Primary School boyfriends: Where did it all go wrong?!

Whilst doing research for my dissertation, I’ve had to re-visit my childhood years to read numerous fairytales and myths. It got me thinking about primary school and the simple life where all I worried about was my ponytail being in the middle of my head or what I would be having as my 11am snack. Weekly gossip consisted of who had started wearing a bra and who had the most smelly gel pens in their pencil case. My highlight of the week was my best friend coming for tea and the only part I hated was swimming on a Wednesday and those caps that ripped half your hair out.

Remember getting married at primary school? It was the cutest thing. Walking down the aisle in your little pinafore dress with a bunch of grass blades you had picked from the play field, tied with your prettiest hair band. Obviously not real marriage, just a fake lil’ ceremony at lunch time where you exchanged plastic rings with each other and you were officially husband and wife for about three days, until one of you lost the ring or in my case, forced it off and broke it.  There was always that one girl who made her way round half the boys in the class and got married about eight times in year six AND had a full on kiss at the end.

I always remember primary school boyfriends being so nice though; they would write poems, send love letters and even buy you bracelets and sweets. They would carry your book bag and fight to the death just to sit next to you in assembly. One day, my primary school boyfriend jumped over the fence and picked me a rare flower from the field behind the school. Who knew?!

This was in the days before mobile phones of course. If you wanted to speak to your boy you would have to ring his house phone. Ringing that landline for the first time was like a rite of passage, but it had to be done; you didn’t want to turn up to school on Monday and be faced with a divorce note.

But what happened?! When did these lovely boys turn and why? They were so nice in year six, but then boom, year seven arrives; they’ve discovered hair gel and they’ve just been given their first Motorola flip phone. Before you know it, your husband is txting half your maths class and refusing to sit with you at lunch. What is a girl to do? You’ve heard he’s been holding hands with that blonde girl who does gymnastics. You see him waiting for her after school and you know it’s time to get a divorce. Everything’s fallen apart, is this what heartbreak feels like? You shake it off and ask your mum to drive you and the girls to the cinema. You get a large popcorn and treat yourself to a raspberry slush puppie. The sad thing is that at the age of twelve, you just don’t realise how many times you will feel like this in the upcoming years. Six years down the line, your mate has just found out her fella has been sending questionable snapchats and even has his own Tinder account. Popcorn and slush puppie has transformed into a Dominos 2 for Tuesday, a large bar of Galaxy Cookie Crumble, and several bottles of Rosè.