My mom bore six children—a girl, a boy, a girl, a boy, a girl, and me. I was supposed to be a boy. James. But instead I was Michelle. I was never masculine or a tomboy, and instead am fairly girly with my snobbish vanity. But in some sense, I sometimes feel like the son my father never had. Of course he had a son, but their relationship isn’t what one might consider the typical father-only-son relationship. It’s more of an association than a relationship, with occasional encounters and discussions, but nothing comparing to the week-long fishing trips my husband, the only son, takes with his father. Instead, my father has a unique relationship with each of his children, no one more important than the other, but each one a special connection the others just don’t get.
Our family dynamic often reminds me of that of a fifties family, with the father at the head of the table, the mother dutifully cooking and serving. It’s not that my dad doesn’t help out—he does, a lot. It’s that there is a level of service expected by him, from us. Most of my family—parents, two sisters, and our kids—eats dinner together quite often. My dad comes in, goes into his room to change clothes, and sits down in his chair at the table (where no one is sitting, and if they are, they get up as soon as he comes in the door, before he even approaches the table). My mom dishes his plate and brings it to him. Then he asks, usually whoever is up, for a drink or the salt or some butter or whatever else he may need to make his dinner more palatable. On the occasion that none of us are up at the time, he simply states, “Is there water/salt/butter/whatever on the table?” to which one of us replies, not with a verbal answer, but by getting up and getting it for him. Whether this is intentional, whether would we not jump up to serve and please him he would gladly get up on his own, is unknown. But I doubt it. Our service is expected.
Although the others may have, this apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Through simply looking at my family, I am definitely my mother’s daughter, with her short frame, blue eyes, light hair, and wide hips. The only look I inherited from my father is his unibrow, which I meticulously tweeze daily. My personality, however, is so much like his as to drive my mother crazy. I can hold two conversations at once, whether with a person or myself. I will be paying equal attention to each, yet make each feel as though, because I answered the question of the first, I didn’t hear the question of the second. I’m moody, and my desire not to talk to people when I’m in these moods has hurt many of their feelings—but that’s how we deal with it, to keep it out ourselves and work it out on our own. During periods of great stress or tension, my father has been known to go weeks at a time without saying more to any of us than an occasional “humh.” Like my father, I’m sarcastic to the point of being annoying, tossing out my, I think quite hilarious, wit like stale candy at a parade. My father may not speak much, but when he does, there’s sure to be a smart-ass remark in there somewhere. When I’m finished with a conversation—that is, when I’m finished saying what I want to say, and hearing all that I want to hear—I attempt to end the conversation rather abruptly. My father will simply say, “Huh, okay,” and walk away, never mind if the speaker is in mid-sentence. I still hold out for a goodbye, but my abruptness is escalating, and soon those I was talking to will whisper as I walk away “Um, I guess I was done talking,” like they do to him. My outings with my father consist of—unlike traditional father-son outings of fishing and ball games—literary readings, NPR events, lectures from the World Affairs Council, and workshops on educational pedagogy, each followed by brief conversations about the philosophical nature of such things. Like my father, I have gone into the field of education. My father taught high school Social Studies and Business for a number of years before systematically climbing the ladder to counselor, vice principal, principal, superintendent, and now the inevitable retired-teacher occupation, college professor. I am a certified Middle/High Language Arts teacher, which I taught for three years, and am now working my way into the field of alternative education.
Generally speaking, I am a very insecure person. I’m consistently second-guessing myself, and usually assume that people don’t like me. In many fields of my life, I feel as though whatever I do is not good enough. But certainly, more so than anywhere else, I feel that nothing I ever do will be good enough for my father. In my mind, I will never meet his expectations. I will never be a good enough cook, cleaner, writer, wife, mother, daughter, teacher to meet the expectations of my father. A while back, we had dinner at my house—spaghetti. Part way through dinner, my father asked, bluntly as he always does, “There’s no garlic bread?” Despite the fact that the rest of the dinner was suburb (homemade spaghetti sauce, made with venison shot by my husband and tomatoes grown in my garden), I thought it a failure because of the simple lack of a loaf of bread. Although I thought about this frequently, and made a specific point of serving garlic bread the next time I made spaghetti, the criticism elsewhere isn’t as hurtful as it is in regards to my profession.
