Give In To Me

So recently I spent some time in a… clinic… you may call it.
In this clinic boys outnumbered girls by quite a stretch.
I suppose men are just better at going all out at something… you know really committing to the extreme. Otherwise mankind would never have gone to the moon, surely.
I mean, I would think that if we were only women (that is if we haven’t killed each other off by then) we would have said:
“The moon? Well it’s pretty but why spend millions on a journey to a dead rock if we can spend it on clothes and shoes? Oh and the hungry… and whatever”.

Anyway, so being female, I attracted the attention of a specific young man. This was a nice turn of events because I haven’t really been noticed in a while. Probably because of my previously sour expression and bitter disposition towards men.
But it took about five minutes for me to start feeling extremely nervous. His pursuit of me smacked of obsession, jealousy and possessiveness… does this remind you of someone?
I think I’ve seen this movie before…

Anyway, I was flat broke and not exactly in my right mind when I packed for this little breakaway so he took it upon himself to supply me with a constant stream of cigarettes and candy. Poor boy even bought my favourite smokes from the tuck shop, which was close to R40 per packet.
Young love...so stupid.
But it turned into a really fun game because I refused any and all gifts from him.
“Keep it, I am not a hooker you can buy!”
“But I don’t want to sleep with you!”
“WHAT?! WHY NOT?!”

I am however an avid smoker and was running out very quickly, since the main activity in said clinic was
a.) sitting around
b.) looking around
c.) smoking

So he devised a way of commandeering a different person everyday to hand me my packet of smokes and deny all knowledge of the benefactor’s identity, physical appearance and/or sexual preference.
You see, there were a few gay and/or bisexual (best of both) people there with which I became friends in order to feed my natural curiosity and need for philosophical conversations… also gay guys are the only other people I can talk to about shoes without also having to talk about babies and salad. Can you imagine a world with only women?! This brings up a whole new problem with that scenario.
Of course one day my resident gay male friend critisised my choice of shoes with a specific outfit and he was right but I didn’t have matching shoes handy.
He added almost as an afterthought: “If any of the guys point out the mismatch, they’re mine”.
Enough said.

So, the mystery of the cigarette dispenser guy took me about five seconds to solve, I mean duh. Besides some of the other boys have come to me complaining of this guy threatening them because of their sitting next to me at the table or having too long a conversation with me or generally looking in my direction (crazy guys always seem to leave the "Crazy" bulletpoint out of their résumés).
As flattering as this should have been, it sent me reeling into a mixture of ice cold fear that culminated into white hot fury.
But I had a dilemma: if I told him off, my cigarette stash will evaporate and I would be forced to quit entirely since I am also too proud to ask my father to bring me some.
So I asked my mother.
Who could only bring them three days later. In which time I would have lost my mind and possibly used a plastic teaspoon to slash at myself.

So I nursed the last precious packet for as long as possible.
And then I started the back pedaling.
The strangest thing was that my old fearful behaviour towards possessive men came back full throttle and rendered me weary of stepping on possessive toes because they do not take well to it, speaking from experience.
So I created the Buddy System where my resident girlfriend and I must be side-by-side at all times to avoid confrontation at all cost. This could not possibly be followed through because of the ADHD trend running through the patients/inmates.
He caught me on the hop, one eve and told me that he will look after me and that I can lean on him. This softened my heart a little but I’m not the ninny I used to be… Plus he had one of his front teeth knocked into a bluish grey shade, which is a firm deal breaker…
I KNOW that sounds shallow but teeth are big for me, OKAY?! At least I’m not spewing shit about giant diamonds anymore!

I deflected and didn’t make eye contact and giggled nervously and perspired profusely until my friend came back and thankfully whisked me away once she assessed the situation.
The next day my cigarettes were done and I was a nervous wreck. What will I smoke? Is smoking dried kikuyu mood-altering?! Can a person smoke coffee? How about hair? Will the nurses inject me with powerful medication if I faked a fit?
I was fretting away at a bench, waiting for group to start when he sat down across from me and said he’s been waiting for me to open my file and see what’s inside. I don’t know how the hell he got it in there but I didn’t have time to think about it.
Is it cigarettes?! PLEASE be cigarettes!!!

