Kim

[velvetpage]

"Do you like Kim? I mean, do you *like* her? Is she your friend?"



I was a very naive and sheltered teen. I was fourteen before I found out that "gay" could mean something other than happy. That question was asked of me repeatedly, often by the same person, over and over again, without waiting for an answer. Many people asked that question. It was something of a class joke. It was grade eight. I was thirteen.

For all I didn't get the full connotation of the joke, I have always been very sensitive to language and I knew intuitively that they meant more than the kind of friends one has as a child, where you go to each other's houses to play Barbies or ride bikes. I didn't know what they were implying, for which I am very grateful now. My innocence protected me from the full hurt I might have felt.

My stock answer was, "She's my friend." This usually elicited other gleeful questions; gleeful, I realized, because they already "knew" the answer.

"Is she your best friend? Is she your special friend? Do you really like her?" And on and on it went.

At the time, I didn't recognize what was happening. I knew that they were after me because I was an easy way to hurt Kim. How could they be accused of hurting Kim, when they hadn't even spoken to her? It never occurred to me to try to stop it by going to an adult. Also intuitively, I knew that would make things worse. So they bullied me, and little introvert that I was, I did nothing about it.

If it was bad for me, that was nothing to how it was for Kim.

She was shorter than me, with long, greasy brown hair that usually hung down her back, with perhaps one ponytail holder to keep it out of her face, but more often just hanging free. Nobody had ever taught her how to take care of herself. Her clothes were old, unfashionable, and often dirty. If they fit her properly, which was rare, they were pulled at odd angles so they looked like they didn't.

She was the least co-ordinated person I've ever known. She didn't appear to have a disability that would have caused this, but her handwriting was atrocious and she couldn't kick a stationary soccer ball positioned right by her right foot, so there must have been something going on there. I do not remember if we ever discussed that. I was a clutz, too, though not at quite that level. We were the people who got accepted onto teams because there was no one else still to be picked.

She wasn't as smart as I was, or at least, she didn't get the same marks I did. In grade eight, marks equalled intelligence, at least in my mind. She pulled off B's and C's to my A's, and we got laughed at equally for being dumb and being smart. However, when test time came, I would get sucked up to, and she would get ignored.

She was a very needy friend. She had never had a proper friend before me, because as far as I could tell, she had been bullied her entire life. She didn't understand the give and take that comes with a normal friendship. When I had something I had to do without her, for church for example, she was hurt that I didn't want to be her friend. I spent a lot of time that year trying to convince her that she was, indeed, my best friend.

It was June when it finally started to be too much for me. I couldn't take the pressure of her neediness, and I was tired of being the victim of bullying for her sake. So in June, just before I left for camp for two months, I told her I couldn't be her friend anymore.

I stayed at that school (the middle school fed into the high school in the same building) for two more years before moving to Hamilton. The bullying improved slightly when it became known that I was no longer "best friends" with Kim. The bullies had achieved their goal. They had isolated Kim completely, and me partially. A few of them kept it up for the next two years, but most stopped.

I found some other friends, though I never fit in with them very well. I was not the type to fit in well with kids my own age. I refused outright to hide my intelligence or my marks. I volunteered in class. I used words many of my schoolmates probably still don't know, in regular conversation. They thought I was trying to sound smart, and perhaps I was. To me, that wasn't the point. I was being myself, without apology but at great cost.

I have no idea what happened to Kim after I moved. She had two more years of high school, and when I left, she was starting to dress Goth-like (though she wasn't very good at it) and wear black lipstick. There were rumours that she was doing drugs. Her life was on a downward slope, just as mine was starting to improve. I would like to know what happened to her.

I've forgiven myself for my part in that doomed friendship. We had some good times, and I was good for Kim in the year we were friends. I don't know if she was good for me.

Chalk it up to a learning experience.

