Destructive Power of Love

True story. One skeleton in my closet. Only two persons ever knew, one is a witness, and one being the victim of love. This shows how destructive 'love' is to a person. This shows the danger of 'being in love'. I have had always questioned myself if the fault is mine, even until today, but the conclusion has always been "it's fated to happen", but then I keep re-questioning it.

Back in 2004, when I was working in another state, I was partly a project manager, partly an IT trainer. My project and training of 40 village kids for them to be Village-IT-Trainers went extremely well at the end of the project, whereby after I left, the village IT Center was still run until late last year when the last 'teacher' left the village. My only mistake is I couldn't create another IT Trainer to teach trainers from these 40 kids.

Among the 40 kids, which in the end turned out to be only 22 strong ones, were the Top 5 students of the Top Form 6 Class in a nearby school, as well as another Top 3 students from the 2nd Top Form 6 Class. I also had some Form 5 top-of-the-class in my center. I didn't choose them, it was purely on a voluntary basis, so I was glad that these top students wanted to take up voluntary work to learn IT and thus teach IT to the village masses.

The best student of the best Form 6 class, let's call her "N". We'll put in another person, a normal Form 5 student of the top form 5 class from the same school,... we'll call her "A".

Ok, start of story. I'll try to totally shorten it to main areas only. I wish to first humbly apologize for not being humble at all during my story-telling. Ok, here goes. My work started in Jan 2004, within the first three weeks, I already noticed A started to show some signs of infatuation to me by giving a passport sized photo of herself. This I placed at the back of my Business Card Book which contains some another photo of my best friend and her girl best friend. I was prepared for this "chances of student liking teacher" scenario. So, I established a professional relationship with A straight away and as of today, we're like an acquaintance, just once in a while sms-ing each especially during Hari Raya, just wishing each other's family.

I never noticed N. Because by the time I did, N was already faltering in studies. By August, I found out from N's friend that N is having problem coping with studies coz she's been hiding her infatuation to me. In April's STPM trial exam set by the school, she was still top in school. By June, she was 3rd best. Damage control was not easy. I couldn't just ignore her because I am the trainer. I cannot talk too much with her because I don't want to provoke further heighten of emotions in her. Even establishing a professional relationship was not possible, as she viewed it as a cold treatment when I could be fun and funny to other trainees. So, I did the best I could, that is to continue treating her same as the others in the class, ignoring the fact that I knew she likes me, and that she knew that I already knew. We have never talked about her infatuation, only my attempt to bring it to a professional level which she felt and told her friend.

By the time I left in January 2005, I stopped all contact with her, and only respond or reply when she calls, and being the shy girl she is, she never asked any infatuation-type question. We have never had any conversation about it. By mid 2005, I found out she failed her STPM.

I looked back in time, was there anything I could have done? I looked back at myself also. There's none. Love will either make you stronger or destroy you. When I went deeply infatuated with a school-mate from 2002 to 2006, she actually made me stronger. I wanted to so-called prove myself to her. Because N never told me to my face of her affection, I never talked about it. So maybe that's a wrong decision?? But to even bring it up first, I believe is wrong. I don't know, this is totally my viewpoint.

I don't know already what happened to her. All I know is that, my presence in this world had created a negative impact on one person. And that's not easy to live by, because one part of your memory will keep it for life.