The Freshmen Freeze Out: Part III

Three days later, I stood up in front of the ENTIRE school and delivered a speech that I made up on the spot. On the inside, I was FTFO like a gerbil on Adderol. But outwardly, I was witty, acerbic and thought-provoking. (Or at least my academic advisor thought so.)

I lost the election to a blonde girl who LITERALLY had her older sister’s heart throb senior boyfriend stand up at the podium in front of her and make jokes about what it’s like to be a teenage girl. She never even spoke on her own behalf. But I guess it didn’t matter, because teenage kids think gender confusion is frigging HILARIOUS. And they really don’t care much for thought-provoking.

At the time, it seemed to me that I was now the high school equivalent of Al Gore. I had no friends, no one to talk to, and as a result I started spiraling into self-loathing and madness. I attended a lot of really pointless meetings, wrote a lot of ridiculous poems for school assemblies, and planned dances for a student body that never noticed or cared about my efforts. When I attended said functions, I would spend the entire time manning the desk, counting tickets, or shooting the bull with the adult deejay I had personally hired. Was it any wonder that my fellow classmates regarded me with suspicion and a distant sort of amusement for most of my high school career?

Luckily, I began to embrace the social disconnect. I learned to see my lack of clique membership as unique freedom. I made friends at other schools, who knew nothing of my early social mishaps. And I started acting, singing, joining random clubs…anything to keep myself busy enough that I wouldn’t notice who was walking with who through the halls of Inferno High. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t the coolest person I knew. I dressed like Nancy Drew a lot of the time, and didn’t have a “real” boyfriend until…well, depending on your definition of “real,” probably my first year of college.

But the moral of this story…the one that makes me smile–even as I look back today from the pinnacle of badassness upon which I now stand–is that nothing is unbearable. Nothing last forever. And no matter how much you think you might trust someone, a real friend never fucks you over on the first day of high school. You live. You learn. You either get over it and learn to be awesome on your own, or you end up marrying the high school prick who bangs every 19-year-old in sight while you bring home bacon from the gas station. (Ahem, Ashley.)

THE END.