March 26, 2011

• I Thought We Were Friends?

  …did I miss something?

  A lot changes in high school, mostly because people change in high school.  Not many friendships make it through, and often for petty reasons. 

  Going into high school, on the very first day, in the very first class, I met two of my best friends.  We’ll call them S and N.  And we were really the trio there, for a while.  I still have the pictures from the sleepovers, trips to the mall, even the midnight trips to the park.  They always came to my birthday parties and knew all of my secrets.  And we grew together.  N discovered she liked girls over the course of the years, and S finally rebelled against her stepfather.  I…I don’t know what happened to me.  I guess I learned about priorities.  What was important to me, and how not to screw it up.

  So when two new girls, A and C, joined our class Junior year…I kept my distance.  S and N latched onto them.  They loved the Bohemian thinking (not that I don’t appreciate it myself), the popularity and, most of all, I think they liked the drugs.  I had to stop hanging out with them most of the time…not because I didn’t like them, not because I was going to “rat them out”…but because I didn’t want to ruin my future by getting caught with a needle or a joint.  Don’t get me wrong, I still tried.  I would call constantly and try to set up dates – drugs excluded.  Or just sit at their table at lunch.  But friendship is not a one-way street.  And after a lot of frustration and even more crying…I accepted that I couldn’t do anymore than I had already tried. 

  On the night of Sadie Hawkins senior year, we all five – C and A included - agree to meet afterwards to eat pizza and hang out with our dates.  I was excited – I was finally going to spend time with them, it would all go back to normal – until A got the bong out.  And C the vodka.  I excused myself, and my date and I left.  I never told anyone, never even told them they shouldn’t be doing it.  I simply said that I didn’t want to.

  And then…the calls that were already so limited…stopped coming at all.  And they started taking another lunch period.  And by graduation…even the flaky “hellos” and “what are you doing after highschool” conversations…were avoided.  Looking back at their facebooks while I was in another country, I still posted the occasional comment.  And I’d get the occasional comment back.  Even if we weren’t best friends anymore, I saw no reason to not be polite.

  Today, after liking something that N said on facebook…C left a comment.

  “Fuck you May – ” it said.

  All of them – including two other guys that were in that group – all liked it.  This was followed by hateful comments insulting my intelligence and my boyfriend’s race.

   

  You can’t win them all, I suppose.  And maybe I was an idiot for even trying so long.  Not everyone wants to be polite in life.

   

  But it’s good to know that my future is bright – a year interning in Germany followed by an awesome engineering school (thank you merit scholarships!).  While they, on the other hand, has nothing better to do than write mean things about old schoolmates online.

   

   

  M

  • 1:35 pm
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