It is in domain of our profession, which I know to some extent I entered into because of him, that the real dynamic of this father-daughter relationship exposes itself. I’ve accepted criticism from my colleagues since I began working in education six years ago. I’m a reflective person, and I listen carefully to what they have to say, evaluate its validity, and try to take their advice or criticism and use it to my advantage. When it comes to my father, however, in the area of my profession, any analysis is taken quite seriously. It’s taken to heart, not as a piece of constructive criticism, meant to advance my teaching abilities, but rather as a jab to those abilities, a statement of my lack of talent. Recently, I’ve started working at the same school my father is the director of. In doing so, he’s been able to see my teaching first-hand. In this, I’ve heard him give me praise, both to me personally, and in talking with other staff, and the staff at the various schools we work with. But this praise is outweighed by the criticism—not in the amount but in its effect. There’s a best-practice theory in education, 1 to 5, that with every one negative statement you give a student, you should give five sincere compliments. Even if that was the ratio my father used with me, it wouldn’t matter. That one negative would drown out the memory of the five praises and would fester in my mind for weeks. With my father, even the slightest joke is taken to heart, and my hands start to tremble, and my voice begins to quake, and tears slowly begin to emerge and slip down my cheek more quickly than I can wipe them away. My mother and my husband will attempt to comfort me, telling me he’s really just kidding, don’t take it so seriously, you’re a fantastic teacher (cook, cleaner, writer, wife, mother, daughter). And as much as I want to believe this, and as much as I sometimes convince myself that I actually do believe it, that his antics are just constructive criticism meant to help me improve my skills, just done so with his signature smart-ass twist, I can’t. When it comes right down to it, I really do think that he thinks I suck, if only just a little.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Bubble Butt
By the beginning of my eighth grade year I had developed a strong group of friends—Ginger, Abbey, Emily, and Nicole. Of course I’d had close friends before, but this was my first clique. The five of us were inseparable. Like most cliques, we did everything together. If one of us was absent from school, teachers automatically asked the others were she was, and we always knew. We went on family trips with each other and every night of the week at least one of us was at another’s house.
Like most small groups, while all five of us were friends, some of us were closer than others. Abbey and Emily, and Ginger and I, had been friends before the five of us came together, so naturally each pair was closer to one another. That left Nicole on the outs.
However, unlike some cliques, we had friends outside the five of us, friends we all knew and talked to and hung out with, and friends we each had individually. Robert Carter and I had been friends for over a year and hung out regularly. On days I had swim practice, since his house was in the same direction, he and I walked together, and he sometimes hung out at the pool while I practiced. Earlier in the year there had been talk of Robert and me going out, but he said he would never go out with me because I dressed too weird. I was ahead of the times in fashion, into alternative and punk before it became mainstream, featured in Seventeen magazine, and thus acceptable in rural America. At this time, however, Robert Carter wasn’t boyfriend material for other reasons—he was Nicole’s boyfriend.
It was sometime in November when Robert asked me to come over to his house to help him with his new computer. This was the early nineties, and for many households personal computers were a new thing. My dad had always been pretty tech savvy, so I’d grown up more experienced with these things. We were one of the only families in La Grande, where we lived until I was in the fifth grade, to own a computer. My older brother and sisters’ friends loved to come over to play Frogger and Pong. I spent many summers playing Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. My freshmen year I was introduced to the internet, and specifically remember asking my dad “What’s the World Wide Web?” which someone in an intranet (notice the intranet, not internet) chat room had asked me if I had. Thus, Robert asking me to help him set up his new computer seemed logical, since I was one of only a few students at Ontario Middle School who actually could help him, and probably the only one who was cool enough to be hanging out with Robert. As there usually is with thirteen-year-old male-female friendships, there was an underlying sexual tension between Robert and me, one which he and I openly denied and secretly encouraged. Seeing as how Nicole was not the most understanding girl in our group— really she was just plain mean, a bit of a bully—Robert and I decided it was best not to tell her we’d be spending time together without her. Robert and I made our plans for Friday, each coming up with intricate lies as to why we weren’t available that night. Robert was staying home with his brother (not entirely untrue…) and I was going with my mom to visit her friend in Adrian, another nearby small town. The problem, however, is that I forgot to let my mom in on this little scheme. That night, at about eight o’clock, my friends called my house to see if we were back yet and if I wanted to go to a movie with them. My mom told them I was over at Robert Carter’s house and why don’t they just give me a call over there. They did, and Nicole proceeded to tell me what a lying little slut I was.
Immediately realizing my mistake, both of lying and of not covering my ass, I began to apologize profusely. I started to backtrack, beginning about how our plans had changed and this just came up, but stopped, understanding that a lie was what got me into this, and it surely wouldn’t get me out. My apologies did me no good. Her insults continued until I finally just hung up and, crying, called my mom to come get me.
After giving them a day to cool off, I spent Sunday night calling all four of my friends, explaining why I did what I did and apologizing for my actions. Oh, yeah, Michelle, they each said, I understand. I would have done the same thing. Nicole can be such a bitch sometimes. Don’t worry about it. She’ll get over it. See you tomorrow. And that was it. Nicole refused to answer my call, and I intended to talk to her on Monday at school, to beg for forgiveness, to plead to her to not disregard our friendship. Everything would be fine between the five of us.
So I thought.
Monday morning I arrived at school and made my way to find my friends. They saw me coming, looked at me, and turned away. I was shunned. The girls who only hours before said we’d be friends for life ignored me. I sat alone at lunch that day.
Figuring they’d get over it again soon, I hung out with my backup friends—the group of girls I talked with in class and was friendly with at lunch, but never much more than that. Surely Ginger, Abbey, Emily, and maybe even Nicole, would come to their senses soon and we’d go back to being inseparable. But two weeks later—the equivalent of two years for a thirteen-year-old—and they still hadn’t.
