Friday, May 28, 2010

Notes from 2010: January 11, 1999.

Yvonne was someone Hannah and I had been fairly good friends with in late elementary school and junior high. She'd found, frankly, cooler friends than us by the end of junior high--for good reason, since nerdy was never really her bag--but by grade eleven her friends and my and Hannah's group would sometimes hang out together during lunch and free periods, since we all had some friends in common.

My jealousy of Hannah's easy ability to fit in with Yvonne's friends really shines through here, in all its ugly light. Sadly, I didn't recognize it as that at the time. Though even if I had, I don't know if I'd have had the inner strength to curb it.

Hannah could be a little immature, but I don't feel like she was ever abusive, to any degree. She was just struggling to grow up, just like I was, and clinging to physical jokes that we used to pull on each other longer than I was comfortable with. If anything, I'm pretty sure I was heinously passive-aggressive with her. I'm just thankful that I never did try to cut her out of my life, since I can't imagine not having her as a friend now.

From my current, more objective standpoint, I don't think Yvonne and her friends were especially uncivil to me. As I remember it now, they reacted like a lot of people do when faced with someone painfully shy: tried to draw me out, found it really difficult, and gave up pretty quickly. It sucks for the incredibly shy person, but from the other person's perspective, it's a completely understandable reaction. It can take a lot of work to bring a shy person out of their shell, and if they're not your friend and not someone you're interested in becoming friends with... why would you bother? But I was so, so sensitive about being ignored like that--also for very good reason, since I'd been criticized for being shy for as long as I could remember. (Sometimes I still am, though I can usually laugh it off now.) So in just about any social situation, I was working my ass off to be the outgoing, easy-to-be-with person I thought I was supposed to be. It hurt like hell when no one seemed to notice, especially since I knew that ultimately it was all because I was still doing something wrong.

As you'll see in this and numerous other entries, I would frequently rebel against that feeling that I needed to change for people to like me by declaring that I would never change for anyone. Instead, I would look for people liked me for what I was, and fuck everyone else. Then I would go back to school the next day and once again find myself trying like hell to be the outgoing person I wasn't. I was always trying to convince myself I didn't give a shit what anyone thought of me anymore, because I was sure if I could manage to really, honestly not care about that, I would be able to relax enough to just be myself and not worry about what to say, how to act, or any of that anymore. I was actually thinking along the right lines, but I had no idea how to get there. I never did manage it until I was in my early 20s (and--full disclosure--in therapy).


Finally: anyone who can spot the Buffy quote in this entry gets a cookie.*




*the cookie exists only in Vale's imagination. However, she assures you that if it were real, it would be very, very delicious.

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