Niki Tehranchi
به زبان فارسی
PICTORY
LATEST MUSIC
SEARCH
Yadesh Be Kheyr
18-Jun-2008
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.
| Recently by Niki Tehranchi | Comments | Date |
|---|---|---|
| First day of school | 3 | Aug 15, 2012 |
| What would you say? | 15 | Jan 31, 2012 |
| Rebound girlfriend | 7 | May 11, 2011 |
RECENT COMMENTS
IRANIANS OF THE DAY
| Person | About | Day |
|---|---|---|
| نسرین ستوده: زندانی روز | Dec 04 | |
| Saeed Malekpour: Prisoner of the day | Lawyer says death sentence suspended | Dec 03 |
| Majid Tavakoli: Prisoner of the day | Iterview with mother | Dec 02 |
| احسان نراقی: جامعه شناس و نویسنده ۱۳۰۵-۱۳۹۱ | Dec 02 | |
| Nasrin Sotoudeh: Prisoner of the day | 46 days on hunger strike | Dec 01 |
| Nasrin Sotoudeh: Graffiti | In Barcelona | Nov 30 |
| گوهر عشقی: مادر ستار بهشتی | Nov 30 | |
| Abdollah Momeni: Prisoner of the day | Activist denied leave and family visits for 1.5 years | Nov 30 |
| محمد کلالی: یکی از حمله کنندگان به سفارت ایران در برلین | Nov 29 | |
| Habibollah Golparipour: Prisoner of the day | Kurdish Activist on Death Row | Nov 28 |
The tale of your first
by anonymo (not verified) on Thu Jun 19, 2008 12:53 AM PDTThe tale of your first boyfriend reminded me of my past, my friends and our "Boys"...
We were a love-loving, attention seeking, music adoring,
clothing crazed, sneaky with parents bunch!
That was so long ago... perhaps a lot has changed these days...or has it?
Oh... what memories, happy and sad, some so funny... and mostly just purely innocent and delightful by today's standards!
Like the day the 3 of us decided to stuff our bras and to look sexy as hell and bring the house down!
... not realizing that ...
Oh well!
I loved your story .
Please write more we "feel" them!
Canada??? Late 80s??
by jamshid on Wed Jun 18, 2008 02:11 PM PDTOr Tehran in the late 70s?
I was seeing Tehran in the late 70s while reading your nostalgic piece. God knows how many "boy meets girl" memories from Tehran popped in my mind while I was reading it.
These two places (and times) couldn't have been possibly the same, by any stretch... But I find your clarification to be an interesting surprise!
Niki
by Anonymouse on Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:42 PM PDTThat plus "valley girls" talk :-) That is just as important! Make sure you don't leave out the slanks of the time! Every generation has it's own slanks and the good ones survive and are timeless.
Just to clarify
by Niki Tehranchi on Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:37 PM PDTThis happened in Canada in the late eighties. I have never lived or been to Iran. But I know what you mean Jamshid. We all think of our generation through the nostalgic lens of our memory as the "innocent" one, no matter what time period or location.
JJ and everyone else, thank you so much for your kind words! Hala fahmidam, I have to talk about my ex-boyfriends in order to get comments hehehe. Fasten your setabelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride :o)
This story took me way
by jamshid on Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:20 PM PDTThis story took me way back. A lot has changed since those days. Iran was a unique world of its own. How can we forget its innocense?
I always wish I was born 10 years earlier so that I could be part of it longer.
Enjoyed it a lot
by Jahanshah Javid on Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:24 AM PDTYou're such a storyteller :o)
Write that book!
LOL Niki
by IRANdokht on Wed Jun 18, 2008 09:17 AM PDTwhat do you mean yadesh bekheyr? LOL
when it comes to boyfriends, dating and breakups, that's the way it still goes for me...
but I decided to leave Beautiful alone and spray pleasures on myself instead :0)
that was a cute story
IRANdokht
Beautiful perfume
by Anonymouse on Wed Jun 18, 2008 09:00 AM PDTI think I remember it. The Anna movie sounds interesting and looks like it won Oscars, but I don't know any of the names.
Paulina Porizkova
by Niki Tehranchi on Wed Jun 18, 2008 08:42 AM PDTwas, imho, "THE" supermodel of the 80s. She had that great black and white campaign for Estee Lauder cosmetics company which made me buy, at the age of 14, the perfume called "Beautiful", hoping that beauty was a concept I could magically spray on myself HAHA. She was also in one of my favorite movies, with that great nutjob Sally Kirkland, called "Anna."
nice
by Abarmard on Wed Jun 18, 2008 08:32 AM PDTMany of my friends and I had girl friends without the girls being aware of it!!
Excellent story!
by Anonymouse on Wed Jun 18, 2008 06:45 AM PDTHow far has the Miley Cyrus generation come! I think they sort of leap froged few generations between teenage years of 70s, 80s and 90s. While those generations were different for their times and they each called the previous generation, "not your mother's prom", they still had more things in common than different.
The main difference? Cell phones! As we say in Farsi, koor az khoda chi mikhad? Dow cheshm-e beenah. You were on the phone, telling your friend to tell her boyfriend to tell his cousin that you've broken up with him. This has been going on for as long as telephone was invented (including Iranians in Iran back then), except you had to do it from your home and possibly your parents spying in on you, for fun :-) Now they call each other all the time, from bathrooms, crossing streets and railroad x-ings, malls, parties and MOST importantly cell phone is now their security blanket!
As if being on the phone 24 hours a day is not enough, you use it when your friend's boyfriend's cousin is walking towards you by accident. You don't even need to dial any number, just talk to the air. Allo? Imam Reza? Yes I have a wish! BTW, what are they calling "digits" these days? Is it "text" or something?
Somehow I think Miley Cyrus' daughter generation (starting from Brittney Spears' niece :-) isn't going to be that much different, like we were not as much different in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I mean how much more features can they add to a cell phone?
Anyway, I really like this story and if you have similar stories, tell us. They are funny. You can also delete extra lines in between your paragraphs and who was Paulina Porizkova? Liked the Brazilian reference and analogy!