About that time, things between the group and me got terribly worse. Secrets I’d confided to the girls began surfacing around the school. Most of them didn’t bother me, and I was able to blow them off, ignoring whispers or confronting them head on with a “yeah, so?” comeback. Until Nicole spread through the lunchroom the story I’d relayed to her about an afternoon I’d spent with my then boyfriend Ian Poverrelli. I told her he’d fingered me. But the truth was, it never happened. I was spending the night at Nicole’s and she and I were up late, talking. She was telling me things that she had done with her boyfriends and I felt like a prude. I exaggerated what had happened in Ian’s and my make-out session, knowing that since he had moved it would never come out that I was lying. And I trusted Nicole, as my best friend, to keep this confidential. But soon the whole school was whispering about this fake incident, and my reputation as a slut—already present because of my C-cup breasts, since in middle school a girl’s reputation is in direct relation to the size of her breasts, despite what sexual activities she may or may not have participated in—soared. But I couldn’t deny it, as people either wouldn’t believe me, or I’d be ridiculed not for being a slut, but for being such a loser that I had to lie about being one.
A week later, I was sitting in pre-algebra, waiting for class to start, watching my ex-best friends outside the door talking to Robert. The bell rang and they scattered. Garrett , Abbey’s boyfriend, came in to class and sat next to me. Garrett had a mind of his own, and continued to talk to me despite warnings and derogatory comments from his girlfriend. What was that all about, I asked. Apparently Nicole, although still unwilling to forgive me and still declaring what a slut I was every time she saw me in the halls, had forgiven Robert for his indiscretion—despite him never apologizing or asking for forgiveness, as I had—and asked if he would go back out with her. He said no, that he’d wanted to break up with her before any of this ever even happened to but didn’t know how.
You have got to be fucking kidding me. You’ll forgive him, but not me.
It was then that I had my first epiphany. Why would I want to be friends with someone who would drop one of her best friends for a guy? Why would I want to be friends with people who would betray your trust and friendship because they were scared of another one of their so-called friends? These are not the kind of people I want to associate with. The girls I had been hanging out with for the past couple weeks had been better friends than the others had ever been. They didn’t judge me because of one mistake I made. They supported me, even knowing that if the other girls ever did forgive me, I’d drop them just as fast as I’d been dropped.
That day, I got over my old friends—but they didn’t get over me. They continued to spread rumors about me. They continued to harass me in the halls. As much as they claimed to not like me, it seemed that I consumed a lot of their thoughts and time. After Nicole asked Robert back out, I discarded them completely. They, however it seemed, continued to care about me. They topped it all off my making me a note and putting it in my locker, which of course they knew the combination to.
The note was written on yellow legal paper. One side consisted of a collection of magazine cut-outs of big boobs. The other side consisted of a collection of magazine cut-outs of big butts. In large letters, it read “Michelle has a BIG BUBBLE BUTT.”
Yes, it’s true: I have a bubble butt. I always have. I still do. It was no surprise to me to be told that I had a large ass and huge tits. And just as I still do now, I liked it. But these girls thought that I was either unaware or ashamed of my curves. I showed the note to my new friends, who laughed with me at both the creativity of the note, its truth, and the fact that these girls had nothing better to do with their time than make fun of me.
By March they began talking to me again. There was no formal apology or forgiveness, just a gradual decrease in harassing, followed by a gradual acknowledgement of my existence as a person. I feigned interest, but had not real desire to rekindle a true friendship. Eventually the four split up. Nicole was pregnant by our junior year. Abbey and Emily both graduated early so as to be able to move in with their much older boyfriends, and rumor has it, divorce a few years later. Ginger got out while the getting was good, eventually joining me and my new group of friends. And this new group, Ginger included, has been friends ever since—even seventeen years later.
LESSON LEARNED: 1) Do not lie. It will eventually come back to haunt you. 2) Your true friends will always be your friends—no matter how bad you mess up, and no matter who else may or may not be your friend.
Like most small groups, while all five of us were friends, some of us were closer than others. Abbey and Emily, and Ginger and I, had been friends before the five of us came together, so naturally each pair was closer to one another. That left Nicole on the outs.
However, unlike some cliques, we had friends outside the five of us, friends we all knew and talked to and hung out with, and friends we each had individually. Robert Carter and I had been friends for over a year and hung out regularly. On days I had swim practice, since his house was in the same direction, he and I walked together, and he sometimes hung out at the pool while I practiced. Earlier in the year there had been talk of Robert and me going out, but he said he would never go out with me because I dressed too weird. I was ahead of the times in fashion, into alternative and punk before it became mainstream, featured in Seventeen magazine, and thus acceptable in rural America. At this time, however, Robert Carter wasn’t boyfriend material for other reasons—he was Nicole’s boyfriend.
