Screwed Over By The Truth: A Christmas Tale

It was the only school dance I had ever attended up to that point and though I didn't know it at the time, it would be the only one I would experience until I got to college. It was the Christmas season of my 8th grade year. Emboldened as I clearly must have been by my new "maxi-length" party dress that was hot off my mother's sewing machine, a splash of "Love's Lemon Scent" and a moderately good hair day, I found myself in the darkened gym of our junior high. Aside from those encouraging details, I have no earthly idea what possessed me to put down whatever book I was probably reading at the time and pay for a ticket.

My best friend of the previous two years had moved to San Angelo and I was in the process of finding someone new who, although she would have to be much cooler than myself (and really...who wasn't?), wouldn't mind what a sheltered dork I was...all the while showing me how to better navigate the shark-infested waters of the adolescent social scene. Spoiler alert: I never found her.

About a half hour into the dance I was standing with a group of girls, some of whom were--unlike me--popular and self-assured. They took dance from the only real studio in town and so their moves on the floor were fluid and confident, rather than halting and reminiscent of an eplileptic seizure. Every day was a good hair day for them. They didn't have to beg to  their parents to wear panty hose instead of knee socks or negotiate to wear BOTH lip gloss and blush at the same time. Trust me. It made a difference.

A group of 9th grade boys from high school cruised in as though they were gracing our lame-ass gathering with their wisdom and experience. They were messengers from our future come to tell us how life was in the grown up world while partaking of our weak punch and Christmas cookies. One boy in particular--Tom-- began walking across the room toward me. I knew who he was and because I did, I looked behind me in one of those classic John Hughes movie mannerisms as though fully expecting to see the real object of his advances. Miraculously, it was me and he asked me to dance.

I allowed myself to be led out on to the floor and we started moving to the music. I immediately began wondering if he knew who I was or if he even knew anything about me. I questioned--silently--if I should speak or change up what must have been a painfully repetitive series of dance moves on my part. Suddenly, I decided to make idle conversation and blurted out, "You know? This is the first time I've danced all night." Reader, if I had revealed that it was the first time I had ever danced IN MY ENTIRE LIFE ( also true)  I'm sure I could not have sounded any more like a loser than I did in that moment...but it was too late. Tom's image-preserving radar was up and he excused himself for what he indicated would be "just a moment".  He never came back.

As he stood with a group of my male contemporaries talking and vaguely gesturing in the direction of my frozen self...still out on the floor and unsure how to get off of it... I realized with fresh horror that he hadn't really known anything about me, though I'm sure what he was learning wasn't helping my case any. I wasn't anybody to speak of and by keeping my mouth shut I had, for the moment, flown under the radar.  By opening it I had revealed myself to be some kind of untouchable mammal and completely unworthy of the trouble it would take to finish one single dance.

Later, Tom's popularity would--of course-- increase exponentially and I've always felt that his hasty exit from my leperous orbit assisted somewhat in the ascent of his rising social star. I stayed hidden deep in the damp mosh pit of those without prestige or the ability to leave a social fingerprint. Not popular...and yet...lacking even enough of an identity to be unpopular.  He would be elected the president of his senior class and rather than rest on its figurehead status, he engineered the most successful fund-raising program that school had ever seen and their prom was, for the times, unrivaled in its grandeur. He graduated college, became a big-deal commercial pilot, married and had kids. He became an outspoken religious fundamentalist, but among his peers, still maintained his "good guy" image.

But not with me. Not . Ever.

There is no moral to this story, unless you want to end it by saying that it sucks to be 13. No, duh! That kids do or say thoughtless and unkind things that stay with a person forever. That we're all afraid--even the Toms of the world-- of how we look to others when we're young. That you have to accept being  invisible to some people when you're a kid and that this will still be true thirty years later. That it pays to keep your mouth shut sometimes. 

A couple of years ago I was at an All Seventies icebreaker for my high school reunion and a guy I didn't recognize walked in. It took about an hour for me to even figure out who he was, but when I did it wasn't by talking to my friends and pointing at him. Gone was his swagger and much of his formerly enviable hair.  He came alone--though I gathered he was still married-- and he looked...old.  And I--standing there with my friends, holding my weak beer (enjoying my good hair day and my new dress) did not...for the moment. I kept my mouth shut this time. But I was smiling*.

*This story rendered tenderly and--mostly--without bitterness by the President and Charter Member of  "We Hold A Grudge".org...With offices in New York,  San Francisco, London...and Fort Worth, Texas.

