I am not embarrassed to say that I was a shy guy when it came to girls back in school. It is a character that stayed with me through out school and I got teased a lot by my friends for this.  To them, perhaps, they could not understand how a boy could get too scared to talk to a girl.

But the worst acrimony came in from the girls themselves who sometimes positioned them selves in my way to see if I could say anything to them.

In Makerere College where I went for Secondary education, there was a girl called Diana. Well, Diana was a beauty and she was in my class but she did get a lot of attention from the older boys who often took her out for lunch and dances on the weekends. But this did not stop me from wishing that she was my girlfriend.

Many times she had caught me staring at her; both inside ands outside the classroom and I would quickly look away in utter embarrassment. She would then smile coquettishly and I was often left in deep thoughts of what she thought of me. A child? I dared not to think of such a statement.

But one Friday afternoon after the school assembly I got the strength to approach her and tell her about what kind of torture she was putting my heart to.

I knew she would try to pretend by acting uninterested in my intentions but I would convince her that we were made to be. If she still refused, I would serenade her with a song. Which girl can refuse a guy who can sing? I thought to myself.

Armed with such conviction, I approached her. She was in a group of friends who were about three. When I told her I wanted to talk to her, she asked me why not say all I wanted to say to her in the presence of her friends.
"I want us to talk in privacy" I told her as my voice got weak with timidness.

Her friends laughed. Perhaps they had got a clue of what I wanted to say to their friend.
"Why in privacy?" asked Diana with suspicion written allover in her eyes.

Now I felt cornered. How was I going to explain this question? If I told her that the reason why I wanted to talk to her in privacy was because I wanted to tell her that I love her, this would land me in trouble especially from her friends. They would definitely make fun of me because I had this reputation of shying away from girls every time.

"It is very personal." I told her after weighing the repercussion of the former option.
Alright, she said as she stood up and we went a little distance from where she had been seated with her friends.
"What personal thing do you want to tell me, John?" she asked as she fixed her gaze me.

I immediately got scared. My knees began to wobble and my mind got blank. I stood there not saying anything to her.
"John, what did you want to tell me? If you have nothing to say do not waste my time," she said as she turned to walk away.

Like a reflex action, I grabbed her hand tightly and without thinking, I blurted: "I love you. I love you so much Diana."
Now she must have thought I was crazy and she pulled her hand away from me. 
"You fool. What do you mean by this?" she said with bitterness.

"I love you. Didn't you understand what I told you? I told her almost pleading.
I don't love you. I don't fall in love with children like you." She said and walked away immediately.

I was left wounded by her words. She had referred to me as a child. I wish I had been an older boy like those boys in High School, perhaps, she would have thought of me as something.

And as I was still thinking of all this, my misery was drowned in a pit of laughter from her and her friends that made me run into hiding. I did not come to school for a week because I was too scared to meet Diana and her cold-hearted friends.