Comments

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

"Naive and sheltered" = target. I was pretty sheltered as a child. I certainly wasn't as worldly as I am now (am I? or do I think I am?)
Also never had much in the way of social skills.
Result, I became an engineer (more empathy with things than folks) and still wish I had the ability to punch out people who irritate me beyond a certain point (folks always try to force a reaction, it would be enjoyable sometimes to give them what they ask for to a degree they don't want).

Overall I'd say you've growed up better than what I have.

[hillarygayle.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I had very similar experiences, but I was an extrovert (I even TRIED being an introvert for a while, but gave that up) and not "naive", though sheltered. My insatiable curiosity made sure I sought out a lot of knowledge I probably shouldn't have had at such an early age.

What is it about kids that makes targets of the ones who refuse to hide themselves? Why did those of us who were okay being "us" and being true to ourselves always get the short end of the stick? As a teacher, do you gain any insight from watching your schoolkids interact?

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

What is it about kids that makes targets of the ones who refuse to hide themselves?

---

"The Nail that Sticks Up will be hammered down." I sometimes think that conformity is more highly prized in children than in adults. Other times, I think that people just learn to hide the true self more effectively.

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Why did those of us who were okay being "us" and being true to ourselves always get the short end of the stick?

---

I can't speak for anybody else's experience, but I had teachers who apparently felt that I was the problem. They didn't want to stop people from teasing me - they wanted me to learn to ignore it.

I managed it, but I think I did it in a way they didn't consider when they were handing out the advice. I won't say it didn't work...only that it had unintended side effects that I'm still dealing with.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I take both sides, actually. I try to get it to stop, but I also remind them that in the rest of the world, they won't have a teacher to tell. They need to find a way to handle it that a) won't get them in more trouble, and b) will make it stop. For little things, that's often possible. If you want someone to stop kicking you in the back of the legs, find another spot to stand in line. For bigger things, though, they need to get the teacher involved.

I really hope I'm not giving my students the idea that they are the problem when I tell them to ignore it and play elsewhere.

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

"I really hope I'm not giving my students the idea that they are the problem when I tell them to ignore it and play elsewhere."

---

It depends on how you do it. If you're offering ideas on how to ignore the problem, you're ahead of my teachers by a fair margin. All I ever got was, "Just ignore it, and they'll go away." No suggestions.

I tried to ignore it, they didn't go away, and finally I found a way to ignore it. Not a good way, but a way.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

You've piqued my professional curiosity. If you don't mind telling, how did you ignore it?

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

There's no good way to describe it - the best I can come up with is "emotional fort." It's like bottling up emotions, only worse in some ways, because I didn't have any way to release what I blocked, and there wasn't much discrimination in what I blocked.

The teasing didn't hurt as much, but I didn't really feel much of anything else, either. And it still hurt, collecting up until I didn't know what to do with it. I spent a lot of time alone or with the dog, trying to sort this out.

I've managed to break most of it down at this point, but I still have a weak emotional response in most cases, and I'm aware that I hide myself behind masks when I have to face other people. Mask of the jester, mask of silence, or mask of the Internet...just a few of my ways to keep a little distance.

It works in keeping me safe. But I don't come out much.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Poor girl. I think I was in a similar position for awhile, but I had the luck to find a small circle of good friends.

Have you considered googling Kim?

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

Google is what I was thinking. Unfortunately, unless someone has had some success in the public eye, in education, or in something technical, they'll make nary a ripple on the net.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

I've had luck with it though, and suprisingly, a lot of my old classmates are on classmates.com, and there are also free people searches online.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

She had one of those all-purpose British last names for which there are probably hundreds in Southern Ontario alone. I doubt I'd be able to pick out the right one, even if she still has the same name and is active online. After all, nobody googling my maiden name will come up with much - I'm known online by my married name almost exclusively.

[iamradar.livejournal.com]

try www.classmates.com and see if she registered?

