real life – TEAM REGALIS

I had my first crush on a boy at the tender age of four. His name was Stephen. He was the cutest little boy and would pick daisies for me on the way to Kinder and present them to me in front of everyone. He would embarrass the absolute shit out of me but secretly I loved the attention. After that year ended, I never saw him again and my little four-year old heart was broken.

Primary school saw a few more little crushes but none that really affected me too much.

High school is where things got way more intense. I had a crush on my best friend’s brother for about two years. Robert was a year older than me and he was the bee’s knees. I followed him around the school like a bad smell. My friends were all in on it and would keep me updated regularly on his whereabouts. One day I headed to the back of the school as he had been witnessed hanging around there. When I arrived I saw him kissing a girl from his year level. My soul was crushed. I don’t think to this day I have ever felt such total devastation. I felt the worst form of betrayal. I was sick to my stomach for days and couldn’t even consume food. I was so utterly disgusted in him that I could not even look him in the eye. It took me a while to get over that but eventually I composed myself and was able to carry on with life.

Over the next year or so we became friends, well I guess you could call it that. He would sometimes walk with me and my friends to the train station and sometimes he would even catch the train with us. These times were by far the best of my life.

I think he started to catch on to my intense crush on him and like most men to follow, decided to fuck with my brain and my heart.

All of a sudden he became quite touchy, feely. He would put his arm around me or put me in a head lock and once he even shared his drink with me. I was so totally obsessed.

This went on for some time. At one stage there was even a rumour going around that he liked me. HOLY SHIT!! I think the day I heard it I died for a few seconds or at least had a stroke.

This went on until one day Robert caught the train with me home from school. He sat opposite me. For the first ten minutes he stared into my eyes. I knew I was burning up and probably the colour of beetroot but I didn’t care. This was going to be the moment that he declared his undying love for me. We were going to get married and I was going to have his children and we would live together, happily for ever and ever and ever.

So many fantasies were playing in my head. The moment was coming, I could feel it with every fibre of my being. The way he was looking at me left no doubt whatsoever. He was going to say the words I had been so desperately dying to hear.

At that moment, he opened his mouth and said my name. I legitimately almost pissed my pants with excitement. He leaned forward, motioning me so subtly to do the same. I reciprocated trying to control my breathing. He got very close to my face and seductively licked his lips. All that was running through my mind was fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck… he is going to kiss me. I had never kissed a boy before. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. I closed my eyes and begged myself to calm the fuck down. I didn’t want to blow this amazingly awesome moment that was about to happen. When I opened my eyes he was smiling at me and he lent a tad further. OK this is it I told myself. My lips parted, my heart was racing a million miles per hour. He leaned in a bit more and said “You have a moustache”. Then be burst into laughter.

And I wonder why I’m so fucked up. Needless to say I jumped off at the next station and walked and cried the whole way home. When I got home I waxed my moustache and cried some more.

I avoided him like the plague after that and eventually he left school.

Finally I grew up and stopped the crushing nonsense. Or so I thought.

Just recently I think it has happened to me again.

The concept that I have a crush at my age is actually destroying my brain. I’m too old for this crap but it is happening and I just can’t seem to stop it. I have all the classic symptoms, nervous sweats, inability to string a sentence together around him, stumbling over my own feet, literal freak outs when I see him and the increase of hyperventilation. I am actually fucking appalled at myself because this guy is a bit of a wank job but it just doesn’t matter how much I pep talk myself, I see him and turn into a strange noise muttering, maniacal, blob of shit.

I have even gone to the point of hiding like a ninja from him. I’m a fucking grown ass woman and I hide to avoid him seeing me. When did my life take such a devastating downward turn?

I guess one thing has changed though. My life experience has taught me a few things and I think if this guy was to tell me I have a moustache, I would punch him square in the face and he would be the one crying.

I am sure this will pass and it is just a silly phase but until then I will develop my ever evolving ninja skills, continue deep breathing, practice stringing a sentence together or at least two syllables and try not to trip over my own feet when he is in a five metre radius of me.

Fuck. My. Life.

Sophia x - signature

These days, social media forms a large basis of people’s lives. In the way that they communicate, the way they keep in touch with the world and in the way they keep tabs on other peoples lives.

I feel like technology has moved quicker than our consciousness has and we aren’t emotionally equipped yet to deal with the information overload that comes with social media.

