Queer Valentines: Powerful, Poignant, or Painful?
I Embarrassed Myself and My Teacher on Valentine’s Day
The Painful Confusion of a Valentine’s Mix-up
James Finn’s early childhood experience of Valentine’s Day reminded me of my own — also an encounter full of embarrassment, but perhaps not in the way you would expect.
I was five years old, in my first year at school, and there was a girl in my class, who I really liked. Her name was Emma. I remember us sitting on the carpet at story-time together, giggling our heads off, and our teacher telling us sharply to be quiet. It was the first time I had been told off by a teacher and I didn’t like the feeling at all — I was usually well-behaved and obedient, always looking for praise. Yet something about Emma had made me drop my perfectionist guard.
My only other memory of Emma (I only attended that school briefly) is a vivid scene of distress. Emma is centre-stage howling, her face red and scrunched up, one leg crossed over the other, and a pool of urine spreading across the floor of the cloakroom. The teacher is pushing us away and there’s nothing I can do to help Emma.
For some reason (that would only become clear sixteen years later), this girl elicited strong feelings within me.
When Valentine’s Day came, I made a card for her, signed with a question mark. I don’t know if our teacher had offered to distribute cards, or if I had just decided that she should in order to maintain the secrecy of it all. In any case, I ran up to my teacher, shy with embarrassment, handed her the card, and ran away without saying anything.
She opened it, read it, exclaimed something about how sweet it was and thanked me, and then put the card on her desk. I felt the heat of embarrassment rise up my neck and face and a heavy weight fall over my body. Something had gone wrong, the teacher was withholding my card from Emma, I didn’t know why and I didn’t know what to do.
As soon as school ended that day, I ran out to my mother, the solver of all my social problems, and desperately told her what had happened. She went into school, found my teacher and explained the dilemma. I expect that the teacher was mortified by her mistake. My mother came back out and explained to me that my teacher’s name was also Emma, and so she had thought that the card was for her — perhaps not so hard a mistake to make as I was always clamouring to be the teacher’s pet.
I suppose that Emma received the card the next day, but I don’t remember anything about her reaction or if she knew it was from me.
Years later, when I was thirteen or so, I sent a card to a friend again, but this time I pretended to myself and everyone else that it was a (rather cruel) joke. Better to be mean than humiliated, right?
This story is a response to the Prism & Pen writing prompt, Queer Valentines: Powerful, Poignant, or Painful?
