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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.
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.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-05 02:34 pm (UTC)"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.
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-05 05:18 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-05 05:24 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-05 08:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-05 09:52 pm (UTC)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.