SOMETIMES IT TAKES a bad situation to shake you into reality. For me, though, it took two really bad experiences before I wised up. I learnt a valuable lesson then and have never made the same mistakes again.
One of the things I realized from these bad times was that as people, we tend not to listen to anyone because we always feel we can handle the situation and we know best. Then, when the whole thing falls apart, we look for others to blame for our misery when in fact the only person responsible is us. We did that bad thing to ourselves because we failed to heed good advice.
So I want to share my life story with the public and maybe someone can learn from it and not make the same stupid mistakes that I did.
I fell into my trap because of my love for older men. I always found them more attractive than boys my age. Maybe I did because it was easier to talk to them on the school bus, or they could help me with my schoolwork. Whatever the reason, I just felt more comfortable with them.
So from the time I was 14 when I had my first boyfriend, a 17-year-old, I was going out with older boys. After him was a 20-year-old with whom I had my first bad experience. I was 16 at the time and was in my last year at school. I used to meet him in the bus stand on evenings and we would walk around town, go into stores, look at clothes and other things, talk and make sport. It was a happy time.
On weekends, when I could get out of the house, we used to go to one of the four cinemas that operated then – the Plaza, Empire, Olympic or Globe – in the evening. He and I would go with other friends of his and we had a lot of laughs.
One of the things I never liked was the way the guys and girls used to dare each other, and he told me that you had to go through with the dare or you would be banished from the group. The one dare I was there for was when a guy was encouraged to strip and run into the ladies room in the Plaza. He did go to the door, stripped down to his underwear, but as he was about to step in, an alert worker who must have overheard our conversation stopped him.
Anyway, it was during one of these cinema outings that he was dared to pull down my panties and get me to sit on him. I didn’t want to do it but after a while I had to give in because they were all looking at me and calling me a big baby for refusing.
So I sat on top of him but by that time his pants was down around his ankles. I struggled a bit not to allow him to insert his penis but eventually he got it in and had intercourse with me in front of all of them.
As my skirt was over my legs no one could see anything, but still, I knew they all knew what had happened and it was most embarrassing. After that I never went out with him again. In fact, I did not go out with anyone else for years. And that brings me to mistake number two.
I was working and started going out with an older man again who was really nice to me. He told me he was not involved with anyone, and I believed him. My mother did not like him, as she did not like the other guy I had my first bad experience with.
But again I did not listen; if only I had been wiser.
This policeman used to come to my house and used to sleep and eat as if he lived there. I really loved him and thought that our relationship was going somewhere.
Sometimes I used to hear talk that he had somebody else but I never took on that talk because I figured people just like to gossip about you when they see you happy.
Anyway, one day I saw him chatting up a woman and that night when he passed and I asked him about it, he cursed me and told me I was stupid to listen to talk.
I felt assured afterwards and thought nothing else about it. Then about two weeks later the same woman came into the store where I worked and said she was my boyfriend’s wife.
You could imagine my shock. I just stood there staring at her in disbelief.
She got on to me when she found my driver’s licence in his pocket. I had given it to him to renew. She told me I was breaking up her family and told me that what I was doing was wrong. Then she went on and on.
As she spoke, the other workers gathered as well as the customers. All I could do was stand there, put my hand to my face and cry. It was the most humiliating moment I have ever been through. I walked off the job and never returned. I felt that bad.
If I had listened to my mother that would have never happened. That is why I am telling you today to listen to somebody you trust when you think that you’re in love. Sometimes they see things that you never can in your emotional state.
