Never had I felt more awkward or out of place at school than at that table during 6th period as my friends talked about drugs, alcohol and their preferences and experiences. Hardly being a seasoned user, I sat rather dumbstruck as some of my friends let their guard down and nonchalantly talked of their past partying.
While I had never taken, or smoked anything in my life most of the occupants of our sharing circle had. I knew I didn’t want to do those things but hearing everyone talk about them made me feel so left out and innocent. I would never smoke or take something EVER but i never said I wouldn’t drink, if it was something not too hardcore.
How desperately I wished to be invited to a high school party, to not appear so innocent, to shed that skin and never go back. Leave the wimpy, whiny, shy thing out to dry as a new, cooler skin grew stronger in its place.
When Jordan acted like I was some little kid it made me want to blurt out everything sexual thing I had ever done with Lucas but I didn’t because I knew better. Whats sad is I wanted people to know, as if somehow having them know would make me feel cooler. Older, more matured and experienced than they thought I was.
So there I was, surrounded by all my 6th period friends, talking about their opinions and experiences with their prefered substances, with nothing to say or add. I wanted to insinuate I’d done stuff too, that I was as cool as they were, even though truly, i don’t know why what they said sounded so cool, but then i’d be lying. And while for that moment it may’ve made me feel like i fit in, its better to be that cute innocent girl who has done nothing than that lame lying wannabe.
So this is how peer pressure was manifesting in my school life. People who I thought were cool talking about things I could not connect with in any way and making them sound so fun, making me, feel left out and boring. No one was asking me to do anything, and that was the problem.
When they started to talk sexually, with less gusto then they had of the drugs and alchohol, and less enthusiastically, I basically let loose some personal things Lucas and I had done at the first opportunity. For a minute it felt good, I had contributed. As if to say, there, I’m just like you. But that high didn’t last. Jordan and Liam were sitting with Jake now and having their own, smaller, guys only, sharing circle and hadn’t heard my insinuation.
Was it so bad that I wanted them to like me? To think of me in a certain contained way? Consider me attractive and smart and cool and friendly, and talk to me like a friend, not just when we sat a foot apart in class.
It was lame, I know. I could feel the desperation, the self consciousness, ooze from every pore of my body as I spontaneously tried to calculate what to say as to get the reaction of my liking and validate myself.
It was almost like beat the clock, trying to get these people I found so interesting and intriguing to even barely make a remark that might point towards a positive opinion of me.
I knew they liked me, we talked in class all the time, but i was starting to feel like with each conversation they were getting an impression of me I did not find suiting. And I didn’t like it.
The thing is I wasnt and still am not sure what I want them to think of me, and therefore sculpting myself and what I say and how I say it becomes increasing difficult while the real problem lies in defining who I want to be.