That’s what a certain male character says in the game Dragon Age: Origins, when he, er, tricks your character into admitting that yes, you like him. And then he kisses you. Out of the blue. That’s called kiss-theft, and it’s the non-refundable, non-returnable, and unjailable kind. (My character seemed to be quite happy snogging his face, but that’s because some programmer wrote a code for it, not because she found his lips yummy. But hey, maybe they were. Go figure.)

Apparently, relationships kind of start this way. There aren’t any going down on one knee or coming up to you with bouquet of roses or holding a teddy bear that says “will you go out with me” or even the traditional “check the box” kind. I always wondered when people actually start dating, and how they remember anniversaries, e.t.c. I recall one of my friends happily telling me it was their three months anniversary, and me having no idea what that meant. I was sixteen, and my head was filled with Hobbits. (They still are, but that’s besides the point.) Anyway, there might be people who would have those moments, but alas I will not be one of them. Here’s what happened.

Recently I became very friendly with a male species who lived in Brussels. Well, it wasn’t a recent occurrence; we’ve been talking since January. When you make a room full of teenagers and early twenty-something year olds who are all pathetically single and pretty much live in two-dimensional worlds, a few of them are bound to decide that living in 2D is enough and that they might want to venture out into the real world where people aren’t programmed to say certain things. When two such people are male and female, pretty much agree on what they believe are important, and are on par with appearances, things progress before two hapless inexperienced barely-out-of-childhood people whose social ineptitude should be given prizes can realise. And before they themselves realise, the surrounding people decide the fate for them: “you guys are dating”.

Actually, scratch that. That happened in the game as well.

Anyway, that’s what seems to be happening to me, as of recently. We were talking, some intimate moments were shared, we both talked to our family (there’s this boy/girl, we really get on well together), and before we knew it they automatically thought “this is getting somewhere”. Maybe we were, I don’t know, because we’re pretty much walking in the darkness and when you’re walking in the dark, you might be walking in circles. Or backwards. Or maybe you’re moonwalking and actually not getting anywhere.

Alistair tricked Amarina into admitting that she had feelings for him, after he admitted that he had feelings for her. Fine. He then kissed her. That’s called theft, but unfortunately Ferelden (or the Landsmeet) didn’t feel like putting up emergency services for the conveniences of the citizens and therefore the elven mage had no one to report to. And then before the two of them knew (I’m pretty sure Amarina thought “we kissed” and that was where the extent of her thoughts ended), the people around them were decidedly thinking that they were now an item. It was a bit like brainwashing. Keep getting told that you are with someone and one day you realise that that is your mindset. Especially when you’re inexperienced.

I thought that was just an in-game plot. I am NOT Amarina, Alistair is a figment of imagination, I don’t live in Ferelden and Mr Ezra Pound (He’s not actually Ezra Pound, but he shall be referred as such as part of a joke) isn’t Alistair. But apparently these things do happen. It was a bit like Final Destination, where you just miss the signs hitting. Over. Your. Head. With. A. Sledgehammer and before you know it, things line up and the car crashes and you’re screaming your head off.

Signs? What signs? Well, I missed them, but now that I think about it, they might have been neon flashing signs. First, I had a completely wrong impression of him. I thought he was a girl. Granted, there was nothing to give away his gender, but still. So when he casually said “I am not a girl”, I apologised profusely and cursed him inside my head so that my embarrassment could give way to irrational and self-righteous anger.

Second, what seems to be inappropriate conversations in private with euphemisms and innuendos. Maybe I read far too many novels but they just spill out when I don’t watch myself. He caught on (curiously enough, because he claims that he’s a complete innocent in these dealings… hmm.), and he was already interested by then, but I had no idea, because evidently I need to get whacked in the face with a big billboard sign that says “I HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU” in order to notice it. I think at this point, it was the point of no return. That being said, I probably wouldn’t have said these things if I was horrified and repulsed. Two points for Gryffindor (by the way, Gryffindor is in my spell check. Mindset was not. Something is wrong here).

Third, our surroundings just simply decided that we were an item. In this case, it wasn’t the evil witch in the back or the faithful bard who loves shoes a bit too much. It was his mother (or maybe it was him, and this was entirely his chicanery, and I fell into a trap and broke a leg and now can’t get out of the well… okay, I’m victimising myself. I’ll stop). Since his family knew about me at this point, his mother asked him how to explain me to other relatives (or something. Why this was necessary eludes me). Since “this girl I’m very interested in but she lives south of the border and we only talk online in a game chatroom but we talk every single day and sometimes she’s naughty to me and I don’t mind it at all” was a bit of a mouthful, he said:

“Girlfriend.”

So that was how I was introduced to his other relatives. At this point, correction at a later date is a bit futile. I also didn’t care, and my skin wasn’t crawling with the idea, and my mind wasn’t telling me to immediately log off and curl under the covers and await the angels’ trumpets and the second coming of the apocalypse, so I told him so.

He asked if it was okay. What was I supposed to say? “Yes darling, in fact, I do”? That’d be lying and hurting people for no particularly good reason. “OMG I’M OVERJOYED XD” was not what I was feeling, probably because I’m not fourteen. So I said yes. And that was that.

Bryony Jones once told me that someone will just suddenly pop up when you aren’t looking. I wasn’t looking. I had reverted back to me at age 15, when my head was filled with non-existent characters and writing and… stuff that really don’t pertain to real life. I guess he was just there and we happened to be compatible.

Anyway, that is the story. The thing that worries me is that he’s younger than me – I’m the kind of a person who wants to rely on the males and not be their elder sisters/mothers. I’m just not that maternal. I want the boys to take care of me, not vice versa. But he seems to be doing a good job of listening to me being a brat and making demands, so maybe it’ll be okay. Who knows. We’ll see.

Oh. And he’s super-tall. And thin. And is pleasing to the eye. That always makes or breaks the deal in the end (I have plenty of boys in my contact list who can probably match me in personality, but appearances decide, in the end. Friendship only goes so far). And whether he’s just saying this to be his ideal of a gentlemen or trying to get into my trousers (probably not) or just to please me is unclear, but he seems happy when I’m happy, so that’s good too. That’s usually an indication that he won’t knowingly make a girl cry (yes, I might cry if he forgot the Neuhaus chocolates, but that’s not really his fault). And the last thing I’ll do is cry over a boy. That’s just a waste of good tears.

On a side note, I have no idea when the “girlfriend” with the mother occurred or when “I told my mother you’re my girlfriend” conversation occurred. So unless we come up with a mutual date, we won’t have one.