It was sometime in November when Robert asked me to come over to his house to help him with his new computer. This was the early nineties, and for many households personal computers were a new thing. My dad had always been pretty tech savvy, so I’d grown up more experienced with these things. We were one of the only families in La Grande, where we lived until I was in the fifth grade, to own a computer. My older brother and sisters’ friends loved to come over to play Frogger and Pong. I spent many summers playing Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego. My freshmen year I was introduced to the internet, and specifically remember asking my dad “What’s the World Wide Web?” which someone in an intranet (notice the intranet, not internet) chat room had asked me if I had. Thus, Robert asking me to help him set up his new computer seemed logical, since I was one of only a few students at Ontario Middle School who actually could help him, and probably the only one who was cool enough to be hanging out with Robert. As there usually is with thirteen-year-old male-female friendships, there was an underlying sexual tension between Robert and me, one which he and I openly denied and secretly encouraged. Seeing as how Nicole was not the most understanding girl in our group— really she was just plain mean, a bit of a bully—Robert and I decided it was best not to tell her we’d be spending time together without her. Robert and I made our plans for Friday, each coming up with intricate lies as to why we weren’t available that night. Robert was staying home with his brother (not entirely untrue…) and I was going with my mom to visit her friend in Adrian, another nearby small town. The problem, however, is that I forgot to let my mom in on this little scheme. That night, at about eight o’clock, my friends called my house to see if we were back yet and if I wanted to go to a movie with them. My mom told them I was over at Robert Carter’s house and why don’t they just give me a call over there. They did, and Nicole proceeded to tell me what a lying little slut I was.
Immediately realizing my mistake, both of lying and of not covering my ass, I began to apologize profusely. I started to backtrack, beginning about how our plans had changed and this just came up, but stopped, understanding that a lie was what got me into this, and it surely wouldn’t get me out. My apologies did me no good. Her insults continued until I finally just hung up and, crying, called my mom to come get me.
After giving them a day to cool off, I spent Sunday night calling all four of my friends, explaining why I did what I did and apologizing for my actions. Oh, yeah, Michelle, they each said, I understand. I would have done the same thing. Nicole can be such a bitch sometimes. Don’t worry about it. She’ll get over it. See you tomorrow. And that was it. Nicole refused to answer my call, and I intended to talk to her on Monday at school, to beg for forgiveness, to plead to her to not disregard our friendship. Everything would be fine between the five of us.
So I thought.
Monday morning I arrived at school and made my way to find my friends. They saw me coming, looked at me, and turned away. I was shunned. The girls who only hours before said we’d be friends for life ignored me. I sat alone at lunch that day.
Figuring they’d get over it again soon, I hung out with my backup friends—the group of girls I talked with in class and was friendly with at lunch, but never much more than that. Surely Ginger, Abbey, Emily, and maybe even Nicole, would come to their senses soon and we’d go back to being inseparable. But two weeks later—the equivalent of two years for a thirteen-year-old—and they still hadn’t.
About that time, things between the group and me got terribly worse. Secrets I’d confided to the girls began surfacing around the school. Most of them didn’t bother me, and I was able to blow them off, ignoring whispers or confronting them head on with a “yeah, so?” comeback. Until Nicole spread through the lunchroom the story I’d relayed to her about an afternoon I’d spent with my then boyfriend Ian Poverrelli. I told her he’d fingered me. But the truth was, it never happened. I was spending the night at Nicole’s and she and I were up late, talking. She was telling me things that she had done with her boyfriends and I felt like a prude. I exaggerated what had happened in Ian’s and my make-out session, knowing that since he had moved it would never come out that I was lying. And I trusted Nicole, as my best friend, to keep this confidential. But soon the whole school was whispering about this fake incident, and my reputation as a slut—already present because of my C-cup breasts, since in middle school a girl’s reputation is in direct relation to the size of her breasts, despite what sexual activities she may or may not have participated in—soared. But I couldn’t deny it, as people either wouldn’t believe me, or I’d be ridiculed not for being a slut, but for being such a loser that I had to lie about being one.
A week later, I was sitting in pre-algebra, waiting for class to start, watching my ex-best friends outside the door talking to Robert. The bell rang and they scattered. Garrett , Abbey’s boyfriend, came in to class and sat next to me. Garrett had a mind of his own, and continued to talk to me despite warnings and derogatory comments from his girlfriend. What was that all about, I asked. Apparently Nicole, although still unwilling to forgive me and still declaring what a slut I was every time she saw me in the halls, had forgiven Robert for his indiscretion—despite him never apologizing or asking for forgiveness, as I had—and asked if he would go back out with her. He said no, that he’d wanted to break up with her before any of this ever even happened to but didn’t know how.
You have got to be fucking kidding me. You’ll forgive him, but not me.
It was then that I had my first epiphany. Why would I want to be friends with someone who would drop one of her best friends for a guy? Why would I want to be friends with people who would betray your trust and friendship because they were scared of another one of their so-called friends? These are not the kind of people I want to associate with. The girls I had been hanging out with for the past couple weeks had been better friends than the others had ever been. They didn’t judge me because of one mistake I made. They supported me, even knowing that if the other girls ever did forgive me, I’d drop them just as fast as I’d been dropped.
