Saturday, May 20, 2006

BULLIED? OR BULLSH*T?

A while back I was in browsing (yes, out of my house) when someone approached me, ready to rumble. “Hi” she said accusingly. I looked at her. And drew a blank. I thought back, way back... Did I know this person? Should I know this person? Apparently, yes and yes. “We went to summer camp together” she said and after a strange, stunted, go-nowhere convo, she stormed off. I chalked it up to personal issues. And then racked my brain. What was her name? How did I know her? Which camp? Who the hell was she?

I went home and called my friends from the three different summer camps I’d gone to. No one remembered this girl. Oh well, I thought, another sign that the aging process is taking its toll. Hadn’t a clue. Appropriately enough, I soon forgot about the whole incident.

Until several months later when this girl resurfaced. This time, we were at a friend’s party. Spotting her, I immediately remembered her as the mystery girl – from the store. I still had no recollection of her from camp. Trying to be nice, and to pretend I knew who on earth she was, I went over to say hello. We started chatting, the usual stuff: what do you do, where do you live etc. Turns out she has a couple of kids, boys. Boys who, she claimed, “are much easier than girls. And much nicer.” Sheturned to leave but first, looking me square in the eye, she added, “girls are bitches." Whoa! I'm a girl. A mother of boys, but still a girl. A girly-girl with a lot of girlfriends. Sure, some girls are bitches. But some boys are too. What was up her ass? Watching her walk away, I marveled at her anger. In front of a practocal stranger. And at that moment I remembered her: as one of the 'losers' in my cabin at camp.

Sounds harsh, I know, but that’s exactly what she was. Especially in our year. Not that we were any different, r better, or worse, from other 15 year olds. But, see, that’s just it – we were 15!! Mean girls? We had ‘em. The kind who stole your boyfriends, got thrown out of camp, and then stole your clothes. Yep, they got the boot, packed what they liked and left. We had the athletes, the sunworshippers and the secret smokers. The only-friends-with-counsellors-gals. The gung-ho campers, the performers, the canoe trippers. The girls who went out with the trippers. And everyone in between.

And then there were the few who hated everything and everybody. They made no effort to “fit in” – a must in any teenage social situation. Nor did they try to just get along. They were the ones who sat around being miserable, complaining. They were dripping in attittude. Not tough ‘tude, or too-cool-for-school-tude. Just “poor me” ‘tude. Poor me, no one likes me. Poor me, I never get to sit at overflow. Poor me, my clothes aren’t as hip as everybody else’s. Poor me, I’m not pretty. Poor me, I’ll never get a boyfriend. Poor me – I’m the same as everybody else with the same insecurities yet have entitlement issues and am bitter!!!! Yeah, that girl was one of them.

Oddly enough, that girl bumped into one of my best friends the very next day, telling her about this girl she bumped into, a nasty bitch who pretended not to know her. When she mentioned my name, it was all my friend could do to keep her mouth shut. In fact, she couldn’t. “That’s one of my best friends” she stated, proud. (That’s why we’re such tight pals).
At first I was outraged. My name was being dragged through the mud! Especially since with the recollection of who this girl was came the recollection that she wasn’t even in my cabin. And that I left halfway through the summer. And that there was someone else who was rather nasty with the same first name as me. Oh yeah, I remember her now. But then my ire faded. How sad it all was. Bullied? Hardly. Just bitter. She was barely a blip on my childhood radar. And come to think of it, I know exactly why.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Strange... at my camp, the losers always got sent to overflow. They just didn't want to get suckered into clearing the table because they were too cool to "freeze".

Anonymous said...

Strange. The losers at my camp alway sat at overflow. I know, becuase I was the staff member assigned to monitor the overflow table. I think they thought they were too cool, or too uncool, to "freeze". Who wants to clear the table everyday?