Date

For those who don't know already, I went to a prep school in CT for high school. I was not exactly the most popular person there, to say the least. I could just say that this was because I was a day student and didn't get to hang out with the other girls overnight as they sneaked outside to the dorm to the boy's dorm across the way. Or I could say that is was because I didn't play varsity field hockey or lacrosse.

But I would be lying to myself.

I wasn't popular because I was a dork. Have been and always will be.

Back in the early 90s, before cell phones were invented, the dorms all had a single pay phone per floor. We didn't even have email back in those days (I KNOW! Hard to believe.) So if you had a friend (or boyfriend) who wasn't at school with you, they had to call the payphone and hope somebody picked it up.

This system worked remarkably well.

Anyway, it was almost the end of my freshman year. It was warm outside and the girls were all sitting on the lawn in between Buehler and Memorial hall sunning themselves in their bikinis watching the boys toss the lacrosse ball around without their shirts on, generally acting like the adolescent idiots we all were at one time.

I came inside to pee, and the phone was ringing so I answered it.

It was a boy, and he was calling KH, one of the most popular (field hockey and lacrosse playing) girls at my school.

KH and I were not friends (obviously). However, KH was also a day student also and had many friends in the area who were friends of friends of mine (if that makes any sense at all). I ascertained that this boy happened to be friends with another friend of mine who had gone to elementary school with KH, and we ended up talking on the phone for an hour or so.

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch about me stealing KH's boyfriend, let me just tell you that this was no bf of KH's. Just a friend who lived in the area who was about to come home for the summer from prep school himself who wanted to tell her about a party he was having or some such. And eventually I DID get KH to come to the phone.

But anyway, this boy and I hit it off via telephone. We talked each of the next 5 successive nights and arranged to have a date two weeks from then when school was finally out.

It was my first date ever. I had just turned 15.

Well, anyway. After much anticipation, the date finally happened.

It was a total flop.

We went to see Lethal Weapon 3 at a movie theater in Torrington. He said a total of three sentences to me the entire evening.

(I counted).

I suppose I could have been more conversant myself, but I didn't really know what to say. I didn't know what had happened to change him the guy who was so great to talk to on the phone to this asshole who wouldn't even look me in the eye when I came up the driveway to meet him.

Later I found out (through that friend of a friend of KHs) that KH had told him that I was ugly and unpopular and that he shouldn't have anything to do with me.

Ah, the wonders of the teenage bitch.

I'd like to say that this was the only mean thing KH did during high school, but it wasn't. We all know someone like this. If you don't, you probably WERE her.

And so it was that when I joined facebook two years ago I faced a dilemma. Do I friend KH? Would she friend me back? Was I a fool to put myself out there? None of my other friends that I had left from high school thought it was a good idea. Yet at the same time, we all wanted to know what had become of her.

Well, mostly I think my friends wanted to see if she'd reject my friend request. And (let's be honest here) we all wanted to know whether she'd gotten fat. We all already knew what she had done with her life via the alumni bulletin.

I finally gave in and friended her. And she friended me back! I got to see pictures of her husband and son, and was now privy to all the updates she and the other members of the Wolph Pack (the name given to the field hockey-lacrosse clique at my high school) were saying to one another. Not that it mattered, but the comments were all completely..... benign.

Strangely, I found that I wasn't angry with her any more. That the goings on of that clique no longer had the power to make me upset. Her power was gone.

(And she was fat.)

As much as I hate to admit it, I probably hated her as much because other people liked her when they didn't like me as much as because of anything she ever did to me. Yep, I was jealous. Aside from this one incident, I can't remember anything else specifically mean she did to me. My own friends were meaner than she was. Maybe I was too.

I can't say that things would be any different now if I ever saw her in person. But I'll bet she'd be more polite than some of my other "once-were-friends" would be.

You know who you are.

At very least, I feel that that chapter of my life is closed now. Thank goodness. Because that grudge was awfully heavy to carry.