That day, I got over my old friends—but they didn’t get over me. They continued to spread rumors about me. They continued to harass me in the halls. As much as they claimed to not like me, it seemed that I consumed a lot of their thoughts and time. After Nicole asked Robert back out, I discarded them completely. They, however it seemed, continued to care about me. They topped it all off my making me a note and putting it in my locker, which of course they knew the combination to.
The note was written on yellow legal paper. One side consisted of a collection of magazine cut-outs of big boobs. The other side consisted of a collection of magazine cut-outs of big butts. In large letters, it read “Michelle has a BIG BUBBLE BUTT.”
Yes, it’s true: I have a bubble butt. I always have. I still do. It was no surprise to me to be told that I had a large ass and huge tits. And just as I still do now, I liked it. But these girls thought that I was either unaware or ashamed of my curves. I showed the note to my new friends, who laughed with me at both the creativity of the note, its truth, and the fact that these girls had nothing better to do with their time than make fun of me.
By March they began talking to me again. There was no formal apology or forgiveness, just a gradual decrease in harassing, followed by a gradual acknowledgement of my existence as a person. I feigned interest, but had not real desire to rekindle a true friendship. Eventually the four split up. Nicole was pregnant by our junior year. Abbey and Emily both graduated early so as to be able to move in with their much older boyfriends, and rumor has it, divorce a few years later. Ginger got out while the getting was good, eventually joining me and my new group of friends. And this new group, Ginger included, has been friends ever since—even seventeen years later.
LESSON LEARNED: 1) Do not lie. It will eventually come back to haunt you. 2) Your true friends will always be your friends—no matter how bad you mess up, and no matter who else may or may not be your friend.
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Status Update
Facebook is addicting. I am addicted to Facebook. My sister is addicted to Facebook and she doesn’t even have a Facebook page. Since I’ve gotten a laptop, and thus can feel a little less guilty being on the computer since I’m still in the same room as my family, I’ve become overly obsessed with Facebook. Immediately upon turning on the computer, I open up Flock, open a new tab (so I can leave it open while doing whatever else I have to do) and click on my Facebook favorite. I have friends on FB who post a status update multiple times a day, others who write “I can’t think of anything to write for a status update! LOL!” However, I consciously monitor my status updates, thinking critically about what I’ll write, making sure it’s something I wouldn’t mind my mother or cousin—who are my friends—seeing, something interesting and funny, something profound or motivational. I don’t update more than once a day, even if I have something interesting to say. I don’t want to be that person.
I don’t actively pursue new friends on FB, although if I get a friend request, chances are I’ll say yes. And of course I’ve done searches for people—general searches for people I may have known from a certain school or organization, searches for specific people. But unless it’s someone I have an active real-life friendship with, or someone with whom I’ve lost touch with and actually want to have an active real-life friendship with, I don’t request. I just scan their pages for whatever information they’ve made available to everyone, or very often to friends-of-friends, check out their pictures and marital status and employment status and living arrangements and then make a general assessment as to whether or not they’ve become successful, or at least successful in terms of what I’ve become. I’m not one of those people who have 257 friends on Facebook. Like anyone actually has 257 friends. Certainly they may have met 257 people over the course of their lives, but they’re not friends. A recent post stated that Aiden Stowe and Antonio Hernandez are now friends. Aiden Stowe and Antonio Hernandez, at no point in their lives, have been friends. Sure, Aiden and Antonio went to the same high school. Sure Aiden’s dad was Antonio’s eighth grade social studies teacher. Sure, some of Aiden’s friends really are Antonio’s friends. But that doesn’t make Aiden and Antonio friends. They were never on any sports teams together, they were never in any clubs together, they didn’t attend the same college, or work at the same fast-food restaurant or anything that might warrant them being friends. The closest thing Aiden Stowe and Antonio Hernandez have in common is that in some point in their lives, they both kissed me.
About two weeks ago, I got a friend request from my senior-year boyfriend, Aiden Stowe (yes, the same Aiden Stowe). I waited a day—not because I was contemplating accepting, but because, despite the fact that I’ve been happily married for over five years, I didn’t want to look desperate,—and accepted his request. I waited another couple of days before I posted something on his wall, a simple “hey what’s up?” then obsessed for a couple days waiting for his response. I complained to my girlfriend: “Why do people friend request you, then not even talk to you or respond to your wall posts? I didn’t join Facebook to see how many virtual friends I could pretend to have. I joined to actually talk with people I care about. WTF?” The next day, I got a full message responding to my wall post telling me about what he had been up to and generally how things were going. I waited two days, then responded with what turned out to be an absurdly long message detailing my every success and positive experience since the last time we really talked, over ten years ago. In a nervous frenzy, I quickly added, via a new message, “Wow, didn’t realize that message was so long. Didn’t mean to go on and on!” Could I possibly be any dorkier? A couple days later, he responded with a short “glad to hear things are going well” type message and that was that.
These kinds of brief encounters only amplify my insecurities. It’s like a perpetual 10-year-reunion. My best friend got giddy over her high school crush commenting “Great pics, Ginger” on her wedding photos. Like maybe Antonio Hernandez (yes, same Antonio Hernandez) now thought she was cool. And like it even mattered.
