It was coming to the end of the year and final examinations were approaching. This was a stressful and daunting period for any university student. Mongezi was an active student leader. He was the grievance officer for the students. He was quite hands on and a true leader. He had created a WhatsApp group chat for all first year education students. This was where it all began. Instead of typing, Mongezi sent voice notes to the group and this was where Melisa heard his voice. She fell in love with it. At first she thought she was going crazy. She was growing madly in love with Mongezi. Melisa didn’t know Mongezi, she had never met him, but she was eager to meet the mysterious guy behind the voice she was in love with.

A group session was organised by Mongezi for the students to discuss their content before they wrote their final sociology exam. At first Melisa was hesitant, but once she found out that Mongezi would be one of the tutors during that lesson, she didn’t want to miss the opportunity to meet her mystery guy.

Students were required to submit their names if they were coming so they could be divided into manageable groups. Melisa submitted her name with the hope of being in his group for the session. She then waited patiently for the release of the groups. The groups were released a day later and Melisa searched anxiously for her name. To her disappointment she was not placed in Mongezi’s group, but she made a mental note that by any means possible she was going to see him on the day of the session.

Two days later, it was the day of the scheduled group session. Melisa woke up early, wanting to prepare for the day ahead. She had no classes that day except for the session that was scheduled for twelve o’clock. She prepared her clothes paying close attention to detail. She was well aware that she was dressing up for someone who didn’t even know she existed but that didn’t stop her from looking her best natural and simple self.

The clock hit nine o’clock and she went out to catch a taxi to school. She couldn’t get any funding to stay at university residence hence she was travelling to school every day. She arrived at school just before the clock hit eleven and decided to go to the computer lab. There she met up with her friend Samantha.

“Hey you look so pretty today,” she said.

Melisa smiled and thanked her. Samantha hadn’t signed up for the tutoring class, however she intended to go with Melisa anyway.

To Melisa’s luck, the tutorial group they chose was to be handled by Mongezi because one of the tutors was sick and couldn’t attend. The excitement in Melisa’s eyes made her friend suspicious, but she didn’t ask her anything.

There were only 10 minutes before the session commenced. Mongezi walked in and students started greeting him. Melisa’s eyes landed on Mongezi and she couldn’t believe what she saw. Melisa already had a picture of Mongezi and it was nothing compared to what she was seeing in front of her. She kept telling herself, “No this isn’t him, he’s probably one of the students, your Mongezi is still coming.” Sadly, that was only her imagination telling her that. The Mongezi she was looking at, the guy behind the voice was not what she had pictured at all.

***

Tell us: Have you ever pictured someone and they turned out to be the complete opposite?