This isn't about me, but rather about a friend. It was the eighth grade, and everybody's feelings towards the opposite gender were a complicated and confusing mess. Still, dating was attempted, and the average length of a relationship hovered around a month (on a side note, I know a guy now who started dating his girlfriend in grade 7 and is about to graduate from university. Damn). Now, this friend of mine played mixed doubles badminton with this girl. As an aside, our junior high was really big on badminton and all the athletes played it. This kid wasn't a nerd by any stretch.

So, as one might expect, he starts to have feelings for his partner, and he does his very best to woo her as an eighth grader. They start messaging on Facebook, as neither had phones just yet, and everything seemed to be looking good. I was happy for the guy, since he'd had some bad luck. So, he asks her out, and she says yes, so even better. He's super excited about it, and spends most of the next day at school telling friends and what not.

Later that day, I get a message from her on Facebook, asking me if I could tell him that they weren't dating, and she thought he meant just hang out when he had asked her earlier. Now, being the slightly awkward eighth grader that I was, didn't want to be the bearer of bad news, and wasn't really sure what to do. So I said I'd tell him. In the end, I didn't. Maybe it was because I didn't want to see him upset, or maybe it was because I thought he'd take it out on me (kid didn't have a temper, but I could see this pissing him off).

So, the next day, he decides to make the big play. Thinking he has scored a girlfriend (even though they have barely spoken since he asked her out) he decides that now is the time to update his relationship status. Also, the news had gradually been getting spread around that they're dating, because eighth graders are like that, and he told a good number of people by now. A few hours later, she makes a post that I still remember word for word to this day. It said, "I am not in a relationship, despite some rumors".

He didn't check Facebook the rest of the night, and only found out about this the next day at school, when someone (that wasn't me) finally told him. I do still feel bad about not saying something to him sooner, but at the end of the day, now it's just a story that he can laugh about. When I told him a few years later that she had messaged me, he didn't care and we're still good friends.