He said he was a feminist, whatever that meant.
I was infatuated by him. He was 16 and walked like the world owed him something. I was 15, the class joker, and had an ongoing fat complex.
I couldn’t believe someone so cool was interested in me.
The abuse I experienced in my first relationship came back to me this week, after watching Adolescence and hearing people’s concerns about young boys falling into the trap of toxic masculinity today.
While we didn’t have social media to contend with, it wasn’t all that different 15 years ago.
Initially, he was charming, but little drips of nastiness started to appear. He began ignoring my texts unless we were dirty talking. When I said I didn’t want to talk about sex, I received ‘fine’ in response, followed by the silent treatment.
I didn’t know what love was, but back then, it was real. So, I complied. I assumed all boyfriends were like him, because boys love sex.
Then, he started chipping away at my personality. He would say I wasn’t funny, I was too loud, and simple. I prided myself on my funny bone, so this hurt.
‘Don’t embarrass yourself,’ he would say.
In hindsight, I don’t think he liked being outshone, because admittedly, I am hilarious.
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But at the time, I began to get less loud and more socially anxious. I thought: ‘If he loves me, which he says he does, and thinks I am annoying and stupid, then what do other people think who don’t say they love me?’
One time, terrified, I stuttered at him that he shouldn’t always turn things around to be my fault. But he didn’t listen. He gaslit me so much, I had no idea what was right and wrong, real, or imagined.
I began to question myself about whether I was just imagining it. I resolved to be less sensitive. In the end, I floated through days with a niggling, nauseous unease radiating from my chest.
Later, I recognised this as the start of my anxiety, but I didn’t have a name for it back then.
One breaktime he was annoyed at me, so he pushed his tongue into my mouth, right to the back. It was hard and aggressive, slimy and repulsive.
Another time, I remember his hands around my head, forcing his penis deeper into my mouth, making me gag.
The night I lost my virginity at 15, we didn’t have a condom. I said I didn’t want to. ‘Come on, just try,’ he said. So, I did. I was so naïve that afterwards I asked my sister if she had the morning after pill handy.
The stupid thing is, it was my idea to have sex, before I changed my mind. I knew it would make him happy, and he would be nice to me if we did. I wanted to feel loved, which I suspect I wouldn’t have craved if he didn’t make me feel worthless in the first place.
Luckily, I never had to have sex with him again. It turns out he’d been dirty talking with his ex-girlfriend. I allowed it at first, but came to my senses after a few weeks. Thank god.
After I dumped him – by hilariously explaining ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ – I failed an A-level exam, which was partly due to a useless teacher, but also because I had to sit opposite him in that class. I dreaded every lesson I had with him.
My teacher would laugh along at his pretentious jokes, and said he was like a mini-Ricky Gervais, who at the time was the dog’s bollocks. Teachers always loved him.
Post-him, I resented men. I only had sex once in seven years, when I was 17. He took the condom off, it was filmed, and he had a girlfriend, all without my knowledge.
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After that charmer, I couldn’t even flirt with men, let alone sleep with them. I would just freeze. It was so ingrained in me that if a man was sexually attracted to me, they also hated my guts and found me annoying, or they were lying about liking me full stop and it was all a big joke.
It took me over five years to realise what I had been through was abuse. People often laugh off high school relationships. I tried to laugh it off when I told my friend what he was like. ‘It wasn’t that bad,’ I said, before surprising myself by bursting into tears.
Now, I have processed it and am in a healthy relationship. But I am a little less like myself than I was before him.
He went on to become an actor. I would have been a stand-up comedian I reckon, if that niggling, nauseous unease hadn’t stopped me when I tried.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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