Welcome back to the madhouse!
In Part 1 of my Personal Saga, I briefly touched on the "inappropriate" boyfriend I had when I was 14... he was 18. This is a particularly odd tale, and I thought it warranted a standalone post in the Mother Dearest Series.
Now that I have my daughter, a completely feral and demanding creature, 8 years going on 14 with her attitude, I cannot fathom how this set of events came to pass. On with it then!
I became an avid online gamer around 13 years old, back when dial-up internet was still a thing, being yelled at to get off the web because my Mother was expecting a phone call. When I was younger, I first discovered Computer Games, an enthusiasm I have even now. I loved an old-school game called "Creatures" where you could nurture these things called "Norns", feed them, and play with them.
That developed into internet-dependent RPG games once I was a teen, particularly Diablo 2 (nowadays it's whatever the latest World of Warcraft expansion is). Now, considering the interweb was a fairly new invention, available to the masses in vaguely recent times, I suppose I was the first generation of teenagers to be exposed to its threats.
Chatrooms were very much a thing, and Diablo 2 had a form of chatroom already built in. It was here that I developed a close-knit group of friends. We would "boost" each other through new content, support each other, and generally moan about life.
When gaming, I met a chap called Dylan, he was nice to me, flirted, and helped me with difficult quests. It wasn't long before we had exchanged mobile numbers. Just a little side tangent here, where I lived at the time I vividly remember the first mobile network going live, but they messed it up and you could only make phone calls for the first 2 weeks! Text messages were not supported, even though my Nokia 3210, that legendary brick of a phone, could send them (oooh snake, what a game!).
Anyway, Dylan and I chatted, and we sent each other pictures with our letters when texting became too pricy (mobiles were not capable of such wizardry yet, yes, I am that old). I remember him telling me that he had finished his A levels, that he was going to take a gap year before Uni, and that he would like to meet me face to face.
I think when we first started chatting, I had fibbed and said I was 16 but I came clean that I was only 14 pretty quickly when things got a bit more serious, not wanting to trap him into anything.
I remember telling Mother Dearest a little white lie about him so she would agree to his visit. I said he was only 16 and that I had met him at school a few years previously but he had moved away. We'd always liked each other but never had the chance to get to know each other properly - oh the joys of teenage hormones, driving the fibs because I was so desperate to meet him.
I think my overeager drive for this encounter was due to the insane amount of bullying I'd experienced at school, always being called a lesbian (like that was an insult, so what if I was? Not like I'd be interested in the little chavvy cow calling me that anyway), and generally feeling a bit like an ugly duckling.
Again, I did come clean to Mother Dearest once I had her agreement. She was angry that I had lied, but in the end, she reinstated her permission for him to visit.
So, he arrived. We had a brilliant 2 weeks. We went out loads and walked along the beach, really getting to know each other. I'd always been older than my years, and it was nice to experience being treated like I was. I really was wearing rose-tinted glasses.
During that initial stay, I lost my V plates. Now, it's not that I was ignorant of such matters. Mother Dearest had always been cringeworthingly open about the birds and the bees. I don't actually remember a time when I didn't know all about the private parts of men and women, nor their extracurricular activities. So, when it happened, and it just kind of did, it didn't feel wrong to me.
Looking back, it was. A four-year age gap as adults is nothing but as a teen? When the youngest is only 14? It makes no sense to me now, why an 18-year-old, who wasn't bad-looking, would be interested in a 14-year-old he met on the internet. It's iffy.
He ended up not wanting to leave. At the time, I didn't want him to either. My Mother was oddly unphased by all this. She knew we were having extracurricular encounters and didn't bat an eye. My Dad on the other hand, upon learning we were sharing a room, went bloody ballistic. A reasonable reaction from a Parent, yes?
Anyway, Mother got him a job where she was working in the Call Centre. For a while, this was the new normal. I'd go to school, he'd go to work with Mother, and then we'd all come home and be this weird little family. Even just writing about it makes me cringe.
My friends knew about this strange setup, I got some funny looks but I don't think any of us really knew what to think. It's sort of expected for teenagers to cook up these stupid plans, but they're usually foiled by the responsible adults involved in their lives. In my case, this didn't happen.
He stayed for about 6 months before he left to stay with extended family in New Zealand. I was a bloody wreck I remember that much. Pining away for my "first love". Hindsight is a wonderful thing, it wasn't love, just a heady dose of lust and hormones. If I could go back and give myself a hard slap, I would.
