Posts from — July 2007

I read a wonderful post about nerds this afternoon, and after taking up entirely too much room in the poor man’s comment section, I decided that my thoughts on the matter deserve a post on their own.

Yes, I was a nerd in school. This wasn’t some affliction I suddenly developed in middle or high school. I wasn’t one of the girls that does okay until the hormones and accompanying awkwardness hit. I struck out in the first grade.

Why was I such a pariah? I could tell you about bad hairstyles, coke-bottle glasses, hand me down clothes, being a teacher’s pet, having two boys for best friends, and all of the other idiosyncrasies that reinforced my nerd status. I will someday, in bits and pieces. For now, though, I will just concentrate on the hardest driving factor. I had the loser stench.

I wanted so badly to belong, to be liked, to have friends. The desperation was as thick as body odor in a locker room right after a game. I truly believe that my obvious yearning desire to be included gave these bitches their first taste of social power, and I became their lesson on how to be alpha females. Really- if they had accepted or befriended me, their power would have been gone.

All in all, the loneliness and teasing made me miserable, but it taught me some very tough, very important lessons.

In early elementary school, I invited all of the popular girls to my birthday party. They all RSVP’d and no showed. It appears that the Queen of the popular girls had a pregnant dog, so they all ditched my birthday party to watch her dog have puppies. Lesson learned- it is infinitely less painful to assume you are unwanted then to have it painfully confirmed. On your birthday. In front of your relatives and neighbors. And then having to face the little bitches at school.

In late elementary school, the popular girls, two of them, invited me to a sleepover. I was overcome with joy. It was kiddie crack. I was so excited- this was my chance! My chance to get in and figure out the secret. I would be popular now- I would have to be. Next thing you know, I will be torturing other little girls! Oh, please, oh please! These girls told me that they liked me, but that to be friends with them, I would have to learn how to dress, how to wear my makeup (lipgloss and nail polish), and my hair. No problem, I said. Show me what to do, I begged. Then they decided that wasn’t enough. I must prove my loyalty to the royalty with an initiation rite. Drink this whole bottle of shampoo, they said, and we will help you and be your friend and you will be popular.

Internet? If I didn’t have a puke phobia, I would have downed that entire bottle of Salon Selectives without batting an eyelash. Lucky for me, and for anyone who would have had to help clean up the mess, I walked home crying. There would be no Salon Selectives cocktails and popularity for me. I was doomed. For life. On the walk home, I realized- if you have to do something that is humiliating, entirely unnecessary and will result in puking to belong, I will pass. Even if I will also cry my eyes out every day after school.

Middle school was worse. Elementary school bitches can only be so cruel and creative. Until the hormones kick in, they are heartbreaking at worst. Middle school bitches are the kind that make kids kill themselves. And that is not internet bloggy hyperbole.

Wanna hear something controversial? Remember Columbine? I won’t say that those kids deserved to die just for excluding the gunmen and picking on them. I won’t say that those kids’ parents deserved to lose their kids if they couldn’t teach them how to treat people with dignity and respect, at least often enough that they aren’t driving their peers to suicide. What I will say is that my heart goes out to the gunmen, and I have very little sympathy for the dead and their families. Also, when I heard about Columbine, after thinking about how horrible it was, my very next thought was “Well, if the next snotty little shit that was about to pick on someone doesn’t because they fear for their life, then maybe this was worth it.” Because, people? That’s what happens when kids are tortured at a place they have to go everyday and no one listens and no one cares and it is endless. People die. At least this time the right people paid for it.

Now that the internet knows I am a sociopath, I will continue.

Again, I won’t detail the many strikes against me in middle school, nor will I chronicle all of the abuse I took. At least not in this post. Suffice it to say that when we moved from my childhood home in the North to the Bible Belt, I was relieved to start over. Yes, saddened by the thought of leaving my few friends and my comfortable neighborhood, but hopeful that I might not put a gun in my mouth before I graduated high school.

For the most part, high school was a lot better. I was not popular, but I was beyond scrutiny and cruel behavior for the most part. The school was bigger, I was more socialized, and there were plenty of girls like me to pal up with- even if we had no shot in hell at Homecoming Queen. Also, in my junior year I suddenly developed the ability to date older men, which further diminished my need for acceptance at school.

Looking back now, I see that I was so wrong to be jealous of the Katie Fraziers, the Erica Boyls, the Marci Jones (es? i?). They, to the best of my knowledge, peaked in those early years. They are now awkward, ugly, fat, unsuccessful, – all of those things or some combination of those things. I, on the other hand, am aging like a fine wine. Graceful (okay, don’t quote me on that- socially graceful- I’ll qualify it), cute, thin, and well on my way to ruling the world someday. Oh, and I have a smart, funny, cute husband with a rockin’ body and a cute 1940′s farmhouse on two acres. That beats the shit out of good yearbook pictures and a faded cheerleading outfit.

It just took me a long time to grow into the adult me. I was an early bloomer chest-wise, and spent years 11-15 trying to hide my figure- not just by C and D cup boobs, but the 80 or so extra pounds on my frame. Being smart wasn’t so much a point in my favor or against it, but being so serious and cautious kept me from enjoying myself, and that isn’t very attractive, is it?

My future children might be popular. I will certainly help them with it a little more than my parents helped me- they won’t be wearing hand me downs, even if it means I have to instead. They will hopefully mirror the comfort and confidence WH and I have now, even if it doesn’t run as deep as we’d like. And if I EVER catch them being cruel and heartless and taking advantage of someone’s victim stench, I will squash them like bugs. Most of all, I will tell them, as often as is merited, that these are nowhere near the best years of their lives. I will remind them that their lives are created and ruled by outside circumstance- their friends are their schoolmates, who are their schoolmates because all of us parents bought houses in the same district. That if they are not happy with their lives as school children, they can take solace in being able to mold and create their own lives when they are ready.

Mostly, though, I will assure them that once they get it all figured out, their torturers will have gotten fat and ugly.

I’ve since run into a few of the bitches that used to torture me. They are usually shocked by my thinness and my beauty and say things like “but your hair looks so good”, as if I were destined to grow up to resemble Medusa rather than being the victim of bad haircuts and perms gone wrong, or “but you’re so skinny”, because we all know my destiny was to get too fat to leave my house, so that my body would be hauled out through wall removal and flatbed truck transportation once I died from choking on my last ho-ho. I always return the favor and say something nice to them. Because really? Living well is the best revenge.

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