Anyone who knew me as a teenager knew that I was, shall we say, nerdy. That's putting it mildly. I weighed one-thirty-five and wore taped up brown plastic glasses (Bobby Santilli had uncanny aim with a dodge ball). They stopped inviting me to parties when they discovered that I couldn't attend one without bursting into tears. Oh, high school was SUCH a trip...
But the point of bringing this up is that I would like to think that the playing field has been leveled when my former classmates and I have reached our thirties. I figure everyone has gotten over things like zits and gym class and grade-point-averages, and now I can be, well, cool. (Somewhere Bobby Santilli just snorted out whatever he was drinking.)
But in all seriousness, I think I've improved my conversation skills and developed enough of a sense of humor for people to actually enjoy talking to me. So when I log on to Facebook and see a friend is already logged on, I feel confident clicking open a chat window, and then I type "hey"--the same damn thing I start every online conversation with.
This is a true story: I once sent so many emails to the same person with the subject "hey" that we both got mixed up and couldn't remember which "Re: hey" we were replying to.
Emails have a way of decaying, don't they? I mean, you start with a nice five or six paragraph missive and then the other person replies with answers to the questions you'd asked, and then you reply with your reaction to their answers, and then they might come back with a one-liner like "yeah, I keep busy", and then you write back something clever, and then she doesn't write back and I feel stupid and write an email back two days later asking if I hurt her feelings and that I understand if she wants to remove me from her friends list.
Maybe I'm not all that cool after all...
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Ed, I can so relate. I hated high school. I was so shy. My mom taught at the high school I went to and I saw her all the time...she watched over me like a hawk.
ReplyDeleteI loved learning--I studied several languages and just loved to learn, but dreaded PE :)
While kids were at parties, I was writing. My job was working at a local paper reporting on high school sports and school board meetings--definitely not "cool" then--but fun for me.
I finally learned to like myself and have confidence in college. When I think back to the high school years and how things are now--well, I have evolved quite a bit, but I'd never want to revisit the nerd years!