Probably the worst way to ask a girl out. Ever.

So. First things first. Thank you for all the advice you wisdomous lot. Don’t fret yourselves, I won’t be rushing in to any enormous decisions, difficult though that is for me because I’m a throw yourself in at the deep end kind of person. Things are obviously going to take time and there’s a lot of things to work out and you needn’t worry that I will bore you with it all on here because that would be de.press.ing. But obviously I’ll keep you updated because a) I’m needy and b) I know that deep down inside you’re all nosy.

So I thought I might lift the mood a little.

By the time I got to my final year at school I was more than a little bored of it. A private school that catered for you from Year 4 all the way to Year 13, I’d been stuck with the same people for nearly 10 years, seeing them day in and day out.

As with a lot of private schools there was a huge emphasis on sport. Music and theatre were in there but no one really cared about them, it was all about being on the rugby/hockey/netball/cricket team. (No football for us. Only common people play that you know.) The ultimate in boyfriend material was to bag yourself a rugby player.

If you enjoyed going out with morons.

My group of friends were in an odd position in the social hierarchy at school – at the top of the ladder were the male sporty types, then there was the popular group of girls who funnily enough weren’t all that sporty, but were definitely slutty. Everyone rather charmingly referred to them as the Pussy Posse (proof that you can spend all the money you want, your kids are still going to be gross). Their pool of boyfriends came exclusively from the rugby boys. Then you had your geeks, freaks and weirdos.

We were placed under the Pussy Posse but above the geeks, freaks and weirdos. It was sort of a limbo position, neither one nor the other. Most of us were in the sports teams, most involved in the musical life of the school, drama, fairly high academic achievers, all but 2 of us were Senior Prefects (and yeah I was one of the two that weren’t). I found out years later that the people in Year 12 who shared the Common Room with us called us The Nice Girls. I can live with that.

So there was this one guy who had fancied me since we were about 12. He would send me Valentines Day cards and make half-hearted attempts to snog me at discos but nothing really happened. It was just one of those things that defined school – the Deputy Headmaster is the scariest human being on earth and Tom will always fancy me.

Tom was in the rugby team and we got on okay. One of the nice things about being one of The Nice Girls is that you straddled all groups, no one particularly minded who you were friends with.


In Year 13, Tom and I were chosen by one of our old form teachers to be his prefects for his Year 9 class. It involved little other than being at registration each morning and supposedly being a shoulder to cry on when they didn’t feel like going to a teacher (NB if you were a male form prefect your life was distinctly easier than a female, 14/15 year old girls are all about the drama)


During this time Tom and I got a bit closer until one fateful night in LAs.

LAs was short for Lexington Avenue, the club we all went to when we were in the 6th form at school. Now very sadly not just shut down but recently torn down, it used to be the hub of all social activity in Hull on a weekend. Our school had a little corner in LAs, turn right when you come through the doors and there was a little burger bar, you could be assured that the surrounding area would be filled with pupils past and present.

Tom and I were sat down in the burger bar, sharing a plate of chips.

“So I wanted to say something to you” he said. “Well it’s just I really fancy you, and I have done for ages and I was just wondering if maybe you’d like to go out sometime”

I thought to myself “Maybe I’ll give him a go” and was about to reply in the affirmative when this came out of his mouth...

“I mean I really do like you. I mean so much that I’d be prepared to go out with you even though you’re not in the pussy posse”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, you know because I’ll probably get the piss taken out of me for going out with you, but I like you that much I’m willing to put up with that.”

...


...


Who knows what possessed him to say it. I think it was an attempt to illustrate just how much he fancied me that went incredibly awry.

“Yeah Tom, I’m going to go ahead and say no to that.”

He was quite visibly stunned.

“Well I won’t wait around forever you know” came his reply

I didn’t want to laugh in his face. I felt that would be cruel. He obviously meant everything he said (which was half the problem) but in his little way I think he genuinely thought he was paying me the ultimate compliment. What could I say to him?

“I totally understand. I’ll just have to live with that” was my eventual response.

There were no hard feelings. A few months later we all left school to venture off on our own lives and I’ve actually never seen him again.


But I will remember him fondly, he provided me with one of the funniest stories I’ve ever had the pleasure to recount.