As I do it a lot, I spent a huge amount of time today stalking people on instagram as one of the people from my class posted something - so naturally I checked who liked her picture. I stumbled upon a long list of ex-friends/people I've just outgrown due to distance when I saw a familiar name pop up.

Wait. This is the guy I had a crush on in fifth grade.

Of course I stalked the heck out of his page and looked at his photos ten thousand times (although my bff of course keeps me up-to-date with the out and abouts of my old class). And it initiated something: A kind of throwback to all the guys I ever had a "crush" on as a kid.

When I was in kindergarten and I was still convinced (like I kind of am today - although it's not possible and I know that) that you could just pick out a boy who seemed remotely nice, like him, he'll like you back and that's it. Maybe I've watched too many movies back then or I read too many books in elementary school. Anyways , there was this boy called P (obviously his name is longer, but I don't want anything to slip through to anyone) and he was my first and I think ever male friend. Of course little Sarah thought "You can't be friends with a guy without being in love with him!" (funny enough still a thing that clings onto me today although I also know that is completely dumb). So when we entered elementary school, I was willing to have a crush on him. However, it turned out that he was an asshole who did everything his buddy told him (who I was mutual enemies with) so he ended up annoying the f out of me so I just stopped talking to him.

Then of course, I needed to fill up that space, so a few days into elementary school, I feel for this guy who perfected the Justin Bieber hairstyle already in first grade. At that time, I also watched Pokémon and you might remember how attractive Brock turned whenever he met a girl he liked? Yeah, you know kinda know what that boy looked like or who I made him up to be. Unfortunately, a "friend" of mine quickly spilled the secret to him when we were doing a group project and he proceeded to ignore me. Did that stop me from liking him? Nope.

This even got to the point that I actually wrote my first and only love letter to him (an ugly drawing and some cheesy line like "you are the best person on this whole entire world) and sneaked it into his mailbox with my mum on Valentine's Day (I know it can barely get any cheesier than that). He ignored that, too, up until he told some guys in my class in 5th grade and they started making fun of me for it. That was the glorious end to this story.

However, as I already said, I always needed someone to fill the void so I took it upon me to fall for one of the only guys in my class who knew about the love letters but still treated me in a friend sort of way. On top of that, he was really funny and I just really liked that back then. He was the only person, apart from P, who was kind of a male friend to me (although, you've seen the pattern, I destroyed that with my "crush" too).

I was pretty open about my secrets back then so I told some friends, and one of them was like the most popular girl in our class. She asked me if she could tell him, and I said she could do that after the last day of school because we would be moving anyways so I wouldn't have to face him. As always, things don't always turn out the way you plan and she went up to him the following day. Now, bear in mind that I did not find that out until like two months after I left because my bff eventually told me. So when we went to the cinema with our class and coincidentally sat next to each other and his hand was so close to me and sometimes brushed my arm or my leg, I was of course all happy and bubbly. During the break in the movie (this isn't even a thing nowadays anymore) he asked me if I had a crush on somebody. Taken aback, my bff and I invented some ridiculous story about a violet cactus and had a lot of fun. Things got even weirder when he hugged me out of nowhere on our last school day (hugging also wasn't a thing back then). It all got me optimistic he liked me, too. We texted for a while after I left but stopped eventually and I found out the truth and then distance put the last thing on top of the reasons why I stopped liking him that way.

What's the moral of the story? (besides my inability to have a real crush on people or being friends with a male person or differentiate between a meaningless crush and real love)

I don't really know, maybe just that things go on, you learn more along the way and you can only learn from past experiences. And also that so many things play a role as to why you're the person you're today and you can't control it, as well as I can't control who I'm going to be in ten years, or even twenty.

Making mistakes is a part of life and maybe it's wrong of myself to be scared to open myself up to people just because of these bad memories. Well, maybe I'll somehow learn how to. Until then, I hope my mistakes in life and love help me to find a life of my own.

xxx Sarah