Comments

[Life at the Funny Farm]

Oh boy, this instantly takes me back to my 9th grade super-geek period. I too was one of the "out" group, excruciatingly shy, with a face full of acne, and home-sewn clothes. I cringe just thinking about it now some 40 years later. How did we survive?

Because I've acquired a fairly decent set of social skills since that time (including the ability to keep my mouth shut when necessary), people now laugh when I tell them how shy and withdrawn I was in my younger years. I wouldn't change the past since it's made me who I am, but there is not enough money on the planet that would make me go back and do it all again. Ever.

[Becca]

Good living is the best revenge!

[melissaz]

Shudder.

I hated those years. Hate.Hate.Hate. And now my kids are getting ready to go through them and I'm nauseous all over again. The brutality of some kids is just amazing.

[anna see]

Wow.

You captured this time period so well. I was transported back to my middle school gym and some truly terrible memories. I don't even know if I'm ready to blog about them.

Your writing is breathtaking!

[Nance]

Junior high is nothing more than an Endurance Test. How I passed mine--in an urban school riddled with gangs and mean girls while carrying 70 extra pounds and IQ points--I will never, ever know. If I ever went back there (and I never have), I can't imagine I would even know where the office was, let alone any of my classrooms. And the place hasn't changed, from what I've been told.
Congrats to a fellow survivor.

[Joie at Canned Laughter]

Summer before 9th grade, I went to a dance at the boys school. I wore a skirt. All the other girls were wearing jeans. My wallet with Social Security card was stolen. I got sucker kissed (like a sucker punch only it gets you grounded), just as my Dad was pulling into the parking lot to pick me up. I was not permitted to answer the telephone for the rest of the summer. I did not go to any more dances until I was a high school senior. It was so worth it.

[Janet]

Ah. You describe it so perfectly. We weren't allowed to have dances because dancing is a sin, and I'm sure that if Tom became a TRUE religious fundamentalist, he denied all participation in that dance (which given his reprehensible behavior he probably should have anyway). But any kind of gathering with boys and girls in the same room had the same result for me. Odd person out through graduation. My date for the senior banquet (again, no prom at the Christian prison-camp, er, school) abandoned me for a junior at the post-banquet party. And yet, I am now one of the few happily married and still in decent shape.
I do suffer extreme mental anguish when I think about my precious beautiful girl baby heading to kindergarten 3 weeks from today and remembering the 13 years of torture and hope I can get her through it without actually projecting how hideous my experience was, because she might be fine.
Sorry for the post-within-a-comment. But it's me.

[toyfoto]

I will never, in a million years ever know what happened to the people who did me wrong. I just can't bring myself to attend reunions.

This made me think I should maybe amend my ways.

Brilliant piece, as always.

[daysgoby]

I'm missing my high school reunion this weekend,mainly because of memories like yours.

[Jenn @ Juggling Life]

My kids have all gone to our local cotillion. I have been so impressed with how much time the instructor (himself a guy who defines surfer cool) spends talking to the kids about not hurting other kids feelings at school dances. I hope most of them get it.

[Jay]

I never went to any dances when I was in school. None of them. Not a single one. Not even my senior prom. So I never had to worry about something like this happening to me. ;-)

[Sue]

Ah, yes. I wore those home sewn clothes as well, and was not allowed to wear hose or makeup until high school. The girls on one side of the gym and the boys on the other, with a few cool kids dancing in the middle. Ugh. I feel anxious just thinking about it.

[mamatulip]

I loved this. It took me back the same way The Wonder Years did.

[Beth]

My date to the prom--who asked ME, mind you, and actually kind of liked-liked me--told me as we were leaving that I danced like I was giving a shot. No. We didn't ever go out again. Yes. I'm still incredibly self-conconscious about how I dance.

Good times.

[Ortizzle]

It's so easy to be humiliated at that age. And also the age when humiliation is the most devastating. School dances can be torture chambers.

[V-Grrrl at Compost Studios]

I remember the pain of being invisible in 8th grade, but also the rush of being "seen" (if not asked out) in ninth grade.

I always gravitated toward older guys, mostly because I was more mature than most girl my age and WAY more mature than the guys. The summer after 9th grade, I started dating a college student. A great guy, but at 15 I was now attending COLLEGE dances with preppies from private women's colleges in Virginia. I always felt inferior among the immaculately groomed pink and green brigade, like I was white trash or something.