2) Personating

Part Two
(This is chapter two of my personal accounts, "-Liking-: Refractions and Infractions" )


The summer after junior high started out feeling very unremarkable, even though it marked a giant step for me. Perhaps it was because I was putting the horror of junior high behind me, or maybe it was because I was numbing myself for the inevitable high school horror that lay ahead. Later in the summer, I made an effort to become the new me. New friends, new personality. DO things and BECOME something.

I hung out with my few friends just as before, playing video games and Magic and Risk. I didn't give much thought to it at first, but by the end of the summer, I was going to be at a completely different high school than any of my friends were, and would not be hanging out with them much.

They had all planned to go to North High, into a science and technology program. In my time in Pre-IB class, I had learned to love writing and -more importantly- learned to love a varied curriculum of study. I guess that's what the class was intended for, because soon I was signing up to go to the IB program at Henry. ('Henry?' they would remark, 'that school is ghetto')

It wasn't that weird of a decision though, because both my older brother John and older sister Laura had gone through Henry's IB program, John at the early stages of the program, and Laura graduating just as I was preparing to enter.

In addition to hanging out with a couple of friends, and the usual family summer vacation camping trip, I was hanging out with my sister more and more often. It was odd, because we didn't really get along especially well for a long time, and the four year difference in our ages wasn't getting any smaller.

It all started sometime when I was in junior high, and my sister was going out with this guy named Al. I had taken to calling him 'Bum', but he was a really friendly, funny guy. One night, they got the idea to 'kidnap me', and I spent the night hanging out with Al and Laura and their GIGANTIC circle of friends. The rapport between me and Al was quite entertaining, and in addition to driving around in his car and riding in the trunk, I had a great time. The kidnappings continued fairly frequently, and the group of people accepted me as my sister's little brother. I was 'little Laura'.

I did come by a better little nickname to go by with them one day when both my junior high friends and Al were around. I had taken to using the name of 'Chook' for computer games and whatnot, and my friend Donny was using the name 'Gump'. While using his name, he of course had to keep in character and talk like Gump, and I joined in. "Heyyy GuUuump", I would say, introducing an extra second syllable to 'gump'. Donny looked at the screen and replied: "Heyyy CaOoooke".

That bizarre pronunciation of the letters CHOOK stuck, and soon I was introducing myself as 'coke' to my sister's friends, and explaining the spelling.

While hanging out with these people, I wasn't very personable. With Al I could make jokes and cause mayhem, but with the larger group I pretty much just listened in, and made bizarre faces at the appropriate times. This was taken as normal, because I didn't really know them well and I would probably, everyone surmised, grow into it later.

As my sister said to me rather bluntly one day that summer: "You're not a person yet."

I tried hanging with them and becoming more of a person, but it just wasn't working very fast. They were always talking about interesting topics, and they were always DOING exciting things, and I was always listening and watching, and maybe adding the occasional comment or two, and usually feeling stupid about it afterwords. There were so many of them, more friends than I had ever had. Not only that, but there always seemed to be enough of them around not to require me -everything that needed to be said, every observation and joke was taken care of before I could have the chance to make it. You couldn't really hang out with any one of them unless you were hanging out with ALL of them.

I remember one particular day when I had tagged along with my sister. She had driven our family's giant Dodge Ram, and the whole group had met at the park and was sitting in a huge circle. After some time, I just could not take it; there were too many people I didn't know, and the people I did know were busy talking to the others. And I just could not add anything. So I silently excused myself from the group and climbed on top of the van and sat cross-legged until I was noticed, or maybe until it was time to go to the next stop.

All throughout these tough trials of sociability, I felt inadequate. There was something I was lacking with these people. There was certainly the age difference, and the fact that I was known as 'little Laura', but I couldn't help but think that there was something else that I did not have. Is it that I did not have a personality? Was I just afraid to show it? Was it simply a problem of relating with large groups at once?

I couldn't even remember what was going through my head when I was with these people, so I can guess that it wasn't much. Either I was too nervous and/or worried to think, or I really just turned into a Dodo when I was around them. A third explanation would be that I was just SUCH a boring person that when I was with them I honestly did not have anything at all interesting to contribute from my life.

There was one thing that was the biggest problem with me being with these people: it felt so unnatural. I was an unnecessary social implant and I was being rejected by the host. Or maybe they were the social implant and I was rejecting them. Either way, there was a problem.

It was hard enough finding something reasonable to say to them, but I also needed to find the right time to say it. Inevitably, it wouldn't amount to anything. All of them got along together so naturally. The various personalities would just all play out, and produce fun and interesting results. They could be themselves, and that was enough. It was easy enough for them. But how could I be myself?

I didn't even HAVE a self to be.

It was so much easier not to cross that barrier; to remain simply 'Laura's brother'. It was easier for them AND it was easier for me just not to bother. But I still gave it an honest try every now and then, hanging out with them. Sometimes I would have enough and give up and stay home, others I would persevere even past the most awkward situations. My sister would help sometimes, inviting me to events I would otherwise have been ignored for. I would go sometimes, telling myself that it was 'for my own good', and other times because I really did want to go.

Seeing socialization as a 'task' was an obvious symptom of a real problem. How could I keep on hanging out with people when I couldn't even hang out with myself? I wasn't a person, and I wasn't even on the track of BECOMING a person. Not with them. I just sat there and fermented into this static caricature of a boring little brother that nobody really cared about anyway, but laughed at peoples' jokes sometimes.

