Teenage Dreams

I have a new crush. Which is, for the most part exciting. But for as long as I can remember, when I develop a crush on someone, it hits me hard. The older I get, of course, the less frequently crushes really occur, but when they do, boy, does everything else go out of the window. All the things that I tell myself I think I want when it comes to a relationship — my own space, independence, not to see someone too often, seem to be distant memories as I descend into a soppy, daydreaming, overly romantic and giddy teenager again.

For the past few weeks, as I have been luxuriating in all of the lovely feelings that come with fancying someone new, I have been thinking back to some of the more questionable decisions that I have made whilst crushing on a boy in the past and the following is probably one of the most ridiculous ones…

At school, I was always looking for a distraction. From the age of 11 until 16 I attended a heavily competitive and academically rigorous all girls private school in South West London which, for someone like me who has historically lacked enthusiasm for anything that is not completely stimulating, didn’t provide much compatibility. These sentiments were exacerbated further by the fact that my best friend was equally as disinterested in what was on offer which resulted in regular phone calls home, detentions and disappointing parents evenings where teachers consistently reminded us that we weren’t meeting our full potential.

I can vividly recall once, during a Year nine parents evening, my Geography teacher sat across the table from my mum and plainly explained to her that “If Katy and Holly showed as much interest in Geography as they did lip gloss then they would undoubtedly be A* students”. I’m sure you get the picture.

For someone who lacked such enthusiasm in secondary school, the fact that I went on to train to be an English teacher still astounds me. I had to ensure that I didn’t let my tainted experiences of schools, teachers and exams rub off on my own students. In fact, during my time as a Secondary School teacher I constantly had to get the balance right of being encouraging to them when it came to taking their exams seriously but also reminding them that results really aren’t the be all and end all. For me though, this balance simply didn’t exist. I didn’t take my exams even remotely seriously and this was never more apparent than when it came to my Biology GCSE.

I’ve known for a long time that my mind wasn’t a Scientific one. I’ve generally always been quite good at English, have always loved writing and Art was pretty fun at school (mainly because I based my final GCSE project on skate culture and street art in London which gave me plenty of excuses to hang around Southbank ogling over the long haired, tattooed skater boys). I was good with anything that involved creativity but as for Science and Maths — my slow processing didn’t make it particularly easy for me to understand some of the difficult concepts and nor was I interested in trying. It also didn’t help that I didn’t really like my teachers. They were used to girls who they didn’t have to work hard to engage with, as was the nature of my school but that just wasn’t going to cut it with me.

The one science subject that I found particularly tedious was Biology. The irony of that now given my deep love for nature is laughable but more so at the time was the fact that with Biology out of all of the Sciences, at GCSE level is that it doesn’t even require any real understanding, just a lot of rote learning so I really had no excuse but as you can probably guess from how I’ve described myself at school, reading and memorising pages and pages of a textbook was just not my vibe. But the true disrespect I paid the subject revealed itself long before I actually reached exam time.

It all started during Year 10. My friends and I were proud early adopters of a group of boys from a neighbouring school who we met at a Saturday morning drama club in my local area. In classic secondary school style we all quickly became attached at the hip and anything and everything that took place within our friendship group was instantly deemed to be the most urgent and important part of any of our silly little lives at the time. The exaggerated drama of the teenage romantic relationship is unmatched by much but what is even more heightened at the age of 14 is the drama of the platonic friendship that starts to shift into something more.

For me, this came in the form of who we’ll call Joe. Joe was the male equivalent of me in our rowdy pack of teenagers. We had matching big personalities, both enjoyed being the centre of attention and enjoyed the platonic friendship privilege that came with the fact that we were about the only two friends in the group who hadn’t shared bodily fluids. However, as a straight girl in the 90s, the infectious teenage pleasure that comes from having a best friend of the opposite sex can only last so long before something fucks it up and for me and Joe this came in the form of both of us starting to fancy each other at the same time. Because our best friend status had become so cemented in the group this caused all kinds of confusion for both of us and rather than just follow our primal horny teenage urges to simply snog each others faces off as soon as we started to pick up anything more than platonic feelings we began to act all kinds of silly awkward.

