appeasement

The first time I lied to a guy and told him I loved him was when I was nine or ten years old. The reason I lied to him was to stop him from trying to seriously hurt me.

Kids develop territorial crushes on each other quite young, and like adults they sometimes don't take it well when the feelings aren't returned. I attended a co-ed theatre camp that summer and two of the boys developed crushes on me that led to rivalry. Most of it came down to, 'Which one of us do you like best? It has to be either me or him', which is bad enough as it is because it left me no option to turn both of them down. And it put me in the position that, no matter what I answered, someone was going to get pissed off.

One of the boys--I actually remember his name, it was Tod--heard from some other kids that I'd admitted that I liked the other boy best. (I never said such a thing.) Tod didn't like this. Tod got very jealous. Tod reacted badly and decided he was going to punish me for not choosing him. While I was swinging around on the monkey bars on the playground, Tod marched right up to me and demanded to know if I preferred the other guy. I told him I never said that, but he didn't believe me.

That's when he grabbed me by my legs and tried to make me fall to the ground.

I don't like falling so the situation led to panic very quickly. He didn't let go, and said he wouldn't until I picked him over the other guy. In fear for my own safety, I told him what he wanted to hear. I told him I liked him. I didn't like him. I just didn't want to break my neck.

This satisfied Tod and he smugly let me go with the stern warning, 'You better not change your mind.'

I've read that some women who have been assaulted--sexually or physically--will tell their assailant that she loves him and that she's pleased with what he's doing. They do this in hopes of appeasing them, the theory being that a happy assailant it less likely to become more violent. This isn't exactly rare. People assault other people over jealousy and rejection all the time--and a lot of the time it's a male-on-female violence.

But I think there's something seriously wrong in the world that these behaviours happen in young kids. Not only has a boy learned that it's okay to try and hurt someone if they don't do whatever you want, but a girl learns that the only way she can avoid it is by playing along even when it makes her uncomfortable.

Not cool. Just... not cool.