Kissed the Boys and Made them Cry

I was 15 when I first made a boy cry.
It was something of a revelation for a young and awkward girl to have made her best friend cry. My only experience of the emotions of boys and men was in the person of my dad. A partrician example, staunch and proud and ‘manly’. Cry? You would have had to poke him in the eye with a sharp stick to see that…
Rich and I had been friends for months, hanging out, listening to the Police and Nik Kershaw on vinyl. Talking for hours on the phone about the Police and Nik Kershaw. We were pretty tight and so he asked me to be his girl.
I said yes, of course, he was lean and blonde, and he liked The Police and Nik Kershaw. What’s not to love?
So for 9 days I was his girl.
Unfortunately for him I was an awkward antisocial 15 year old and I actually had no idea what it meant to be his girl, and I got scared when he got too close. Really scared, and so one day, when we were alone at yoof camp. I told him that I couldn’t be his girl any more.
And he cried.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was absolutely gobsmacked (great word that).
Me? Having that kind of power? Enough to scare me even more…
We never quite got our friendship back (like duh). By the time I had got a bit more comfortable with me, and with having him in my personal space he was seeing someone else (a ‘whole lot more’ of them than he would have seen with me – which incidentally didn’t stop him snogging me sensless at Easter Camp when we listened to The Cars and made out on our camp beds…) and we moved on; me to work and then overseas, him to parenthood, marriage and divorce.
I often wonder what may have happened if I hadn’t been such a fraidy cat. Maybe I’d be a solo mum, divorced from him, or maybe we missed a great opportunity. Not something I’m likely to know this side of eternity.
Anyway I got to thinking about Rich, my errant youth when I made another boy cry yesterday and felt almost as bad as I did the first time.
He asked me to come over, he wanted us to go out, out to the zoo, as it happens and while I’m a big fan of the zoo, the weather was cool and I had a client coming over to peruse some work, so I said no.
His reply was floods of tears followed by speechlessness. He had to hand the phone over he was so choked up.
He rang off so quickly I had no right of reply, and truth is I was so upset I almost dropped everything there and then to go after him and soothe him. I had no idea he’d be that cut up… the zoo’s not going anywhere, neither am I, it will just have to wait for another day! I’m actually still tripping, and in all honestly a bit flushed and flattered that I have such an effect on him. What girl doesn’t love when a boy gets all toungetied and weak kneed when she’s around? I have to say that it’s the first time that my refusal to go on a date made him cry. Can you imagine what he’d have done if he’d asked me to marry him and I hesitated?
Poor boy, it’s pretty tough being in love with a girl when you’re only 3.