Not.
A Letter.
I froze straight up.
This is bad, this is real bad. I hate when crazy people write me letters. Fucksakes, why can’t they just say it?! Or fuck off?
I had my buddy-on-demand read it first for fear of losing my temper and spontaneously combusting, leaving only a brown smudge on the ceiling to remember me by.

It was a love letter.

Not only a love letter. A love letter that transformed my buddy into a blubbering girly girl (it’s soooooo romantic! I can’t believe it! Giggle giggle, sigh sigh).
I must admit, of all the love letters I’ve received (not many, I scare men) this was the best. It almost brought me to tears and I. Don’t. Cry.
Because of its beauty I have decided to share it but kept the writer anonymous because my intention was never to humiliate him.
Here follows the letter:

Hallo!
More, ek sit hier en dink met trane in my oe. Hoe kan die lewe so unfair wees aan so lieflike siel?!
‘n Person wat lewe so uitdaag met ‘n smile op haar gesig, en al slaan die lewe haar down, sy hou aan opstaan en terug baklei. Almal het hulle eie fight om te fight maar sy, sterk persoonlikheid, slim, barmhartig, altyd vrolik, en met maniere uit die boonste rakke.
Ek kry net nie uit my gedagtes haar great smile en daai oe, wat ‘n paar (meer as twee) stories kan vertel, nie.
En met dit soveel seer en ongelukkigheid en niemand sien of stel belang in die stories in haar wonderlike oe nie.
Ek wens ek kon ‘n tyd en plek kry om vir jou te se hoe ek oor jou voel. Ek verstaan dat jy deur ‘n moeilike tyd gaan maar ek moes dit net uitkry en vir jou se.
Ja dis lame dat dit ‘n brief is maar ek is nie altyd bevoorreg om in jou geselskap te wees nie. Daar is baie wat ek kan offer maar net tyd sal dit besluit.
Dan dink ek sal dit saakmaak, want ‘n dame soos jy verdien meer as ‘n hopeless romantic.
Ek wens ek kon jou pyn en disappointment absorbeer.
Ten minste weet ek die Here weet watse diamand hy geskape het, wat nogsteeds op die bodem van die diepste see le, soos ‘n perel wat nognie opgegaps is deur seerowers nie.
Daar is nie genoeg sterre in die melkweg of konstellasie om te verduidelik hoe ek voel, en die respek wat ek vir jou het nie.
Weereens, die sigarette was ‘n geskenk gewees en ek wil niks daaruit baat nie.
So, jammer vir die brief metode maar aangesien ons albei hou van skryf, het ek gedink dit sal okay wees.
Askies ek’s old school.

Astonishingly word got out almost immediately and people were handing me sympathy cigarettes left, right and center. Which cleared up the central issue for me.
But I had to tell him I didn’t feel the same. The kak thing about unrequited love is that while A falls for B, B is falling for C, who seems to have fallen for someone else a long time ago, and so none of us felt the same way about each other.
Why you do this to me, God?

I wrote back. This was fun because it reminded me of how much I love writing.
I tried very hard to be honest and upfront but I felt sorry for him and he didn’t deserve a cruel rejection, so I smeared myself black in the letter to try and let him down easy. Basically I made a very persuasive argument about me being an awful sociopath who eats little boys’ hearts on crumpets.
It didn’t work.
He caught me around a turn again and insisted that it was all a trick to “scare him away”, which is exactly what it was, HELLO!!!
So I had to say it to his face, which I resented but hey, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
His face didn’t understand either.
So I finally created the Multiple Buddy System, where I would basically latch myself onto the next person passing by, whenever he advanced on me.
Poor boy.

I honestly liked him but…you know…not like that. Plus the whole thing started reeking of soap opera bullshit and I’m just too old and tired for that.
Days passed, the month ended and I was sprung, the theme of the place still echoing in my mind, the words on everyone’s lips: “Give in to me”