A childhood friend and I were reminiscing about first boyfriends. Well, quote-first-boyfriends-end-quote anyway. By today’s standards, when 15 year olds get a Brazilian wax job right before making their first sex tape, it seems to me looking back now that those long-ago boyfriends were boyfriends mostly in our imagination only.
Picture this. My friends and I are fourteen. Not Miley Cyrus fourteen, More like Urkel fourteen. Awkward is a polite word for what we are. A bushy unibrow that is in perfect symmetry with another thick line of hair above our upper lip. A chest as bountiful as the Gobi desert. Two long, dangly legs, that would actually not be that bad if they weren’t covered by an Amazonian jungle.
On our face, we wear two pounds of whatever make-up we could steal from mom’s cabinet. The foundation is so thick and dark that I look like I dipped my face in a bucket of caramel. Pink fuscia lips and orange blush complement this awesomely sophisticated image. Somehow though, in our minds, we look like Paulina Porizkova.
As if our hair is not vezvezee enough, we have teased and sprayed and moussed and gelled our way to a complete freak show. But we love it. We think we look way old, at least 18!!!
The Queen’s coronation hair and make-up stand atop an outfit consisting of a cotton T, high waisted Bermudas, and sneakers. Sexy right?
With such attributes, it’s no wonder those guys at the other end of the food court at the mall are eyeing us. Soon they come forward. Sanaz, the boldest one, starts flirting away with the tallest boy. I stubbornly look down at my feet, while my cheeks become two hot plates. Digits are exchanged between Sanaz and the the tall one. Later, after they’ve gone, she tells me that his cousin told him to tell her to tell me that he likes me. Swooooooooon! I have a boyfriend! Yeah!
The next monday, at lunch hour, I rush down from class to the basement of my school where there is the lone public phone. I dial the number, my hand shaking. The conversation:
— Salam.
— Eh, salam. Khoobi?
— Areh. To khoobi?
— Areh.
That is the exciting part of the conversation. It repeats itself verbatim for the next three weeks.
Finally, one day, Sanaz calls me. She tells me that my boyfriend told his cousin to tell Sanaz to tell me that he is thinking of breaking up with me. My stomach flutters. My mouth forms a O of disbelief. I am not sad. My pride is hurt. As revenge, I decide I won’t give him the satisfaction of breaking up with me first. I tell Sanaz to tell her boyfriend that I told her to tell him to tell his cousin that I have already broken up with him.
My first break-up. What I feel most of all is relief at not having to make those phone calls anymore. But in front of my friends, I have to play the dramatic victim role and for the next two weeks, I am the center of attention, which is by far the most satisfying part of the entire “relationship.”
Inam bood my first boyfriend. Yadesh bekheyr.
