Keeping a girl is not that easy, nor is it to stay in love. There are always some pretty challenging things. I was never an expert of love and I will never be one. What I know is time, caring and respect is primary foundations of love. At the age of 18, I found myself having ten ex-girlfriends. I was doing matric by then. There was this gorgeous mademoiselle in class by the name of Palesa. Ever since primary school, I’d thought of myself dating a girl like her.

Palesa saw me as a friend and she was more like a boy. I didn’t know that she was a lesbian. She was always there for me, spending time with me. At some point I thought to myself that maybe she had a crush on me too. I dated all her friends. She made me date them all. She made me look gentle in their occurrence. Out of ten girls, five were her friends. I was like them, nothing was serious. We smoked, got drunk and slept at any available place. On the other hand Palesa was there to take care of us, to make sure that we are safe. She wanted us to stop drugs and alcohol, but it was beyond her. It was me and my girls forever. Money valued fun.

Palesa didn’t find it off-beam to share a bed with me. And I had my lures. I thought maybe that could be my chance to get to her. In the morning the only thing that I did was to offer her food. She thought maybe I knew that she is into women; she assumed that it could be why I couldn’t lay my hands on her. There was where she was wrong.

I was taking it slow. At some period she came back the same night. She came with an assignment which was due the same week. I had forgotten about it. We sat down together, went through it. I purposefully made the process to be slow. I thought she would sleep over again, and miserably she never did.

After a week, my foster parent died. I had been adopted at the age of 3 by the lady who was serving at the same restaurant with my mother. They were the same age, friends from high school. I grew up thinking that she was my mother. Before she passed away, she gave me a letter which I didn’t read in time. My focus was to get her to hospital when she gave me the letter. After I got the news that she died, I knew that I was all by myself. I spent the night crying, I didn’t want anyone near me.

Drugs and alcohol were my best friends. I wasn’t the school type. I had chosen to attend once a week. I used lame excuses to skip school. The first term at school I failed six subjects. That was my first fail, I was on drugs before the funeral but I was able to maintain myself. Palesa did what any good friend could do, which is to support a friend. She never gave up on me. She came to visit and cooked for me sometimes.

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Tell us what you think: Why do you think youngsters run to drugs and alcohol to hide their pain?