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

I have similar memories, but I think there aren't as many as there used to be. They're starting to fade, making it easier to deal with.
Through middle school, I begged my mom to let me do home schooling, anything so I didn't have to go back to that place. My mom made me go, thinking it would help me grow socially, (as well as the fact that she didn't have the mastery of the english language at the time to do home schooling, I'd imagine) and she didn't really have any idea how bad it was at my school.
With age, I've started to forget some of it, but there's some things that still stick out, like a splinter that won't dislodge. Sexual harassment, teasing for things that didn't even make sense, the sense of alienation that comes from having to use smaller words to be understood by your peers...
Actually, as awful as it was, it was probably a good primer for the outside world.
However, if I could go back and change things, I would have done home schooling.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I haven't even written about the sexual harassment - at least, not about the stuff that I recognized as such. I suppose quite a bit of this was sexual harassment, but I was too innocent to know that. Nowadays, that wouldn't happen, either. Kids would have no problem using the word "lesbian" whenever a teacher wasn't around to hear.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

Some of it was blatant; (inappropriate touching).

Nowadays, kids wouldn't use the word 'lesbian' when being derogatory, trust me.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I've had grade fives in my room crying over having that word applied to their innocent friendship with another girl. I've also had other, worse words, which on at least one occasion I forbore to define for the girl in question. I wasn't going to compound the problem like that. For all she could find in the dictionary, the word in question meant a certain kind of earthen dam. That was enough.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Haven't they always? They certainly did when I was a kid.

[anidada.livejournal.com]

Me too. It's why I keep coming back to it for the bunny, too.

The thing is, going to my 10-year high school reunion was vastly entertaining, because all the people who made my life hell had grown up to be total losers. One of them apologized to me. One of them didn't recognize me at first, and was preparing to hit on me. If I could've given my younger self a glimpse of those moments, she wouldn't have believed me, probably... but it might've eased the pain somewhat. I just wish that the people in my life who had also been treated badly had shown up at the reunion (obviously they didn't because they didn't want to put themselves back in that environment, but I know for a fact that many of them are doing quite well for themselves, and might've had a very good time indeed, feeling they'd risen above all that idiocy).

I have a "Kim" in my past. She never turns up online, either, though I found her dad (he's an Anglican minister, he wasn't that hard to find). velvetpage, do you remember anything about Kim's parents? Maybe you could find her that way.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

Honestly? I don't exactly remember the last name. I remember it was boring and British, because boring and British were rare in Don Mills. But it seems to me he did something equally boring - factory worker or some such. I'll have to sleep on this and see if I can remember the last name.

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there'll be a 10 year reunion for my class.. it should be coming up, or maybe past.. it didn't mean that much to me, so I really don't remember. I've done very well compared to some, though. Popularity in highschool has no correlation to later success :D

My Kim was named Linda. I saw her again many years later, and she seemed to be doing well, though having gained even more weight. Her ailing mother had died several years before (she'd been in the later stages of MS when I met the family) but Linda seemed to be doing alright and was hanging out with friends. It was certainly a relief to know she was alright. The amount of teasing and irrational dislike she got from the kids was far above what I got. When she was hit by a transport truck while bicycling, she was teased mercilessly for it. WTF??

[paka.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not - for the longest time I had no idea what being Gay actually entailed beyond being bad and something you weren't supposed to be, because it could get the shit beat out of you! Later I learned that being Gay meant that you were effeminate, which of course was bad and meant that you were likely to get the shit beat out of you.

Sometime late in high school, I think, I actually clued in that it was possible for guys to be sexually interested in each other, and that's what the term meant - and shortly after that I clued in that women could be interested in each other too.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

During grade nine English, my teacher used to get each of us up to the front to talk for one minute on the subject of his choice. (The teacher's, that is.) One of the bullies once got the topic "gays". The one-minute speech was enough to enlighten me on that topic. I think the teacher did it because he needed to engage that student. He was a rotten kid in every conceivable way, and I hated him as completely as he hated me. But that day, he improved my education.