Alright, so I was reading a post over at Baino’s place where she was detailing how a laconic guy she used to ride horses as a young teenager with melted into some kind of mush when he realised he had the hots for her. Our teenage years are always awkward periods, but I have to say if I could live that period of my life all over again, I would. I wasted quite a bit of my life then, but I lived and learned. I still loved every minute of it.

You see, I was not always Reverend B-Smooth with the ladies. Fact is, I only started going out when I turned 16, at a time when most lads my age had already gotten fairly far with one or several lassies. Playing the numbers game, Cassie seven years ago was only my second serious girlfriend. Now, if I were to be lucky enough to get a second shot at the title, she would be my twenty-first girlfriend, and if I did the past nastification, she would be the sixty-seventh woman I’ve been with (yes, I’ve kept count). Of course, while she’s very pretty and all (and possibly reading this) I have no compulsion to sleep with her because she’s better as a friend than a jilted ex.

However, before I did go out, myself and Tommy Cajones, who grew up on the same road together, used to play with the children on the street. There was a group of about ten of us, and the girl who lived literally next door to me was called Amy. She and I did a lot of things together, and I’d often help her with homework and shit like that. When I was bored, she’d teach me different arts and crafts things (gifted in that department) and we got on as well as small boys and girls do, even during that time when you’re about 7 – 10 years old and the groups split into gender specific groups. Of course, when I was 12, and the testosterone in my body suddenly realised it had spent twelve years scratching its proverbial dates., shit changed. I started to see her in a different light. She was less the girl that had spent the past eight years happily playing with me, into some kind of attractive being. I was smitten.
Of course, I didn’t have the balls to say anything, and I’d get angry with jealousy whenever she’d talk about the boys who were interested in her, which was partly the reason I took up rugby, to let off steam (TC had been playing for four years at that stage for comparative purposes). I just tried to suppress it, and I succeeded for most of it, until I heard she was going out with some fucker called Risteoir. By a happy coincidence, Risteoir played rugby at Gonzaga too, and during training one day, I dumptackled him and broke his right leg out of sheer blind rage. Risteoir was out of rugby for several years after that.
Tommy realised that something had to be done at this stage, so he told me to man up and say something, or go out with him to the Wezz and have my pick of the women. I chose the latter, I’ve never looked back.

I spent three fruitless years chasing one girl I’d never have a chance with. I spent a night at the Wezz and scored three (not the whole way, just kissing and shit) in one night. I knew my vocation then.
What of Amy? She still lives beside me, but is at college in Galway a lot of time. I believe a drunken Tommy may have told her I had feelings for her, but at this stage I was nineteen and didn;t give a shit. After all, my philosophy then and now is why fish with a rod when you can use a stick of dynamite? I made my peace with Risteoir, who now lives in South Africa, but my early teenage were like something out of a Salvador Dali painting. Or Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

Still, at least I’ve never in my entire life worn white socks.