These were the days before mobile phones so if you wanted to talk to a boy you actually had to pluck up the courage to pick up your landline, (once it was free) inevitably speak to at least one family member, potentially make polite chit chat and then run the risk of a younger sibling picking up the phone in another room and eavesdropping on your conversation. So the first stage of our awkwardness was that we stopped calling one another — kind of a blessing considering the telephone assault course that I have just described. Then we started being totally weird around each other in person. Acting like we didn’t know that everyone could see that we were starting to crush on each other. I can remember during one of our regular Friday night shenanigans (which generally involved taking over the house of whichever one of our parents were out that evening, turning most of the lights off and all lying around in one giant heap, indulging in the extensive tactile touching that so became part of our identities) towards the later stages of our growing feelings, I spent about 2 hours with Joe, lying in a dark room next to each other on a lazy boy armchair, Radiohead playing in the background, faces so close we could feel each other’s breath but not actually kissing. Not the typical teenage behaviour you might expect…It seems that my overthinking is something that has plagued me for longer than I think! But that’s a story for another time.

Well, right at the heart of the will they won’t they saga which took over all of our girl chats, endless phone calls and consistent note sharing, my confused pining was so strong that it just about got in the way of EVERYTHING else in my life which all now seemed to pale into insignificance against my big dilemma of whether or not Joe and I were going to explore anything more than a friendship. Predictably, the biggest part of my life to take an astronomical hit was my school work. I was, quite frankly, always looking for any excuse to avoid it and this felt like the perfect teen crisis to provide just the excuse I was looking for.

This all took place during the height of the London summer in 1998, I would soon be turning 15 and I was completing my coursework for my GCSE’s at the time. Can we take a minute to celebrate the long lost coursework? The joy of being able to secure a great mark for the first 40 percent of your grade just by literally copying some content out of your textbook and adding a bit of your own writing. Easy right? Well, apparently my limerence for Joe was all that I could think about and this reached a climax one very memorable night, the very night before my Biology coursework was due to be handed in when I was at another dear friend’s house, the looming deadline causing me intense inconvenience and my friend intense irritation at my deep and enduring procrastination. We had a party to get to and my inability to finish the last section of my Biology coursework was the only thing holding us up. My friend, ten months older than me and always, infinitely wiser and more mature had finished hers weeks ago, whereas I, predictably had left mine until the last minute (not much has changed in 25 years). ALL I could think about was leaving the house, getting to the party and seeing Joe as I moaned and whined, questioning why I would even need a Biology GCSE when I wanted to be a writer anyway. My friend began to gradually lose her patience with me — “You always pull this Katy. If you had just done this when I did mine we would have been able to be out already and enjoying the party”.

It was then that something clicked and in a moment of genius that I decided there was only one thing to be done. I decided then and there that I was just not going to finish my coursework. I would leave out the whole middle section, the one I had been procrastinating about, which equated to about half of it, tear it out of my booklet, hide all evidence that it even existed and just submit my work as normal. The teacher would assume it had fallen out and got lost….

Silence, as my friend looked at me in shock as if I had just suggested the most ludicrous idea comprehensible, which I suppose to a smart and sensible girl who actually valued her exam results it probably was. And then a moment later, “Don’t be an idiot Katy”. But if there’s one thing that anyone who is close to me knows, it’s that I am stubborn as hell. And once I have decided that there is something that I want, nothing is stopping me. And tonight, on this summer evening in London, all I wanted was one thing. And that was to go out with my friends and see the boy who I was crushing so hard on. And if my Biology GCSE had to be the collateral in this love story then that is how it was going to be. My friend looked at me incredulously. “Well” she said. “I know what you’re like. And you’ve probably already decided that is what you’re going to do so I guess there’s no point in me telling you that I think that it’s a terrible idea is there?”. “No point” I said with a smile. And that was it. Off we went and the next day, in went my coursework, my teacher probably with the same incredulous look on her face when she opened it up to see actual chunks of it missing.

We went to the party and had what felt like the night of our lives. At the time it felt like the best decision I had ever made, but as summer drew to a close, and results day loomed, I was mildly concerned about dealing with the fallout from my all consuming crush and corresponding life decisions, but at 15, there is really not a great deal that can compete with your hormones even with all of the will in the world. Predictably, I failed my Biology GCSE and along with it, gained the title of the only student to receive a D grade in any subject in my whole year group at school — quite the achievement!

Many years later when I toyed with the idea of training to be a vet nurse, I was quickly reminded that I would have to re-do my Biology GCSE in order to enrol on the training programme and I felt some mild regret about my flippant decision all those years ago. But that was short lived, because now, I genuinely believe that regret is pointless. We do what we do, when we do it because it feels right at the time. And at the time, all those years ago, prioritising my crush felt right and when it comes to love these days, I try my best to keep following my heart without worrying too much. And at the very least it’s good to remember that without the risk, there would be no story. So feel all the feelings, indulge in all the daydreams and keep romance alive because life goes by in a flash. I’d still always choose a bit of romance over a Biology GCSE any day of the week!