My first crush, I’m about 5 or 6 years old, here’s this girl, my neighbour’s daughter, the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, her smile, her eyes, I remember the feeling of great excitement overcoming me from just being around her, playing around, laughing, it was beautiful. I truly enjoyed her company, I truly enjoyed just seeing her.
My second crush, the girl next door. Funny thing is I saw her just last week, never thought I would ever see her ever again but I found myself standing in front of her and again I was crushing on her, this is strange, after twenty years there she was just standing in front of me, and all the time I’m thinking to myself “Wow she is just as beautiful as I remember her.” Sadly, there was nothing I could do about, I could not act on the feeling, I could not even show what I was feeling and thinking, both our mothers were there, talking laughing catching up after twenty years of not seeing each other, all we could do was smile at each other, it was wonderful.
My third crush, I’m about twelve years old, she’s in my class, she is forever radiant, forever beautiful… are looks all that which catch our attention? Anyway, she is amazing, she is smart, and she is intelligent, for a twelve-year-old she is the ideal girlfriend. And guess what, she knows my name, not only that, she notices me, I mean she actually sees me, I’m amazed, I did not think such a lovely girl would notice such a clumsy shy boy like me. Her seeing me gave me the courage to want to be on her league, I thought she was way out of my league. As a result I begin paying attention in class, I begin doing all my school work and I do all I can to get better grades and so I began getting better grades and the better I become the more attention I seem to get, from both my teachers and my fellow class mates, I notice that all the cool kids are into sports so I begin trying out for sports too, I’m small bodied so with physical activities I struggle a bit but I push myself until I got to a point where I became good at playing soccer, unfortunately being good at sports and being a clever kid in class is not enough if you are shy and are not able to express yourself properly to those you wish to express your inner thoughts and feelings to. So, I never got around to telling her how much I like her.
My fourth crush, she has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard. I have been searching for her, I mean as wide as the internet is it does not make sense that I still haven’t found her. Every day I would watch her sing by herself when we had no work in class and everyday my heart would be touched by her amazing voice, she was sweet and a bit shy, she was fun to be around, and I hated that she had asthma, she was constantly getting sick and I wanted and prayed always that God would just heal her, so she could also enjoy being a thirteen-year-old like all her class mates. I used to sit behind her in class, so we were always getting paired together and that is how I came to know how fun she was. I liked her a lot, but I was still struggling with expressing myself and, so I never got around to telling her how much I liked her.
My fifth crush, the girl from my street, all the older kids want to date her, she is hot. I wonder to myself that if these kids who are better at expressing themselves fail to win her over who am I to even try, so I never try, I just watch her be herself, I tell myself that one day I am going to have the courage to confess my feelings for her unfortunately she moved before I could get around to doing it.
My sixth crush, another girl next door, I spent a lot time with her and, yet I am not able to say how I feel so she just sees me as a really good friend, I have never asked a girl out, I lack the confidence and the words required. I just enjoy spending time with her and I am certain that nothing will come out of it because I know with certainty that I will not get her, she is not necessarily out of my league, but I do not have what it takes to court her, so I never even attempt to. I still wonder if she liked me as much as I liked her.
My seventh crush, she likes me a lot, I don’t know why, she buys me lunch every now and then, she always wants to chill with me during lunch time and yet again and again I am not able to say the words. And that greatly affected my self-esteem, so I decided I will not confess my feelings to anyone, girls seem so complicated.
I had a couple more crushes after that whom I did not even attempt to come close to until I met her, the one who gave me some courage and confidence in myself. She was my eleventh or twelfth crush, she was smart, beautiful and quite sexy, I’m about eighteen years old, never dated, always crushed on but never had the confidence to dare ask a girl out. She noticed that I like her a lot so she made it easier for me by giving me the attention I needed, and she always use to create an atmosphere where I did not even need to have courage in order to be able to open with her so I eventually pushed myself to confess how I felt unfortunately she was already dating someone else whom she liked a lot more.
Fresh out of high school I decided that I wanted better experiences with women so I began doing my research, studying them, I wanted to be the ideal guy, funny, smart, interesting and all that which is required to be a catch, so I looked into topics such as psychology, I also looked at pick up artists to learn a thing or two, I changed my look, I began dressing like a guy who is a catch, I had already started making music but I am not as good as other musicians as yet. I learned a lot from the internet so I needed to apply what I learned, I began approaching all kinds of women that I could approach, I always pushed myself because I was still building my self-esteem, I spoke to a lot of women in all my classes in college in about three months later I was surprised to see that I was really popular amongst women, I had a lot of beautiful women wanting to just chill with me during recess and I went to the library a lot because I had taken a great interest in books, by the way I took an interest in books while I was still in high school after I had a class mate say “if you really want to be good at speaking English you have to read a lot of novels” so I followed his words and I got good at expressing myself in English and that became part of the reason why I was interesting to these women. I was and still am a good guy, the typical “good guy finish last” type but I wanted to add to my character, so I also began looking into philosophy, at the time in the neighbourhood I used to live in a really beautiful and smart girl moved in. I would see her whenever I went to visit my friends there, they told me little about her because they did not know much so one day while we were coming back from the shops I saw her walking down the street so I decided I was going to try what I have learned on her, I said hi and she said hi back with a beautiful radiant smile, all I had planned to say just left my mind and I found myself speechless, she introduced herself and I did the same, spoke to her and walked her all the way home. When we got to her gate she asked me to walk her to the shops, she went in to change and came back looking even more beautiful, I was blown away. For the first time it did not matter whether I had a great self esteem or not, the connection was so natural, so easy and beautiful. I asked her out right there and then and she said yes. A lot changed after that, I became whatever she needed me to become. I learned a lot about love because she loved love, she loved romance novels and all that, so I went all in and we dated for about a year and after a year of dating she broke up with me because she felt guilty that she could not be to me what I was to her. Oh, this was my first girlfriend, I got my first girlfriend when I was nineteen.
