Gummy Bear Rings & Crushed Dreams

Hey there! Lev here again, your local (now) 17-year-old drama queen reporting straight from high school where the real drama (allegedly) lives. But who are we kidding? Nothing matches the catastrophes that punctuated our primary school years. Just a bunch of tweens with too much sugar and hormones. Welcome to the chaos.

Let's start with the the gummy bear proposal. Yes, you read that right! My friend was proposed to with a Haribo ring.

Picture this - Gilbert (not his real name, of course.), all suited up in his little tux, presents a gummy bear ring to my best friend. The poor guy professed his everlasting love. This wasn't your run-of-the-mill friendship exchange, oh no. The guy got down on one knee in front of our shared dorm room, the kind of grand gesture you'd expect from a cheesy romance flick rather than a 10-year-old.

My friend, bless her heart, turned him down. Gilbert cried, we all gasped. Poor boy had a sensitive soul; he once cried because he was too cold. I hope he's found some thermal socks and a way to mend his broken heart. I remember him walking away, heartbroken and probably wondering how he'd ever eat a gummy bear again.

In the midst of all this, I secretly harbored a wish. A small, quiet hope. Would someone give me a gummy bear ring too? Now, I must confess, while I felt for him, there was a part of me that kinda wanted to be proposed to with a gummy bear ring. Odd, isn't it? I can’t really explain it; maybe I just wanted a taste of that dramatic pre-teen love saga.

But here's where things took a nosedive. My other best friend, the one who wasn't crushing innocent boys' dreams with her rejection, snagged a dance with my secret crush. Yep, you guessed it. As she twirled around the dance floor with the apple of my eye, I was crying a river in our shared dorm room. You know, my parents always warned me about wild parties, but they never mentioned anything about crushing heartaches. There I was, swooning over my secret crush, Alex (not his real name, again), who was, unfortunately, too busy dancing with my best friend.

Yeah, you heard it right. I was single, my crush was taken (by my bestie, no less), and I was swaying on the dance floor alone, hiding a little sniffle here and there under the guise of being a strong, independent woman, all while doing the cha-cha slide.

That night, I cried my eyes out in our shared room. I pinned my tears on the classic 'single forever' trope, because let's face it, being a lonely single potato was way more acceptable than admitting that my crush had metaphorically drop-kicked me into the friend zone. It's not like I could announce, "Hey, she's dancing with the love of my ten-year-old life!" So I stuck with the safer option: "I'm sad because I'm single."

The aftermath of my heartbreak manifested in a dramatic, pre-teen rebellion. I changed my WhatsApp profile picture to "Single Forever." If you think that's over the top, then you don't know the depths of pre-teen despair.

Surprisingly, my very public cry for sympathy worked. The unexpected happened - my then-crush Alex, Mr. Taken himself, messaged me saying it was okay to be single. At that moment, I didn't know whether to feel elated that he noticed me or to cry harder because he was comforting me over a solo life.

Flash forward two years, my friend (the dream crusher, not the love thief) finally spilled the beans to Jack about my once upon a crush. Drumroll, please...he admitted he had a crush on me too back then! Yes, you read that right - could-have-been love thwarted by a lack of communication and an abundance of gummy bear rings.

Remember folks, if you're gonna propose, maybe skip the gummy bear ring. And if you like someone, for the love of all that is holy, just tell them. Or you might just end up with a sad, dramatic blog post like this one.

But hey, I survived! So here's to the teenage resilience, gummy bear rings, and a hope that the rest of our love lives aren't as disastrous as primary school dances.

Until next time! <3