I have been in a relationship with the same man since my senior year of high school, the man I met in middle school. I really wish I were an expert on love, considering how long we’ve known and been together. I honestly feel like I don’t know what I am doing, and there are only so many people I can talk to about that. A lot of my family members tell me that I am young and should be out exploring, meeting new people, dating, and living my life. I don’t know how to tell them that I am exploring, meeting new people, dating, and living my life all the same time. Being “tied down” to the one person I love is so much better than participating in hook-up culture, where I would feel incomplete. A long-term relationship is for me as a certified lover girl, and I don’t care if anybody says otherwise.
I first met my boyfriend in our 7th grade Science class. He was this short, little Mexican kid with crooked teeth and extremely hyper. Though he wasn’t in my usual friend group, I still interacted with him from time to time. I didn’t know until later on, but he was also in my language arts class, but because I was in my own little world (and I thought he was weird), I didn’t pay attention to him. It wasn’t until a year later that I noticed he was in my Social Studies and Language Arts class. Social Studies was my favorite for two reasons: I got to see him a little more than usual, and I loved the topics we discussed in class. We were both seated in the back, each in our own row. His placement was strategic; our teacher wanted to keep him from goofing off, but he found a way to sneak in mischief, which always made me laugh. As the year went on, we got closer and soon enough he became one of my closest friends. Middle school me was the ungrateful type, never appreciating what was around her. I wish I appreciated him more because he needed it at that time. Soon enough, I started flirting back and realized that he was actually pretty cute, and his weirdness is endearing in a way.
Near the end of our final year in middle school, he screamed from across the courtyard that he liked me, and I, embarrassed, said “ew!” I ran inside with my friends while he was getting teased by his friends because I rejected him hard. I talked to him later and admitted that I needed to think about his confession. We remained friends who kept flirting the way middle schoolers do, and on the last day of school, I told him I liked him back and wanted him to be my boyfriend.
Now you must be confused when I say that we have been dating for three years. We have been. We had a summer fling from our eighth-grade year to the freshman year of high school. He broke up with me on homecoming (asshole, I know!) He later told me how much he regretted that decision. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be talking to him, but he wanted to stay friends, so we stayed friends. Throughout COVID, we maintained contact while being quarantined in our homes. I never realized the lengths he went to talk to me. He didn’t have a decent phone until junior year of high school, so he would call me on Microsoft Teams on his computer. I don’t think I ever realized how pure his love was for me until we dated a third time.
Even when we went to different high schools, we talked all the time. In our junior year, I called him and told him I liked him. He said, “Oh, goodnight then.” And I have never felt so rejected in my entire life. I guess it was karma for saying ew the first time. The next day, after school, we called, and he apologized, admitting he liked me back but was surprised. We tried again. It was the best month ever! I say month because he broke up with me before Valentine’s Day (he really was an asshole). We never broke up because of reasons like infidelity, but more insecurity. It ate away at our relationship, and we didn’t realize it.
That same month, I spent time trying to forgive him, but I couldn’t. We had talked about marriage and all the cute things couples talk about. We thought that the second time was the last time we would break up. He would talk to me and send me memes on Instagram while I loathed him for hurting me the way he did. I ghosted him for a month until he finally got the hint and stopped talking to me as well. That June, he messaged me, asking to hang out before he went to Cancun. I showed my mom the text message, and was crying, frustrated that he even had the audacity to text me after hurting me multiple times. I told him I was busy. He took this as a sign that I was talking to him again, but every time he texted, I would leave him unanswered for hours. Slowly but surely, he wore me out. I would answer within a couple of minutes of him texting me, and we hung out after he got back from his trip. I told him some gossip from my trip, and he did the same. From then on, we talked and hung out almost every day that summer.
I felt guilty for allowing the person who had hurt me multiple times back into my life, and I beat myself up almost every time that he texted. Eventually, I started to get over it because I genuinely missed my best friend.
That summer was about our reconciliation; there were many moments where we showed each other how much we missed each other, but backed away because we were “just friends.” School started, and we saw each other less, continuing to stay in touch. As my high school homecoming was approaching, I told him we should go together. He obviously said yes. I told my friends how, even though I asked him, it’d be nice if he did a homecoming proposal for me. Without my knowledge, my best friend had been talking to him and stressing for me. I love and appreciate her so much to this day for going through the stress of knowing my schedule and getting me to the exact spot I needed to be in. He got special permission from his teachers to leave early, asked his friend for a ride, and made his way to my school.
I remember being mad that day because people were being unnecessarily rude, and my friends tried to get me to calm down and led me to the outside area where he was. Seeing him holding the poster with a Cuco lyric on it and photos of us, and red and yellow roses, was honestly so surprising and made me the happiest girl in the world. We were still “just friends” at this moment, but I never expected that a couple of weeks after homecoming, we’d try again.
During homecoming, we wore blue and made sure to match. He helped pay for my dinner, took photos together with my friends, and held hands the entire time. I don’t know why we were so stubborn to admit we liked each other.
A day or two after homecoming, we talked about how we acted like more than friends and if we wanted to be more than friends again. That night, we stayed up until 2 am talking about our feelings from the last four months. I told him that I need him to prove with his actions that he won’t hurt me like he did the past two times, and that I didn’t feel ready to date him until he proved that. He did the most he could over text, which I appreciated, but on October 10th, I decided that I don’t know if I will ever be ready, so I just needed to dive in headfirst and see where it would take me.
A relationship like the one we have is so complicated, difficult, and yet one of the most loving relationships. Because we went through so much together, we work even harder to make things work. Learning how to be in a long-term relationship was difficult, especially since I was his first girlfriend and he is my first long-term relationship. I had to tell him what I like and had to scold him about what I don’t like. We had to learn how to set boundaries when we had never talked to each other about that before. We had yet to learn what worked for us, and that led to a lot of disagreements. Talking to each other like best friends no longer worked for us, and we had to figure out how to talk to each other with respect because words do hurt. This is one of the most difficult things to work for, but it’s worth it every day, and I know that at the end of the day, we have something beautiful and so very much annoying.