Junior High

Junior high was more awkward than elementary school had been, for now I was surrounded by people only a year or two older than I who somehow knew infinitely more about dating than I did. A few of the older girls actually were dating, even if that meant only hand holding. Many girls openly gossiped about their crushes, which, after the horrible cringing awkwardness that was the Cherub, I completely failed to comprehend. Thusly I overcompensated by always fervently denying it when I did have a crush on a guy. Sometimes I even went so far as to pretend I didn't like him at all. This typically backfired since it sometimes turned out that he actually did like me, to my complete befuddlement. The girls in elementary school had been cruel to me, a trend that continued into junior high, and thusly I developed low self-esteem. It wasn't that I truly cared or believed what they said, but when so many people seem to dislike you, it's easy to believe that it must be universal. I had no real reason to believe that boys disliked me, but the girls did, so it stood to reason.

Boys were not much different than they had been in elementary school. They still mostly talked to each other and ignored girls except to tease them. Unlike in previous years, though, they were usually more flattered than appalled at hearing of a girl's interest. Unfortunately, more often than not, said flattery promptly went to the guy's head, and he would mercilessly tease the girl. All the more reason, I decided, to keep my crushes as secret as possible.

Boys were as bad as I was at expressing interest in the opposite sex, presumably because they were equally lost. How to flirt wasn't something that was taught in class and therefore had to be gleaned from the media's absurdly twisted variations. Failing that, I think a lot of boys had the same idea I did of pretending to hate the girls they liked. It mostly worked.

I have listed the stories in chronological order, plus there is a color coded timeline below the list.