As High School finally came around the corner, I was replacing my old friends with my sister's. But I wasn't classifying them as friends, exactly. I couldn't imagine someone really being my friend unless they fit some pretty strict specifications. They would need to be someone I knew well. Also, they would need to be someone with whom I could really open up, and be able to share the most personal of information without worrying about them using it as leverage against me. Finally, and most importantly, I wanted my friend to like me, to appreciate me in a significant way.

Anyone who did not meet these conditions I would internally classify as 'acquaintances'. I might call them friends sometimes, but I would really mean they were acquaintances. When I re-evaluated all of my old friends through this new system, I realized that I hadn't had any 'friends' since grade school, if then.

So basically, I convinced myself that I had no real friends, and that I would not have any real friends until I had deep, meaningful, personal conversations with people.

But -now here's one big flaw, of many, with this thought- how could I have a deep, meaningful, personal conversation with someone who, in my mind, I did not think of as a friend? I was merely introducing another barrier between myself and other people.

This way of thinking was a self-propagating cycle of loneliness. Not only did it force me to belittle my relationships with others, but it also discouraged starting new and interesting ones. What's worse, I continued thinking in this way for a long time. Even now I feel the effects of this major overhaul of classification, as it became a very difficult habit to break.

Why couldn't I have just thought of them all as buddies? Why did I have to worry so much about the strength of each friendship when I was having enough difficulty in finding any at all?

This very contradictory and dangerous way of thinking about social relationships likely contributed to my not keeping up with my old friends. It also helped that I could think of so many reasons that they were superficial jerks, because of the experiences in junior high.

Between letting go of my old friends and feeling inadequate to my new ones, I was left alone in the middle.

As might be suspected, I didn't really fall for any girls during that summer. There were two types of girls that I was with at any given point:

A) Girls my sister's age. Some were smart, some were weird. Some strived for attention, some were more low-key. Some intimidated me, others patted me on the head. Despite the differences in personalities, there was that common bond: they were older than me. Three, four, even five years older than me. Few talked to me, and I talked to even fewer, not only because of the usual problems, but because they were GIRLS. My sister gave me warnings about liking some of them, as if it were even an option.

B) The other type of girl I met that summer was, to me, very similar to the first type. The difference was that they WERE actually my age. But they remained on that next tier of social existence beyond my own for a reason: they were going out with guys my sister's age. Or they had PREVIOUSLY gone out with guys my sister's age. Or they were good friends with many people my sister's age.

A good example of type B was Julie, who I met shortly before starting high school. She was going out with Ben, a senior, for a short while. She was about the prettiest blonde thing I think I'd ever seen, glamourous and clean and intelligent and fun. And she was my age? Something didn't fit. Maybe it was me. But I don't think I ever seriously considered the possibility of her and I. She was on that unattainable level, not only in her girlieness, but even just her social skills; everyone was her friend. Which meant that I would never have the courage to be.

One of the last days before the first day of school, I was invited to kind of a boys night with some of my sister's friends, including my cousin and Ben. Ben had the goal in mind of staying up nonstop until school started. If only I had a personality like that, I thought. As usual, I was the quiet guy. But as the next day dawned, it also seemed to dawn on me that I would continue to be the quiet guy for some time. I had already by this time occupied the space in everyone's mind of that quiet kid. So even if I could try to turn a new leaf, it was going to be even more difficult.

High School

While none of my old friends followed me to Henry High, my sister had several friends there waiting for me.

In fact, I was put up for 'adoption'.

It was a very good idea, I thought. To help someone's younger friend get along through their first year, a senior would adopt an incoming freshman (There was even a symbolic hat to go along with the adoption). My sister had EV as her own freshman and not only did EV adopt me (she was a junior), but so did a senior girl. I was being accepted with open arms into a frightening new world.

I don't remember much of the first day of school. I was just there, wandering the halls looking for my classes. Surprisingly, I was greeted by a couple of people, and Ben helped me find my English class. Julie was in several of my classes, and she was very welcoming ("Hi Coke!", she said). I wish I could have returned the favor better, but I was even more frightened than I usually am.
Which is to say, incapacitatingly so.

EV and her school friends sat with me during lunch, so I at least had some semblance of sanctuary there. This was appreciated, but I can't help but think I might have been better off forced into making my own friends, rather than simply accepting these ones as that and not getting to know them well.

So even after my summer of 'training', I was plopped right in the middle of the High School just as shy -maybe moreso- than I was before that summer. I had been spoonfed so many interesting people to meet, and I did not adequately take advantage of the relationships offered to me. Rather than making friendships, I borrowed them.
I could not be myself with them, because compared to them I really felt irrelevant.

I did not DO, and I certainly didn't BECOME.

That first impression that I gave off, however accurate, defined me more than I could even define myself.

So I would be the un-person. That quiet guy in the corner who didn't say much. He would make faces, and often laugh at your jokes if they were good. But you didn't know him. Nobody knew him.
Not even himself.

And that's who I was. That's how I started high school. For the most part, that's how I continued it too.

(This was chapter number two of my personal accounts, "-Liking-: Refractions and Infractions" )
(Next chapter: "Invalid Item" )