My Fear and Love of Charles

There he was, right in front of the computers in the corner, in the middle of my third grade classroom.  He was a little Asian boy named Charles.  I knew immediately that we would date, marry, and have seventeen children.  He was eight, I was eight; he was Asian, I was Asian; he had thumbs, I had thumbs; I could tell it was meant to be.  He sat with his back to me unaware of my recent revelation, and basically completely indifferent to my existence.  Admittedly, he did grow less indifferent once he noticed that I had been staring at the back of his head slack-jawed for about 15 minutes straight; but nevertheless, he still wouldn’t have cared if I had disappeared the next day out of his life forever.  This had to be remedied. I was determined to not only make him notice and care about my existence, but to make him fall hopelessly in love with me like I had with him in those first few minutes of the third grade when I first laid my eyes on the back of his lovely head.

I found out everything about him that I could without directly talking to him.  I tactfully placed myself near him while he talked to his friends so I could overhear what they talked about.  He was a pretty average boy; he liked sports, dinosaurs, and computers, and through my skillful observation I also learned that he was good at drawing trees, bad at singing, and disliked pudding.  There was nothing extraordinary about him, but everything I learned made me think he was more awesome than before.  This worried me, ‘what if he was out of my league?’ I thought, because I was an average little girl while he was this amazing being who was good at drawing trees. 

 I tried everything I could think of to get his attention over the next few years; but making someone fall hopelessly in love with you was much harder than I had thought. I said hi to him every morning, sat next to him whenever possible, dressed my absolute cutest, and always tried to stay within his line of vision so I’d always be in his mind.  Nothing was working.  I was inexperienced in this kind of endeavor, but I was not discouraged; I was determined to make him mine.  I went to my brother for help; he was four whole years older so I thought ‘surely he must have had some experience and wisdom he can share with me!’ He was no help; I had carelessly overlooked the fact that he was a nerd. Next I asked my father for advice, knowing he must have some helpful tips after courting my mother; however, all he did was sigh, say “Oh god, it’s already starting.”, and then he walked away. Thus, I gave up on my family and turned to my friends.

My friends were just as useless.  We talked for hours about different strategies and plans available to me - and to them for their own crushes.  All of us were equally inexperienced and therefore were completely unqualified to give each other real advice on what to do. Nevertheless, we stayed up late coming up with intricate fantasies about being swept off our feet, running away with our crushes, and even our crushes turning into Centaurs and us riding off on them on rainbows.  We were eight.  We dreamed about our first kisses but none of us knew how to get to that point with a guy.  My friend Kylee came up with the best plan of all of us: to leave Charles a note saying something along the lines of “Hey, come meet me after school on the playground at 4:30. I like you. –Elise”.  It was, at least, a doable plan, and I actually considered it, but it involved too much risk. I thought about all the things that could go wrong and would break my heart; ‘what if he doesn’t like me?’, ‘what if he hates me?’, ‘what if he thinks I’m ugly?’, ‘what if he rips up the note and stomps on it in disgust?’, ‘what if he laughs at me and shows everyone the note?’.  Although I knew he probably wouldn’t rip up or share the note with everyone, there was still the possibility that he didn’t like me back; and I didn’t want to deal with that if it was true.  

I decided to bump up my strategy and become a little bolder, while still avoiding a direct approach like a note or actually telling him that I liked him.  With more observation, I found out more of his interests: he liked Neopets, the color green, math, and chicken.  I started to try and speak with him about stuff he liked when we sat next to each other.  One day I sat next to him during circle time and said:

“Hey Charles, did you get the new Draik dragon neopet?”

“No, I’m saving up for the chompey.”

“Oh, okay - what did you think of today’s math lesson?”

“It was really easy today.”

“That’s great; I have chicken for lunch!”

“Ummm, good for you.”

“Yeah I like chicken…”

Awkward silence ensued; I had botched it. I had been so concentrated on not forgetting the different topics that I had reminded myself beforehand to talk about that I had blown through them without letting them become actual conversations.  After that I tried to avoid having long conversations with him; I was fearful that I would make a fool of myself again. My new strategy was to compliment him, and make him feel smart all the time.  Compliments usually didn’t turn into long conversations, so they were safe.  I thought if I boosted his ego he would connect those good feelings to when he thought of me, and in no time he would realize his love for me and we would be dancing and singing together into the sunset – as long as we weren’t conversing.  Another way I came up with boosting his ego was to ask him for help and to explain things to me all the time.  I asked him for help with math, or to teach me how to draw trees.  In one way this strategy worked, his ego was definitely boosted; however, he thought I was just an idiot that needed help with everything.  So I tried copying him: liking what he liked, dressing casual like he did, reading what he read, etc.  That didn’t get me anywhere either.  I tried making him jealous by flirting with other guys. When that didn’t work either I went the exact opposite direction and tried to subtly hint to him that I thought he was cute.  I learned that boys are not subtle creatures, especially elementary school boys. 

            In sixth grade Charles and I parted ways forever.  I had never mustered enough courage to tell him how I felt; and I doubt he ever knew.  I was too scared of rejection to put myself out there.  I never made a move myself or told him that I liked him, and I have regretted it ever since.  I was so afraid that Charles would think that it was stupid that I liked him; that I never gave what I wanted (him and I to be together) a chance to actually happen.  I dreamed about boldly telling him that I liked him and we then would get together, and I dreamed about him just realizing that I was head over heels for him and he would fall for me too and sweep me off my feet; but that was never going to happen if I didn’t take a chance.  If he never knew how I felt we never could have gotten together, so even though he was what I wanted most I never let us become a possibility.  Things you want don’t just happen because you will them.  You can’t expect others to do stuff you want for you, or just expect them to know what you want.  If you want something then you have to take action for yourself.  You have to make your wants known, or do something about it so you can get what you want.  Since I was never clear to Charles that I liked him, nothing ever happened; but, if I had left the note, or told him my feelings, something could have developed.  We were in elementary school so I’m not saying that if we did go out that it would have been amazing, or the time of my life, but I have always regretted not going for it.  I learned that you have to take an active role in what you want, no matter what it is.