My second girlfriend, I changed colleges and again I was the new kid on the block, so I took advantage of it, I knew that no one knew me so I could be anything I wished to be, I became the smart, funny, sensitive guy and then I got my second girlfriend, she stalked me for a while, she was always wherever I was so from seeing her everywhere I went for her, asked her out and she said yes and it was the beginning of another beautiful relationship. Unfortunately, over time we began being too much in each other’s faces, so I jumped to the next girl who was even more beautiful and because I was now more confident and interesting I began jumping from girl to girl thinking it made me more interesting but soon I realised that this required a lot of time and energy so again I stopped dating for a while.
My eighth girlfriend went on to become the mother of my beautiful three-year-old son, unfortunately we did all we could to make it work but it did not work out, we ended up being too toxic for each other, however most of what I learned from our relationship became handy later with all my other relationships.
My ninth girlfriend was in a different province, we met and began dating online and after some months of dating we decided to meet, our first meeting was beautiful, we spent the whole day together, by then I had already bought my first car so I was able to drive to her but I was now more focused on my music so I was not dating much and our long distance relationship was sort of ideal for my situation as I needed to be more focused, we met a couple of times a year for two years the I met my tenth girlfriend, she was far more matured than I or any of my previous girlfriends were so I learned a whole lot from her, I became a better cook for her, her brother is a chef so I had to up my game. She is a poet so that inspired me to explore my creative writing side and sure enough I was surprised to see myself progressing so much with my writing that she one day set me day and actually spoke to me about writing more, so I began writing my book “A Tales Of A Lost People.”
With her I learned to hustle more, she made me want to be more so I became ten times better with my music production and I improved greatly in relationships because she would correct me when I needed correcting, she would inspire me and she would be transparent and open with me, but due to the slow pace of my music career she sort pushed me away without realising it by demanding more than I could give and having higher expectations and so forth, so our relationship just ended without either of us ending it.
When I noticed our relationship struggling I made the mistake of jumping ship too soon instead of fighting for it, so I went on to date another girl, I never broke up with her, I just lost contact and I’ve been searching for her ever since, she was my tenth girlfriend.
My eleventh girlfriend I met when I was driving a friend home one night, she was walking with her friend to the shops and it turned out that her friend was my friend’s ex, so he asked me to pull over, we picked them up, it was after we got payed from some job, so we decided to take them our right there and then. I did not ask her out, I just bought her dinner then we went our separate ways, not long after that night my friend asked me if we could take them out again so we did and this time she looked far hotter than I remember so I asked her out and it turned out she arranged the whole thing in order to ask me out, we dated, it was beautiful, I taught her how to drive, I went out of my way to do everything she wanted but sadly again it was not enough, she wanted more, more than I had the ability to give.
I dated again but this time the relationship was extremely short, I saw her having unrealistic expectations so to save myself from the heart break I ended it first.
My thirteenth girlfriend, she just broke up with me and again the reason is the same, higher expectations, great demands and my music career still seems to be picking up slowly, I want to believe I did everything right however I have gathered that I have great insecurities as several my ex-girlfriends left me for better guys or, so it would seem. I love her, I did all I could to try and make her happy, I made great sacrifices and at some point, she stopped seeing all the sacrifices. I do not blame her, she has her own dreams and wants and desires so I cannot be mad at her, I can only learn from choice that it is time that I began focusing more on myself. All my relationships I focused more on the women I dated, what they wanted, what they needed, I did all I could to try and give them all but at the end it could never be enough as I was neglecting myself for them and in doing so I was neglecting my own vision of becoming the greatest musician and composer the world has ever seen and not only a great musician but a great author and I wish to reveal the truth that have been revealed to me.
Now again life is open to me, again I can focus on me, I feel life has given me yet another fantastic opportunity to actually see my dreams and my vision realised in the physical. I wish to create an empire that is more foe the people, an empire that benefits all who are struggling with their dreams in life, my love story is not one of relationship, my love story is one of learning to love again and again and again regardless of the struggles regardless of the heart breaks regardless of been exploited. It has been revealed to me that ours is to continue giving love, continue being good, continue giving all that we can give so at the very end we can say “I have lived a good life, I have loved, I have cried, I have laughed and at the very end I still filled with immense joy, with great bliss for I have known love and I have known life through love.”
I am Teboho Tenyane, a.k.a The Jazz a.k.a Profound Nation and I will love to the very end.