Our messages back and forth between friends of past whom we rarely see portray us only at our best. They highlight all the wonderful things we’ve been doing, all the successes we’ve had, all the benefits our lives have granted us. “Oh, things are great!” we say. Statistically speaking, things cannot be that great for that many people. For some of us, our lives still suck as much as they did in high school—for many of us, even more so. Sure, if you’re friends with someone on Facebook, you may see a status update or two that points out the small deficiencies in their life—a note about how work sucked this week, or the baby wouldn’t stop crying, or her boyfriend and she just broke up. But there’s never anything of any real substance. I would never have sent a truthful message to Aiden Stowe:
Hey, Aiden! So glad to see you’re doing well with your new wife and adventurous job in Korea. Things are going okay here. We live in Portland, in outer Northeast—you know, Suburbia. We rent a cute little—and boy do I mean little, our old apartment was only 100 square feet smaller!—house. From my dad. It’s what we like to call a fixer-upper. Some people call it character, but I just call it shitty. There’s a tarp on the roof right now, which works better than the buckets we had in the office. If it would ever stop raining we’d fix our roof. But really, it’s fine that it hasn’t since we can’t really afford to fix it anyway. So anyhow, we lived with my sister and her two kids for a while after I finished grad school. It wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be, but when I unexpectedly (FYI, no you do not need to be off the pill for a few months before you get pregnant, a couple weeks will do fine!) got pregnant, we figured it was time to get a place of our own. We couldn’t get financing, thanks to years of credit card debt on my part (I looked really cute and fashionable for about three years, though!), so my dad bought our house and we rent from him. And to top that all off, he still pays a chunk of our rent since we can’t afford the whole mortgage! I drive a Pontiac G6, which really has some get-up-and-go, but honestly is quite a dorky car. And it’s red, so it just screams out “I’m trying to be cool, but this is as cool as I can afford.” My husband drives his dad’s beat up old ‘97 Ford F150. Thank goodness for our parents, right?! I’m not working full time this year. I had been teaching high school Language Arts for three years, and really loved it, but it was just too much freaking work. I couldn’t maintain a full-time job and my household. The kitchen was always a mess, sink full of dishes, and the laundry was never done—we just scoured the laundry baskets for clean underwear and wore the same pants over and over again. And despite being considered a pretty damn good teacher, and a part of numerous school affiliations, I usually only actually read and graded half of the papers I assigned. I’d bring them home to work on, but they got lost under the pile of laundry that needed to be folded. Luckily most of my students were so apathetic and never asked to see their grades, it didn’t matter. So this year, after being laid off due to budget cuts, I’m just tutoring. I've applied for dozens of jobs, but can barely even get an interview. I only work about two to four hours a day, but since they’re at three different places, I’m usually gone most of the day anyway. Which means that even though I don’t make crap for money, I still can’t keep up with my housework, so if you come over, there’ll probably be a pile of laundry and a pile of dishes and the floor will be covered in dust bunnies. Oh, and if you come in the spring, there’ll probably be ants crawling around everything because despite utilizing every chemical and all-natural old wives’ tale known to man, I can’t get rid of them. My family has pretty much gotten used to them. My husband can’t figure out what the hell he’s doing with his life, so don’t even ask about him! He’s still in school, so we live off his student loans, GI Bill, and his disability (did I mention that 11 months in Iraq gave him Quadriceps Tendonitis and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder –the symptoms being anxiety, depression, and insomnia? He’s certifiably crazy and on the list for a knee replacement!) My son is three, and yes, he is adorable, and very smart. I’m pretty sure he’s hitting for the other team though, or at least leaning toward transvestite, since he loves to paint his toenails and wear princess dresses and recently told me he wanted to be a mermaid. Plus, he’s starting to whine all the time, complaining about how I hurt his feelings because I wouldn’t let him watch The Princess and the Frog again. So that’s pretty much it. We get out every once in a while, maybe once a month, and hit the Red Robin or Olive Garden or some other chain restaurant, then maybe if we’re feeling crazy, go to a movie. Anyhoo, hope you’re doing as well—or better! Talk with you some other time.
No one shares in those Facebook messages how their lives are really going. And although, on a very conscious level, we all know this, I can’t help but feel even more insecure about myself when perusing through people’s pages. My friend Carlie’s photos consist solely of pictures of her various world travels and nights out to the bar—always clad in Banana Republic tops, Seven Jeans, and a Coach purse. Her status updates read, “Had a great time in Thailand, where to now?” Friends write on her wall things like “When are we going back to Dutch Goose for $ beer night?” and “OMG, girl, so much fun last night!” I’m sure being single with no kids and a steady income you get to keep all to yourself has its downfalls, but judging by her Facebook page, there are none.
My real friends and I have often talked about the difference between perception and reality in “the grass is always greener on the other side” phenomenon. She’ll run into an old friend and feel bad about herself because this person is married with kids and a house, while she is living at her parents’ house working retail and still single. And even though I remind her that I’m married with a kid and a house (kind of), it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Of course this friend didn’t tell her all about her troubles—she gave her Facebook stats and they moved on.
