relievedWhen I was in 7th grade, I had a HUGE CRUSH on this cute 8th grader, Mark T. He was cute and smart and awesome at basketball and was the school president (what does that even mean in junior high??), and I was a dorky, chubby, awkward geek who loved fantasy and romance novels. It was obviously a sort of ugly-duckling falls in love with prom king sort of situation*.
After agonizing about it for aaaaaaages (seriously, I'm talking months here), I finally decided that he should know about my feelings. Somehow, my brilliant plan was that I would confess by way of "anonymous" love note, which I taped into his art notebook, which was left in the art room between classes. If he felt the same way (???), I invited him to respond by dropping a note in locker number [my locker].
*facepalm*
Naturally, all the popular kids knew instantly, and a huge social ruckus erupted. Also, of course, he didn't respond directly, which inspired me to write him another note, addressed to -- I am not making this up -- "Mark 'The Jackass' T". Seriously, poor guy. SO AWKWARD.
Amazingly, this situation dragged out, fed by general social drama, my own awkward shitty boundaries, HIS awkward shitty social skills and promises to respond SOMEDAY. I think there might have been more notes on my part, and more snarky comments in my direction from the "popular" crowd, for what in my mind extends for quite a long time, but may have only been a couple of weeks.
Awesome things I learned from this:
* thick skin
* NO ANONYMOUS LOVE NOTES
* direct confession of a crush asap (which in most cases through college still meant weeks of agonizing before admitting to the object of my crush)
* embarrassment is temporary and survivable (BARELY)
* we're all human
*Note: I don't need any ego stroking in response to this -- I'm just stating the fact of the situation as relates to the context of the junior high social scene.
So, how 'bout you? What painful bad behavior have you enacted, survived, and learned from?
