The first and only time I received a love letter from a girl, I was 16 years old. I dare say it’s the strangest thing that has ever happened to me. To understand how I arrived at this moment, you have to first know the circumstances under which I lived and learnt; I was in a single sex boarding school. Yes, we interacted with boys and by that, I mean that sometimes an unfortunate boy would walk through the school gate and endure the discomfort of two thousand eyes piercing his skin with unrelenting stares. The poor boy would also have to endure the sound of soft murmurs and giggles and nonchalant comments. Once in a while, if you were lucky you’d be picked to go out of the school gate, to interact with the ‘outside world’ and you could talk to the boys but you couldn’t touch them. You could hug them goodbye but if your hug lasted more than three seconds, you risked the embarrassment of hearing a teacher yelling from a distance, “Let go of each other right now!” This is the stuff that the school news was made of. It was always best to avoid being in the school news. For a plethora of weeks following the reception of the letter, my friend Rita would choose random moments to torture me by reciting words from the letter or by telling me that she is in love with me. I would give anything to forget those moments. It’s clear to me now that the girl wasn’t in love with me. She was just a teenage girl who, being overwhelmed with feelings and emotions, decided to look for an object of affection and she found me. It’s clear because much as the letter had too many “I love you’s” and overstated my impact on the brightness of the rooms I walked into, the letter ended with “I want to be your best friend.” But I was hardly wise by then. And so I never took the time to reply her letter. I also did my best to ensure that we didn’t share the same breathing space. And soon, her love for me was replaced with cold disdainful contempt.
