Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Secret Fear

The other day I saw something that reminded me of particular moments in may past. Picture this if you will, three attractive youngwomen from one of the leading all female high schools walking along a relatively narrow pavement and not too far behind them was a youngman from one of the all male schools. Estimated age of them all, somewhere between 15 to 17. The three youngwomen were taking their own sweet time walking, judging by their slow pace and the fact that they seemed to be engaged in an interesting and riveting conversation. The youngman looked as though he was in a hurry to get to his after school lessons class, unfortunately his attempts to get by the three school girls were being thwarted with every attempt. If he went to the left, they would drift to the left; if he went to the right they would drift to the right.

And so it went until finally out of frustration he had to walk into the traffic congested street to walk around them. However, the girls who had been aware of his attempts to get by them noticed his triumph in passing which was short lived. As one of them said something out loud which caused the guy to hand his head really low and hurry away even faster on his way; wile the three girls laughed uncontrollably at him. It's incidents like this that sometimes lead scar guys psychologically, that they eventually develop a fear of women. It may sound weird, odd or even strange; but past experiences with females can often lead to a fear of the opposite gender among guys. It could be a simple thing like walking by a bunch of girls and accidentally tripping and falling right in front of them, while they may get a kick out of it, the dude is damn near traumatized and will probably avoid that particular spot for a long time. Or it could be from asking a girl to dance at a party and being humiliated in front of his and her friends when she says"NO!".

I just turned 32 about a week and some days ago, and even now I still feel the occasional stabs of panic and fear around attractive women. I guess it started around age twelve when I transferred from an all male high school to a co-ed school. Prior to that the only co-ed school I had ever attended was a small private school. At the time though I was waaaaaayyyyyy too young to know that someday I would be attracted to those silly girls. For the moment, they were the people in my school that I would sit in class with, eat lunch with, chase around the playground etc.

My first day at BHS was nerve racking, but what shot my anxiety level up further was when my dad pointed out the girls that were students at my school. It ook a while, but in a matter of weeks I was acclimatized to the whole co-ed thing. The fear thing would occur whenever any of the really cute, hot, gorgeous girls at the school would be somewhere within my vicinity or if I had to walk by them. One particular occasion that stands out from that time occurred when I was twelve. I was on my way back to school after going home for lunch and this really cute Sixth former and her friend were walking towards me on their way to the shop. At the time I was in between entrances to the school, and turning around to get to the one by the tennis court would have seemed to obvious. In panic, I crossed over to the other side of the road, the entire time I was looking down at my much in need of cleaning sneakers. Which was not what I should have been doing because I failed to notice said female crossing the road and planting herself right in front of me. Apart from being cute and older than me (by about six years) she was also shorter than me, so when I noticed her feet and started to look up my view feel upon a pair of brown eyes above a cute nose and a smile. She did not seem to be mad or as though she was going to humiliate me in any way shape or form, but in my awkwardness I mumbled a quick excuse me and quickly dashed off to my class. The last time I saw her was during Christmas break of my junior year, she reminded me of that incident and asked why I was so afraid of her? I told her that I did not know why, summoned it up to being intimidated by beautiful women or something like that.

A few years on and I was seventeen and attending a private school to re-take some subjects for exams. My school was not too far from an all girl convent school, on mornings I would pass by the occasional student on my way up the hill to school. On afternoons we were dismissed a good forty minutes before them, by the time they got out and started to make their way down the hill I was halfway to POS and on my way to lessons. On this one particular occasion I had the misfortune of being kept back in school, and by the time I started to make my way down the hill it was carpeted by squads of convent girls. Getting by them was like running an obstacle in the military while trying not to be seen or noticed. Unfortunately there was this trio that I had overtaken who somehow noticed me and said the following:
girl1: Which one of those guys in front you think is cute?
Girl2: I'm not too sure
Girl3: To be quite honest I like the two on the ends
Their laughter tipped me off that they were talking about me, and as I was the only guy walking in front of them, it meant that none of them found me cute. Right away I hit full warp speed and speed walked down that hill to put some distance between myself and them. For the remainder of my time at that school, I made damn sure that I never wound up getting kept after school, and I also perfected the art of speed walking down the hill to get me away from the area before the convent girls got out of school. I've told friends about it and even they found it hilarious.

During that same time I was in an aftershock lessons class for Math, Principles of Business and Geography. There was this one hot Chinese girl in the class who for some unknown reason choose me as her personal venting object. She would lash out at me without any provocation whatsoever, I'm talking stuff that would make a Marine blush. I used to dread the Math only days (Monday & Wednesday) because that meant seeing her and incurring her rath. I used to do my best to either blend in with the surroundings and somehow become invisible. No go! Thanks to my teacher who would often call on me, she would always notice me and bombard me with insults. Her reign of terror did not end there, somehow she wound up in my nightmares. Some say that she only did it because she liked me, yeah right! No way that could have been a form of attraction. Fatal attraction maybe! I have not seen her in years, if I were to see her tomorrow I would ask her:
(1). What did I do to make you hate me so much?
(2). How have you been and what have you been up to?
(3). What did I do to make you hate me so much?

Stay tuned for tomorrow's entry when I'll cover pre-college, college and the post college years.

Catch you then!

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