TEN EARLY ENCOUNTERS
1.
I was six when I first realized that the male physique is very different from the female. I also noticed that both genders react very differently to situations. This, as you’ve probably guessed, I gathered from observing my parents.
I was brought up the old-fashioned way — that children should be seen and not heard, and so we only spoke when spoken to. My dad, to me then, was a force not to be trifled with. He meted out the more severe punishments when mum decided she couldn’t deal with us. This ranged from torrential, blood-curdling yells to the lacerations of the bamboo cane which smarted for days on end. Mum only raised that hollow voice which even as a child I could distinguish as non-threatening, at least to my tender posterior.
Six, and I was introduced to a world different from the confines of my secure abode. My eyes were opened to folks other than my elder siblings, who to me were just your playmates with the occasion to bully and treat you as the pesky kid you were. The first person to ever change my mind that bigger people were not all angry and mean creatures was a senior in the third grade who seemed pleasant and patient and kind. Being my classmate’s elder sister, I found myself comparing the way she treated her sister with the way mine treated me. For the first time in my life I understood what covetousness was, albeit in a strange context. I wanted so much for her to be my sister, to love and ’sayang’ me the way she did her own.
It’s funny how I’ve forgotten their names but what remains clear to me till today is that I actually dreamt (fantasized?) about this person and in my dreams I am rescuing her from some imminent danger. I even found myself trying to impress her by running faster than my puny capacity allowed during the games we played at recess, or jumping higher than my peers over the string constructed from rubber-bands (called ‘zero-point’) when she happened to walk by. But I knew that for some strange reason, I just wanted to do something brave for her. What I didn’t know then was where such an emotion was coming from but now I know I was doing what one would call transference of emotions and seeking approval, which were not fulfilled at home.
I got over that crush very quickly and for awhile, I found that I never encountered those inexplicable stirrings again. But like all dormant, repressed emotions, these same feelings were directed time and time again on some attractive young teacher in the third grade whom I tried hard to impress by memorizing parts of the Britannia Encyclopedia or even a homely bespectacled teacher in the fourth grade who spurred me on to win her heart by scolding me in class for talking so much. These experiences made me realise in reflection that my fleeting infatuations were results of many frustrated emotions which I could never experience at home, what with a mother whose sole concern was how we were doing at school or a contemptuous elder sister who thought me too inane to have a conversation with. All these ‘flavours-of-the-months’ represented my surrogate mothers and sisters who at least validated me for my creativity, encouraged me with even the slightest hint of a smile, or read out my essays in class, much to my quiet exhilaration. Thus, I never felt the need for female tenderness at home so long as this existed in the satisfyingly secure realms of my school life.
By the time I was in the seventh grade, I was almost convinced that women were more attractive creatures. If it wasn’t an athletic senior in the tenth grade, it was a young and pretty teacher who bowled me over with her sophistication and poise. I found that males of my age were geeky, awkward beings who could only tease and taunt as their way of communicating with the opposite gender. As for all my inherent insecurities of being slightly obese and atypically feminine, I resented this treatment even more and this added to my natural aversion for testosterony creatures.
In contrast, my heroines were all likeable beings, with a willing compliment or even mutual admiration. These positive vibes drew me closer to my sexual awareness. But never once did I see it fit to fantasize about these subjects in an erotic fashion. In fact, I used to write trashy short romances which I shared with my close pal and in them featured socially acceptable relationships between the genders. I knew then that I was not a lesbian in the truest sense of the word but I seemed more drawn to the female persona because of all the values and traits they possessed which seemed more attractive than their male counterparts. I wasn’t against all males; I just wasn’t too particularly impressed by them.
average gawky tomboy, 13
2.
By my senior year, I was almost convinced that I was indeed attracted to the female gender as well as attractive to them. Although I had my fair share of adolescent crushes on a couple of boys and a few male admirers who sought my company at social functions, I always found that the emotional impetus of the female gender held stronger in terms of its ability to sustain my interest and attention, and stir up rather tumultuous emotional reactions.
Being a student leader of sorts, I was constantly in the attention of not only my juniors but also my peers, one of whom confirmed to me my emotional inclinations. Her name was Carolyn, a 17 year old streetwise and jaded teen who had joined our school to re-take her ‘O’ Levels. She was put in my disciplinary charge by our form-teacher because I was expected to watch her every move as part of my duties as a prefect. She encompassed the rebel audacity which I found myself admiring greatly, so much so I started to compromise my position by feigning ignorance of her truant behaviour or even going out on a limb to cover-up her late arrivals by retrieving her school bag which she threw over the fence after being locked out of the school gate. All this I did because I lived through her seemingly exciting life vicariously, being the cowardly conformist I was. All my actions were met with gratitude and later, as I discovered through her subtle gestures of teasing or even casual strokes and playful pecks, admiration, brimming on infatuation.
She once confessed to me in a card when we parted ways that she thought me special and kind and found herself getting increasingly drawn to me. And had we not kept the comfortable distance, she may have said or done things which may have threatened our friendship. But what Carolyn did was to stir up very real emotions which I wouldn’t say were sexual but the warmth and fuzziness one feels inside when you are physically close to a loved one – the feeling of security, of being loved and the egotistical thrill that someone actually feels that way for the nobody you think you are.
We never kept in touch since graduation and I know why. Because I wanted to keep the pleasant memory of our close encounter which never progressed to something beyond what we could handle. And the memory that something may have developed is far more pleasant and easier to deal with than the reality of a fantasy fulfilled. That is a phenomenal emotion which I still experienced through the years which followed.
typical butchy/rockette wannabe, 16
Coming Up…Part 2