Six of her friends came along too.
I sat in the aisle seat, next to her, with the rest of her friends filling the row. Excited, nervous, clueless. My concentration rarely on the film we were watching. Instead, I debated my next move. Should I try to hold her hand? The whole arm round her shoulder thing? The fake yawn? Surely not. My entire experience was based on things I'd seen in films. This was tricky, and scary. I hadn't thought this all the way through and was beginning to panic. All I could do was look deep into my bag of Haribo Starmix, desperate for some guidance, for an answer.
It was then that I found one.
There, staring back at me, was the perfectly formed, lovingly crafted Haribo Heart. This was it, everything I needed in one tiny little sweet. I picked up the heart, gave the girl a gentle nudge and handed it over. She took it, looked at it and smiled warmly.
Brilliant! It worked! I quietly cursed myself for having worried so needlessly about the right words or moves, when it was all so much simpler. Heart-shaped confectionery, that was all there was to it. I had accidentally mastered dating at the first attempt!
To make things even better (as if they needed to be!) I didn't like the taste of the hearts anyway (something about the white fluffy stuff) and would usually just throw them away. What a fool I had been! Not anymore! I spent a bit of time trying to list as many heart-shaped foods as I could think of, vowing to always surround myself in these gifts, these secret keys to winning girls. But after Haribo Hearts and Love Heart sweets (which are technically circles anyway) I got stuck. No matter, the one Haribo Heart had worked perfectly.
If only I had stopped at the one.
Swept up in the euphoria of confectionary-based love, my young mind quickly reasoned that the more hearts I gave her, the more she would like me. It was a simple calculation and, on the evidence I had to go by, seemed pretty logical. Throughout the film therefore, I continued to hand over these little hearts, safe in the knowledge that each one was making this girl fall more and more heavily for me.
Near the end of the packet, having just handed over yet another sweet I sat back, quietly praising myself for my discovery and quick thinking. The nerves had vanished, I was finally able to watch the film, and things were excellent. Then a voice spoke aloud.
'Excuse me.'
I wandered who would have the nerve to show such a blatant disrespect for cinema etiquette, before realising the voice was talking to me. It was one of the friends of the girl I liked, sat at the very end of the row. For no particular reason, I shall henceforth refer to her as Grumpy.
Grumpy was leaning forward and speaking across the whole row. She made no attempt to lower her voice and it resonated easily through half the cinema.
'Excuse me' said Grumpy.
I looked across at her, all six of the girl's friends now looking at me.
'Can you please stop passing your fingered sweets across. It's actually not very nice.'
I gave a sheepish nod and sat back in my chair.
It turns out the girl did not like Haribo Hearts as much as I had thought. In fact, by some terrible twist of fate, it seems none of the girls were partial to Haribo Hearts, at all. Poor Grumpy had therefore had to collect all the hearts at the end of the row.
I had been foolish. I thought I'd found Love's secret ingredient, the key to dating success.
This was the day I realised. Love is complicated.
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