A most confusing business, pubescence. Maturity, sexual awakening... call it what you will. But when I was a young boy of six or seven I was quite clearly instructed that girls were smelly, stupid and unworthy of acquaintance. If one was caught talking to a girl, or looking at one or calling said girl anything but 'her' in a disdainful fashion, then one was immediately outcast as a nancy boy or some kind of homosexual gay character. So powerfully was this drummed into me that when I happened to mumble a few words to one of these strange creatures, my younger brother and his friends saw fit to lambast me in such insulting language that I was forced to run away and cry. What I mostly remember is not the girl or my brother and his idiotic companion, but the dinner lady / playground supervisor looking at me pityingly, with such concern. From that day forth I vowed to have no more truck with girls and their daisy chains and fake marriages.

Yet three years later, in the last year before the dreaded move up to Big School, there was an event akin to a revolution. Now girls were to be charmed, stared at, nay stalked around the playground. One was to join in thrilling games of spin the bottle or kiss chase. Once kissing was achieved, a boy should ask one to be his girlfriend, buy her a present and walk around hand in hand. Despite being utterly dismissive of this hypocritical behaviour, having dedicated myself to disgust with the opposite sex, I did indulge in a game of spin the bottle. I do not remember the bottle, or who spun it, or even if it really did come to rest pointing in my direction rather than being cruelly manipulated by the bottle spinner. No, what I vividly remember is the beastly girl I was paired with. She had more mouth than the 4-1 favourite at Doncaster and a face already starting to swell with pus. This kissing game was not a fashion I was prepared to follow. I was unprepared both physically and emotionally. I ran away in great haste, my as-yet-undeveloped tail between my legs.

I knew then it was to be a long road...