Mother Dearest, allegedly in support of her distraught daughter, somehow wrangled enough pennies out of my Father to fund a trip for me to New Zealand to see him... for 3 weeks... on my own... at 15...
Me being the idiotic teenager that I was; was thrilled. Bloody idiot. I went, trekked there with a layover in LA, and back via Singapore right amid the SARS outbreak.
The trip itself was also odd. We stayed with his Father and some other extended family, traveling from Auckland to Wellington. They all seemed to be professional stoners living in shared accommodation but as grown adults. It was strange.
I remember being taken to a house party with a load of people around Dylan's age. My own age stuck out like a sore thumb whilst he was around his peers and I felt extremely insecure. I wasn't fully developed, and these girls were what I only wished my own body would eventually mature into.
Honestly, most of it is shrouded in the same impenetrable fog as the rest of my teenage years. There's the odd snippet, I know there were some very traumatic memories here that I will not go into, nor have I ever tried to reveal, even with a professional.
I do remember drunkenly going to get my belly button pierced. I might have been at the wacky backy as well. I don't think this person was a professional either, seeing as the thing was gammy for nearly 5 years before it finally healed. But I at least felt a bit more like those older girls I was so envious of, who were sporting those diamante-laden monstrosities from their own belly buttons.
Back to reality at home, was a shock to the system. He was starting University that September, nowhere near where we lived, and I couldn't bear to be without him. Somehow, perhaps again under the guise of helping her ever-distraught daughter, Mother Dearest decided we would move to be near him. Right in the middle of my GCSEs. Genius.
Throughout a week-long trip to the area in which he was starting University, we found a house, a school for me (all girls, terrible idea, but it looked posh which won over Mother), and a job for Mother Dearest. It all happened very quickly.
Of course, once it was all set in stone that we were moving, our house having been sold, Dylan told me he didn't want to be with me anymore. He didn't want to be shackled to a 15-year-old when starting his first year at University. I'm sure in the back of his mind, he knew how weird it all was, and he didn't want the judgment.
Suddenly, I was hundreds of miles away from my friends, a new school, and all for nothing. I had to drop a few subjects for my exams as the examination boards were different from my old school. This new school was nothing like where I'd come from. The students here had no respect, often resulting in the teachers shouting over the din to convey their lesson.
Dylan seemed to delight in stringing me along. Not long after we had moved, he got back in contact with me. We went to dinner and it became clear that he wanted to strike things up between us again. However, there was a catch. He had already started a relationship with a girl at University.
I remember going on holiday with some older friends to Spain a few months later, where I ran up a £300 phone bill. Dylan and I had been "talking things through", more like I was wondering how the "love of my life" had moved on so quickly. My Father was not pleased when he got that bill.
Dylan wouldn't budge, he wanted his cake, and to eat it. I was annoyed, so on an absinthe-fueled trip, one of my friends got a tattoo, and I had my lip pierced... the lady gave me a litre of sanitary fluid to clean it with. Even in my addled state, I did wonder how clean the shop was after that!
I half remember sending him an email after I'd realised that I was worth more than being this bit on the side, expressing as much along with my pity for his new girlfriend. It turns out the girlfriend read his emails.
A tirade of hate began spewing in my direction for sending him such a communication. Not only had I thought I was too good for him, but I'd ruined his relationship. Now I am older, I look back at this and audibly eye-roll at his bloody audacity.
I soon went from being predicted straight A*'s in my GCSEs to barely scraping two A's, six B's, and two C's. This may seem like an achievement to many, but to me, I had utterly destroyed my future over a sodding boy. The fragile mental stability I had formed, shattered completely.
This was the start of some very strange behaviour on my part that I don't really remember much. I think even back then I knew what had happened was very wrong and wondered why the hell Mother Dearest had endorsed it. So I rebelled and put myself into bad situations with questionable people.
If you've read my Personal Saga, you'll know I eventually sorted myself out but I went too far the other way, determined to be normal instead!
There you have it, another strange tale on Mother Dearest, hopefully shedding some light on why we no longer have a relationship. Try as I might, I couldn't write this with much humour. It's a very perplexing tale that has left me feeling more than a tad icky in its retelling.
Join me next time in Mother Dearest - Part 6, The SECOND Cat, Surely Not?
Stay sane.
KT