is perhaps the worst sort. The rest of the day was a bit of a blur; I remember Mr Long shouting at me for daydreaming (which very nearly brought out tears),  sitting on the bus on the way home from school being given kind advice by childhood friend Emily Mellor, and then sitting in my room feeling too depressed to bother with homework. That assignment on ‘Roots’ never did get finished.

Looking back on the note now, which I had completely forgotten about until a couple of weeks ago, I feel mainly nostalgia and embarrassment. I like the grammar (‘u av da right 2’ etc) and the way mystery girl picked up on Alex Boundy’s general behaviour, and even emphasised this with three exclamation marks (!!!) and a p.s. kindly letting me know that he was ‘the most annoying person that ever walked the planet’. Weirdly, I further clarified this by adding the word ‘true’ under the p.s.

I have no idea why, as I’m the only person who would ever have seen this letter. Maybe it was just to remind me in years to come. Or perhaps I’m just mentally ill…

ENG: An amazing rejection note that my friend Peter got as a prepubesenct boy.

FIN: Hahaa, katsokaa tätä uskomatonta kirjettä minkä mun ystävä/luokkalainen Peter löysi huoneensa kätköistä. Kirje on Peterin luokkalaiselta tytöltä yläasteella, skidisti kylmä.