The Soccer God

My relationship with my mind is really weird, to be honest. It's like he wants me to suffer. No, wait, I'm not saying this because I'm some kind of emo or something like that. I actually know that my mind is at war with me, and we have been like this since I remember feeling something for the opposite sex.

Before those times, I remember that we had peace, we were happy together, and we liked each other. Most of our weekends went pretty much like this:

Ghondar: Hey dude, what are we going to do this weekend?
Brain: Well, we still have to finish Revenge of the Shinobi and Sonic 2...
G: But what about going out with my friends?
B: What friends?
G: ...Good point. So, Sonic?
B: Sounds like a plan, bro.

It's not exactly news that I didn't have much friends when I was a little kid. But I remember the exact time when something just... clicked in me. I believe it was puberty, or the hormones, doing the first act in what it would become the war. They killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand if, of course, by Franz Ferdinand we mean "Rationality". That's the moment when I met her: Gisela.

I remember very little about her, but what I do remember is that she wasn't the cutest girl ever. Not even close. She fell down the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, and even then, she was used in a lethal experiment by the Army to see if you could use ugliness as a new way of warfare. Yes, she was that ugly.

But I will give her something: she liked soccer.

Now, for some context: This was 1998, and the World Cup was having place in France. To be honest, I didn't care at all about soccer the rest of the year, but for that month? I was a motherfucking Wikipedia. I knew everything about the teams, the coaches, the commentators, even the channels that used to broadcast the matches. I was *that* good. And in a class where pretty much everybody where male (and you could make an argument about Gisela on that) I was a God. The Alpha and the Omega of Soccer.

And I remember that one afternoon, we were all talking about one particularly good match and she was there. And I looked at her, and she laughed to one pretty stupid comment of mine. And that was it. That was the moment where I thought that she was cute. And something like this took place:

B: Hey, man, don't forget, we still have to beat Shinobi
G: Yeah, about that, I'm not sure I'm going to be able...
B: What? But dude, we have been planning this for weeks!
G: Yes...Look, can we do this any other day? I have to talk to her
B: But...

And that's when it started. Apparently, my brain is really jealous of me, and wants me to fail. Sometimes he boycotts my attempts of meeting new people by making me say stupid shit like how much I miss my ex or how long it has been since the last time I got laid (4 months, 23 days, 15 hours and 32 minutes... but hey, who is keeping count, right? that's a loser thing to do).

Gisela, on the other hand, well, she was very happy to see a guy talking to her, even when it's only about soccer. We spent one month talking about that pretty much every day. I remember that I even lent her a book about that World Cup, a really expensive book that costed me pretty much all my savings up to that point (which is not saying much, to be honest).

After that, when my knowledge of soccer went away like some fucked up genie wish, I went back to the back of the class, the kid who didn't talk and all that. But it wasn't the same. I started to have feelings for pretty much every girl I talked to, a quality that I'm not too proud to say that it hasn't gone away yet (and I'm 25).

In any case, the next months were really difficult. And when I say "months" I'm talking about the recollection of months called "years". I had to try to find a balance between what my brain makes me say and feel and what I'm actually feeling. So, yes, I said shit like "I love you" pretty much on the first date. And yes, I went on a 19 hours trip for a girl I loved. And yes, I might have killed that cat to show her that I loved her. But that's all my brain doing.

Well, maybe the cat was my decision. Fucking cat.

One day, Gisela didn't go to my class. Days became weeks, weeks became months. And, after a long time, I asked my teacher what happened to her. She moved out of the city.

And that bitch had my book.

So, Gisela, if you are reading this:

I want my fucking book. And, while we are at it, god damn it, girl, you were ugly. I hope you sued your parents or something like that.

Also, call me. It's been 4 months, 23 days and 16 hours since the last time I got lucky.