There’s always a special week in Facebook. It’s doppelganger week—post a picture of the famous person you look like. It’s mother appreciation week—post how much your kids weighed at birth. It’s Book lover’s week—post what book you’re reading now and in the comments, write your favorite quote. I’m going to start some more truthful weeks in Facebook.
It’s real friends week—count the amount of real friends in your Facebook. You know, the people you’ve actually talked to or seen in the past six months. Copy and paste this into your status, then in the comments, write the number of friends you really have! (32/102, 17 of whom are family).
It’s reality week—in your status, tell us the truth about how your life sucks. Then in the comments, list two or three more reasons, because man, if you’re like me, you won’t be able to choose just one. (I live pay check to pay check; my dad subsidizes my rent; I’m un/underemployed; my husband is certifiably crazy; my house is smaller than some of my friends’ garages).
LESSON LEARNED: The grass is not always greener on the other side. Everyone has some dandelions sprouting in their lawn. Maybe seeing just a glance into other people’s troubles would put our own into perspective and remind us that although we may post about how great things are, at some point, everybody’s status sucks.
I don’t actively pursue new friends on FB, although if I get a friend request, chances are I’ll say yes. And of course I’ve done searches for people—general searches for people I may have known from a certain school or organization, searches for specific people. But unless it’s someone I have an active real-life friendship with, or someone with whom I’ve lost touch with and actually want to have an active real-life friendship with, I don’t request. I just scan their pages for whatever information they’ve made available to everyone, or very often to friends-of-friends, check out their pictures and marital status and employment status and living arrangements and then make a general assessment as to whether or not they’ve become successful, or at least successful in terms of what I’ve become. I’m not one of those people who have 257 friends on Facebook. Like anyone actually has 257 friends. Certainly they may have met 257 people over the course of their lives, but they’re not friends. A recent post stated that Aiden Stowe and Antonio Hernandez are now friends. Aiden Stowe and Antonio Hernandez, at no point in their lives, have been friends. Sure, Aiden and Antonio went to the same high school. Sure Aiden’s dad was Antonio’s eighth grade social studies teacher. Sure, some of Aiden’s friends really are Antonio’s friends. But that doesn’t make Aiden and Antonio friends. They were never on any sports teams together, they were never in any clubs together, they didn’t attend the same college, or work at the same fast-food restaurant or anything that might warrant them being friends. The closest thing Aiden Stowe and Antonio Hernandez have in common is that in some point in their lives, they both kissed me.
About two weeks ago, I got a friend request from my senior-year boyfriend, Aiden Stowe (yes, the same Aiden Stowe). I waited a day—not because I was contemplating accepting, but because, despite the fact that I’ve been happily married for over five years, I didn’t want to look desperate,—and accepted his request. I waited another couple of days before I posted something on his wall, a simple “hey what’s up?” then obsessed for a couple days waiting for his response. I complained to my girlfriend: “Why do people friend request you, then not even talk to you or respond to your wall posts? I didn’t join Facebook to see how many virtual friends I could pretend to have. I joined to actually talk with people I care about. WTF?” The next day, I got a full message responding to my wall post telling me about what he had been up to and generally how things were going. I waited two days, then responded with what turned out to be an absurdly long message detailing my every success and positive experience since the last time we really talked, over ten years ago. In a nervous frenzy, I quickly added, via a new message, “Wow, didn’t realize that message was so long. Didn’t mean to go on and on!” Could I possibly be any dorkier? A couple days later, he responded with a short “glad to hear things are going well” type message and that was that.
These kinds of brief encounters only amplify my insecurities. It’s like a perpetual 10-year-reunion. My best friend got giddy over her high school crush commenting “Great pics, Ginger” on her wedding photos. Like maybe Antonio Hernandez (yes, same Antonio Hernandez) now thought she was cool. And like it even mattered.
