Talking To The Boys

I went to an all-girl primary and secondary school. That's 11 years of a lot of girl action (no, no, not that kinda action, although I have heard of and seen a lot of juicy bits :p). As much as I loved my girls, sometimes I wished my parents have sent me to a co-ed school instead. Being in an all-girl school for so long, and having no exposure to boys from a young age, made me painfully shy amongst them.

I remembered that up to about Form 5, I could not talk to a boy. I'm not kidding; I literally could not talk to one. I was awkward when boys were around; I got tongue-tied, and my face would flush beetroot red. It became a damn nuisance actually. Despite the parties I attended, where my friends would invite boys, I'd much rather hang out with the girls, lest I make a fool of myself.

There was this one time ( ... at band camp ... tee hee hee! Got the joke? No? Never mind :p) at church, that the situation had gotten so bad, that I remembered how ashamed I was with my actions till today. I was 12 then, and a boy had approached me to ask me to pass a message to someone else. To ANOTHER boy. It was bad enough that I was all flustered when he gave me the message. I spent almost an hour, contemplating on how to pass the message without making a fool of myself. I was so stressed out with so many thoughts that, in the end, I just fled. I told my parents that we needed to go home immediately after church service. I never did pass the message on to the other boy.

It might not be such a big deal to you, but it was to me. I remembered going home, feeling utterly ashamed of myself for not being able to do such a simple thing. Just because I couldn't conquer my awkwardness. And really, they were merely boys. Nothing so special ;)

The situation took a 180 degree turn when I went to college. Being in the engineering faculty, I was one of the very few girls in the course. Being in a male-dominated field really changed my perspective, and it became so easy for me to talk to the guys. I ended up dating one for many years, had guy besties and lived with two guys in the UK (nope, nothing spicy then. Unfortunately :p). It came to a point where I was more comfortable talking to the boys than the girls!

When I started working, I had so little girlfriends, and spent so much time being one of the 'boys', that I found it a little difficult being around girls. Tsk tsk tsk. Talk about a major change, eh?

It took me a good number of years for this to settle down, and to strike a balance of friendship between the sexes. But the experience of being in the two extreme ends, well, that's something I'll never forget.