first crush...

Do you remember your first crush? I do...

Was going through my *treasure* and found his letters... and a gambar of him. Gosh... that brought back some memories :) And just now while browsing through a friend's facebook profile, I found him on my friend's list-of-friends.

We met through the Anugerah Bakat Muda Pelajar Cemerlang Caltex Oil Malaysia Ltd. Tak lama after we got our SPM results. In total, 27 students from all over the country received the award. One of them ended being a scholar of my organisation like me... but he has since left and is now working in the US. Two were kids of my mom's friends. One was the son of orang sekampung my dad. And the guy I had a crush on happened to be the son of my dad's former lecturer kat Universiti Malaya... small world!

I had just left school... all *green* and tak reti pasal boys. Being in an all-girls boarding school, I had minimal interaction with the opposite sex. There's an all-boys boarding school nearby but they were sworn enemies (despite the fact that my dad went to that school and subsequently both my brothers).

Part of the award programme was a 2-day (I think) gathering with all 27 recipients... where we were taken to the Caltex HQ, got dinners, lunches and a few other activities. Lots of opportunity to mingle and flirt, haha. I remember being around a lot of specky people (what is it about brainiacs and glasses?? heh), many were quite nerdy goody two-shoes looking. I'd like to think that I wasn't, hehe...

I don't know what it was that attracted me to him. I think it was his smile and easy going, friendly ways. He's tall (though not the tallest of the bunch), nice looking and smart. I discovered down the road that I'm often attracted men who are tall (taller than me at least), generous with their smile and somewhat intellectual.

We exchanged address and phone number (masa tu mana ada email) and promised to keep in touch. Masa tu I already knew that I was heading for Melbourne and he made me promise to write to him. Upon returning home after the award ceremony I had the strong urge to talk to someone about him. Luckily the next day a friend came over to bid me farewell and I shared with her how I had felt. She persuaded me to give him a call, which I did and we ended up talking for over an hour.

Here I was, mula merasa *perasaan* and had to leave for another country. Takde can nak buat apa-apa, cheh! I wrote to him once I had settled down in Melbourne and he sent a prompt reply (back in those days, 1 week is considered cepatlah). We corresponded via old-style mail/aerogramme... continued to do so even when he was in UK. The following year both of us happened to be back in Malaysia at the same time. We met up, went out for a movie date... tapi in the end things didn't *berkembang*. Nonetheless we remained friends, to this day. A distant friend that is... more like acquaintance lah now.

The last time I saw him was at a majlis tahlil of a mutual friend 2 years ago. He looked the same, still has that boyish look albeit the glasses are now smaller, hehe.

See if you can spot him in this old newspaper cutting...