Our messages back and forth between friends of past whom we rarely see portray us only at our best. They highlight all the wonderful things we’ve been doing, all the successes we’ve had, all the benefits our lives have granted us. “Oh, things are great!” we say. Statistically speaking, things cannot be that great for that many people. For some of us, our lives still suck as much as they did in high school—for many of us, even more so. Sure, if you’re friends with someone on Facebook, you may see a status update or two that points out the small deficiencies in their life—a note about how work sucked this week, or the baby wouldn’t stop crying, or her boyfriend and she just broke up. But there’s never anything of any real substance. I would never have sent a truthful message to Aiden Stowe:
Hey, Aiden! So glad to see you’re doing well with your new wife and adventurous job in Korea. Things are going okay here. We live in Portland, in outer Northeast—you know, Suburbia. We rent a cute little—and boy do I mean little, our old apartment was only 100 square feet smaller!—house. From my dad. It’s what we like to call a fixer-upper. Some people call it character, but I just call it shitty. There’s a tarp on the roof right now, which works better than the buckets we had in the office. If it would ever stop raining we’d fix our roof. But really, it’s fine that it hasn’t since we can’t really afford to fix it anyway. So anyhow, we lived with my sister and her two kids for a while after I finished grad school. It wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be, but when I unexpectedly (FYI, no you do not need to be off the pill for a few months before you get pregnant, a couple weeks will do fine!) got pregnant, we figured it was time to get a place of our own. We couldn’t get financing, thanks to years of credit card debt on my part (I looked really cute and fashionable for about three years, though!), so my dad bought our house and we rent from him. And to top that all off, he still pays a chunk of our rent since we can’t afford the whole mortgage! I drive a Pontiac G6, which really has some get-up-and-go, but honestly is quite a dorky car. And it’s red, so it just screams out “I’m trying to be cool, but this is as cool as I can afford.” My husband drives his dad’s beat up old ‘97 Ford F150. Thank goodness for our parents, right?! I’m not working full time this year. I had been teaching high school Language Arts for three years, and really loved it, but it was just too much freaking work. I couldn’t maintain a full-time job and my household. The kitchen was always a mess, sink full of dishes, and the laundry was never done—we just scoured the laundry baskets for clean underwear and wore the same pants over and over again. And despite being considered a pretty damn good teacher, and a part of numerous school affiliations, I usually only actually read and graded half of the papers I assigned. I’d bring them home to work on, but they got lost under the pile of laundry that needed to be folded. Luckily most of my students were so apathetic and never asked to see their grades, it didn’t matter. So this year, after being laid off due to budget cuts, I’m just tutoring. I've applied for dozens of jobs, but can barely even get an interview. I only work about two to four hours a day, but since they’re at three different places, I’m usually gone most of the day anyway. Which means that even though I don’t make crap for money, I still can’t keep up with my housework, so if you come over, there’ll probably be a pile of laundry and a pile of dishes and the floor will be covered in dust bunnies. Oh, and if you come in the spring, there’ll probably be ants crawling around everything because despite utilizing every chemical and all-natural old wives’ tale known to man, I can’t get rid of them. My family has pretty much gotten used to them. My husband can’t figure out what the hell he’s doing with his life, so don’t even ask about him! He’s still in school, so we live off his student loans, GI Bill, and his disability (did I mention that 11 months in Iraq gave him Quadriceps Tendonitis and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder –the symptoms being anxiety, depression, and insomnia? He’s certifiably crazy and on the list for a knee replacement!) My son is three, and yes, he is adorable, and very smart. I’m pretty sure he’s hitting for the other team though, or at least leaning toward transvestite, since he loves to paint his toenails and wear princess dresses and recently told me he wanted to be a mermaid. Plus, he’s starting to whine all the time, complaining about how I hurt his feelings because I wouldn’t let him watch The Princess and the Frog again. So that’s pretty much it. We get out every once in a while, maybe once a month, and hit the Red Robin or Olive Garden or some other chain restaurant, then maybe if we’re feeling crazy, go to a movie. Anyhoo, hope you’re doing as well—or better! Talk with you some other time.
No one shares in those Facebook messages how their lives are really going. And although, on a very conscious level, we all know this, I can’t help but feel even more insecure about myself when perusing through people’s pages. My friend Carlie’s photos consist solely of pictures of her various world travels and nights out to the bar—always clad in Banana Republic tops, Seven Jeans, and a Coach purse. Her status updates read, “Had a great time in Thailand, where to now?” Friends write on her wall things like “When are we going back to Dutch Goose for $ beer night?” and “OMG, girl, so much fun last night!” I’m sure being single with no kids and a steady income you get to keep all to yourself has its downfalls, but judging by her Facebook page, there are none.
My real friends and I have often talked about the difference between perception and reality in “the grass is always greener on the other side” phenomenon. She’ll run into an old friend and feel bad about herself because this person is married with kids and a house, while she is living at her parents’ house working retail and still single. And even though I remind her that I’m married with a kid and a house (kind of), it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Of course this friend didn’t tell her all about her troubles—she gave her Facebook stats and they moved on.
There’s always a special week in Facebook. It’s doppelganger week—post a picture of the famous person you look like. It’s mother appreciation week—post how much your kids weighed at birth. It’s Book lover’s week—post what book you’re reading now and in the comments, write your favorite quote. I’m going to start some more truthful weeks in Facebook.
It’s real friends week—count the amount of real friends in your Facebook. You know, the people you’ve actually talked to or seen in the past six months. Copy and paste this into your status, then in the comments, write the number of friends you really have! (32/102, 17 of whom are family).
It’s reality week—in your status, tell us the truth about how your life sucks. Then in the comments, list two or three more reasons, because man, if you’re like me, you won’t be able to choose just one. (I live pay check to pay check; my dad subsidizes my rent; I’m un/underemployed; my husband is certifiably crazy; my house is smaller than some of my friends’ garages).
LESSON LEARNED: The grass is not always greener on the other side. Everyone has some dandelions sprouting in their lawn. Maybe seeing just a glance into other people’s troubles would put our own into perspective and remind us that although we may post about how great things are, at some point, everybody’s status sucks.
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