Make-Out Fake-Out

There's a certain level of respect that I feel every person living on this earth is due. There are occasions where I feel that certain people really need to earn my respect, but upon first meeting someone I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them in a wholly pleasant manner. Then there are people who treat you with such a total disregard for your own feelings that I worry they might have been raised in a barn (apologies to all barn-dwellers: I have never met a rude lamb).

When I was in middle school, at the peak of my awkwardness, it was extremely difficult for me to talk to girls. I was basically a shut-in for the three years that I spent in middle school, and, looking back at pictures of myself, I can totally understand why. Because I never spoke to girls, I also had no idea how to ask one out. I also never had occasion to reject a girl. Until Marian.

Marian was not quite as awkward as I was, but she was roughly a foot shorter than anyone else in her grade. She was also a year below me in school, and I had never had any classes with her, nor had I ever had a conversation with her. It was January of my grade nine year that I first had a run-in with Marian. The entire school was in the gym choosing something to do for winter activity day, and I was speaking to my friend Tara about whether it would be more fun to go paint-balling or rock-climbing. Marian wandered over and started chatting with Tara, as they had met through one of their mutual friends, or they were family friends, or...something, it really doesn't matter.

Tara briefly introduced us, and she and Marian continued on talking for a few moments, about what I have no idea because I was just staring off into space minding my own business. Out of nowhere, Marian turns to me and asks if "[I] will go out with [her]." I can't imagine how screwed up my face must have become in that instant of confusion.

I stared at her, and in the brief seconds that were spent in silence, a lot of thoughts ran through my mind. The first was, of course, that I was very much not interested in her, not only because I was in no way attracted to this little girl, but because I didn't know anything about her as a person, and had no reason to want to be around her at all. The second thought I had was that I didn't want to hurt her feelings by just flat-out rejecting her without letting her have a chance. I learned on this day that, in an awkward situation, my mind can work insanely fast, though the thoughts that crossed my mind weren't all entirely useful. I decided that it might be best, in order to spare her feelings, to ask why she would want to go out with me, because I had very little to offer. Often times, when I feel the need to criticize someone, I try to soften the blow through self-deprecation, as if to say "you suck, but I suck, too! Do you see how we are the same?"

Before I could take my chance to tell Marian that I was awful in every way and she shouldn't find herself interested in me, she started laughing. And it wasn't just laughter at the awkwardness of the look on my face, but a full-out gleeful laugh. "Oh my god," she screamed, almost doubling over. "He thinks I'm serious!" In less than three seconds I had gone from trying to let this girl down easily, to being so desperately unappealing that it was insane to think that anyone could possibly be interested in me in any way. This is, in a way, a form of bullying that could really screw someone up for the rest of their lives. As evidenced by the fact that I'm blogging about it ten years after the fact.

It's one thing to reject someone when they ask you out, but it's another thing to actively seek out someone for the soul purpose of rejecting them. There's a reason that the students of McKinley High weren't all that upset when Regina George was hit by the bus.

Every parent I've ever met has touted the ideals of 'treating someone as you would have them treat you,' and it's unfortunate that many children simply don't seem to absorb that piece of advice. Just be decent to one another, because we really don't need the world to be populated by disrespectful little monsters who terrorize one another just to make themselves feel better about their own horror show of a life. Otherwise you'll make someone dwell on the bitterness of something that happened when he was a child.