Almost every platform now has the ability for private message, thus no longer needing to trade phone numbers. With adding someone on a social media platform you have the ability to look and gain a feel for that person’s life before even deciding to communicate.

I for one have always been very hesitant to give out my phone number. I have had the same number since I was 18 and I don’t want to have to get to a point where I have given it to the wrong person, therefore having to change it. So for me, social media is a fantastic starting point. If I come across someone annoying, the block function becomes my best friend.

This has its advantages as you can begin to gauge the person’s lifestyle and interests and from there discover a common ground. The ability to view mutual friends is also another major advantage.

I personally believe that the initial start-up of a relationship via social media is a smart way to go about it. The disadvantages come later, once the relationship is flowing.

I am across pretty much every social media platform. I have made it my business to learn the capabilities of any form that I have an account attached to. This is because I am very intrigued with it all and how it is affecting society. I grew up in an era where this was non-existent. I was almost at the end of my secondary education when we first got the internet at home. Social media exploded when I was in my early twenties and I was hooked immediately. I found it utterly amazing and a fantastic way to stay in touch with friends and family.

But I also discovered that social media also has another side to it, the ever-present stalking side.

We now have the ability to access an array of information about a person and this can become detrimental to a relationship.

We are at a point in society where relationships aren’t as strong and long-lasting as they once were. This is due to the fact that we are more conscious of our own happiness and although we want to find that ONE person to spend our lives with, we are constantly striving for bigger and better things. We no longer feel the need to put up with shit because as everyone says: ‘there are plenty of fish in the sea’. If this current fish is no good, we will find another. Too often we believe that the grass is greener elsewhere and perhaps don’t put in as much effort to grow the grass in our own backyard.

For some people this will leave a string of broken relationships and a severely altered and fragile emotional state. A lot of these severed relationships end because of some form of betrayal, in many forms, on either part. This tends to fuck up the bit of the brain where trust is held allowing ill-informed or basically stupid decisions to take place. One of these stupid decisions is using social media platforms to keep tabs on or stalk your significant other.

If you are a part of the broken portion of society, you will meet someone, you will add each other on which ever social media platform you choose. Communication will flow and you will exchange numbers. The texting starts only, all of a sudden they do not reply in an acceptable amount of time. You then jump straight online and see that they are in fact online or they have been in the last few minutes. First thought is ‘mother fucker can go online but can’t reply to my text’. I wont lie and say that has never happened to me. Many times my ex boyfriend would text me in the afternoon saying sorry that he hasn’t spoken to me all day but work has been hectic. I’d only noticed that he had been online majority of the day. So you got time for that but not to see how my day is going? It is so pathetic when you think about it but that is how we have evolved because we now have access to that information so easily.

From there the stalking gets a bit deeper. Using an additional platform you start to check who’s pics they are liking and God forbid they like some random bitches selfie. You have the internal battle with yourself because you don’t want to start shit by bringing it up but you can’t help thinking WHY, why would he like that bitches selfie? The why turns into ‘they must be fucking’ because, lets face it, why else. Gone is the logical thinking. Irrationality becomes the norm.

That brings me to a very popular platform. The one with the ability to send a pic knowing it will disappear after the allocated time.

Clearly this was created with dick pics in mind. Why would you take a picture and send it to someone knowing they can only view it for a few seconds unless it is of your genitalia?

Years back when you had the ability to view people’s best friends I had a moment where I lost my shit. My ex and I would send a few pics here and there, nothing too exciting but one day I noticed that I wasn’t number one on his top friends list, another female was. I almost had a stroke when I saw it. I lost my fucking mind which ended up turning into a massive fight. He promised it was innocent but I never forgot about it.

Now with the addition of Nearby Friends on the most popular platform you can see how far away in kilometres someone is… having that ability can be so detrimental to ones mental health. I fear with future updates and a multitude of new platforms we will slowly turn into a trust-less and paranoid society even more so than what we already are.

As much as we do not want to be checking up on others, especially those we are in a romantic relationship with, it has become too easy. The temptation is one that is hard to ignore. Our choice is to either learn to ignore it or be emotionally stable enough to have complete trust in another being.

One thing is for sure, the next person I choose to be in a relationship with better have been living in a cave prior to meeting me, and not even know what the internet is if we are to have a happy and healthy relationship.

Tag: real life

It’s Just a Little Crush