My imaginary boyfriend
Hi friends,
Over the next six weeks I’m taking part in a personal writing course called Postcards Home by the brilliant Huma Qureshi. Each week we’re delivered an essay and some homework. I thought it could be fun (and a chance for some accountability) if I share the homework, or simply what memories come up for me when reading the essays, here. I hope that sounds OK to you.
So… Here’s a memory that came running to the front of my mind this week. The memory of my imaginary boyfriend.
I was probably about 10 or 11 when I first met C. He and his family stayed at the same cottages my family and I stayed at in Cornwall. My dad is from Bodmin, so we’d visit each summer to spend time with our grandparents, sip in the sea air and stroke the nose of the donkey that lived at the cottages. A number of families would also come each summer, all of us staying in the same complex, the parents drinking wine together while the kids ran around.
It was here where I spied on my sister having her first kiss, where I got (gently) dipped in the pool, fully-clothed, by a prankster parent and where I met a boy I’d become infatuated with, C.
The details of us becoming boyfriend and girlfriend are fuzzy. Secret messages passed along by older siblings and a loose agreement to write to one another after the summer was over. When we returned home, I kept up with my side of the bargain, pouring my childish heart and soul into letters, sent with a sense of hope and belonging.
Months went by with no reply, but I persevered, sending letter after letter, declaring my love and my excitement for summer when we’d see each other again. I told friends about my long-distance boyfriend (who, in reality, lived pretty close by), showing them pictures, sighing over his blonde hair and freckled cheeks.
As the summer approached, I got nervous as I was still empty handed. But then, as if someone had heard my fears, he wrote back. One letter, that was kind (if not a little lacking in the declarations of love). I held it close though as if it were proof of my existence.
When we returned to the cottages, I was full of nerves but also excitement. Any excitement, however, was quickly quashed when C’s older brother N asked to speak to me. He explained that C didn’t like me ‘like that’ and that he had pushed C to reply to me, to save me from being hurt. The decision I thought had taken place about us being a ‘couple’, had never happened. This love story was fabricated, and my boyfriend wasn’t a boyfriend at all.
The excitement gave way to shame, as I avoided C’s gaze the entire trip, spending time with the animals instead. Not too long after that, the era of the cottages was over and my imaginary boyfriend disappeared from my life.
When I think back to this memory, I’m saddened by how desperate I was to be wanted, even at that young age. It reminds me of a quote from the movie Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind…
“Why do I fall in love with every woman I see that shows me the least bit of attention?"
Seeking validation by male attention is a pattern that repeated itself in my teens and twenties as I created elaborate love stories in my head about any man who looked at me, fell for people who didn’t want me like that, and took their lack of attention as proof of my unworthiness.
I’ve come a long way since then, and while I’m in a long-term relationship with someone who makes me feel loved and wanted every day, I’d like to think if the situation was different and I wasn’t in a relationship… I’d be OK. I’d recognise my worth. But honestly? I can’t say that for sure. Some patterns run deep and take a long time to wipe away, but being able to see them has to count for something, right?
I’d love to hear a story from your childhood too, hit reply or share in the comments.
I’ll be back soon, until then - take care.
Kat xx
I get that whole "seeking validations from others" bit. When Sally Fields won her Oscar and said "you like me, you really like me," I cringed, but got it.