Love is such a bitch. When I was younger I had my life planned out, I’d find myself a Mr Perfect in my teens and live happily ever after. Marriage, babies and all that. But no, you have to work for it. You can’t have a simply love story like your parents did. You have to experience the thrill of the chase and the flirting, followed by the crushing heart-break and the general depression sets in, even if you did the ending of the relationship.
My first crush and kiss was with a boy from high school when I was 14. I fancied him for a solid year, before telling him how I felt. This was preceded by a kiss behind the science building and then going out for a whole day. For some reason, once everyone found out he just ‘couldn’t handle it’ and walked off. Then the next two years was just awkward! Didn’t help with me having embarrassment issues and gaining the nickname ‘tomato’. Looking back he did date half the girls in my tutor, and I reckon he is now your definition of a fuckboy.
My love life in sixth form turned into something of a soap opera. After receiving affections from a boy in my year at the end of year 11 and being kindly turned down. He announced he was gay, but before the being of sixth form he then got into a relationship with a girl who was in our extended friends group. Within 6 months they were engaged and planning the wedding. Moving very fast at the age of 17 was terribly scary and well crazy [Props to them, they are still together 4 years on]. However, I wasn’t liked by them. As a ex-love interest, I was the enemy. His fiancée at the time, hated me and didn’t trust me. She decided to ‘test’ me, by making him confess his love for me and that he had cold feet about the wedding. At the same time, she asked for wedding dress advice about what style. Of course, being the age that I was, I freaked out and I had an episode which involved a lot of crying, worry and panic.
It didn’t end there, oh no. They tried to turn my friends against me, but that didn’t work. They supported me, because I had done nothing wrong and wasn’t intentionally out to get them in any way. In the end, they dropped out of second year of sixth form and broke all contact, due to a massive argument where I blocked them on social media. It was a dramatic period in my life socially, but time is a healer and if I was to see them in the street now I would go over and say hello. You can’t live in the past forever, we were still kids then.
Then we come to University life. I met my ex-boyfriend and what I would class my first proper boyfriend online. He was much older, but age doesn’t always matter. However, it made it very hard to mix both my uni social life and him together. We dated for approximately a year and a half, and in the last 6 months I discovered how much of a dick he was. After breaking up with him just before Christmas in an argument, he begged me to take him back. Which I was stupid to do. I tried to make it work, but I ended up dumping him, after he was rude to my family and made me feel worthless. I don’t regret the first year, but I should have stuck to my guns before Christmas. It would have saved me so much heart ache, anger and sadness.
There were good memories and experiences like Switzerland, but looking back I realised just how shitty he made me feel. He would over react when I didn’t want to do something that he wanted to do, he got jealous over any guy who looked at me and had a temper. He never hit me or abused me physically, but on reflection he was emotionally abusive and manipulative. He made me anxious and scared when he drove. He ignored or/and shouted at me when I asked him to slow down. When I would voice my opinion on political matters, he would tell me I was wrong because I was ‘young and naive’. He had some issues which I tried to support him through, but it just got too much and I got to breaking point when he used them as a scapegoat for his rude behaviour all of the time.
6 months on, and I couldn’t be happier. I started running (which has improved my health dramatically) and I spent the summer working four jobs before coming back to university to focus on my final year and spend more time with my friends.
Plus, I finally got to experience the world of Tinder. Which has worked in my favour so far, but thats still to come in the next chapter of my life…
Alice Denmark 