reposts, vol 7

Anybody who enjoyed high school, or who looks back on it fondly is a douchebag. That is a large generalization, but for the most part my experience has proven it so. Such a douchebag could read that sentence and say (assuming they can string together words in a coherent fashion) that I'm merely bitter because I was unpopular. There is truth in this. Indeed, the healthiest thing would be for me to not dwell on the experience at all, but that would be to ignore the fact that those four years shaped me as an adult, for better or worse.

My work habits were certainly formed by high school. As anybody who was in my graduating class and knew me can tell you, I practically never showed up for senior year. I passed by the very skin of my teeth. The absences were for a variety of reasons. Early in the year, an ill-advised venture into football ended with me tearing practically everything in one knee. Without football, and fairly miserable in my classes, I saw no reason to work through the pain to go to class. By the time I was fully recovered, the year was half over, I was thirty pounds heavier, and had a scraggly Amish beard.

I started going to my classes again, excepting ceramics because it was retarded. I was doing okay in said classes, and football had at the least gained me a friend, who in turn helped me find a circle of friends. So after two and a half years of spending lunch times reading alone in a secluded spot of campus, I was actually social. In the future, this would set a precedent for how I make friends: my social awkwardness won't allow me to make the first move but I'm fine after a while.

The reason I started going to class was the same reason I ever went to class freshman year, and the reason I passed 7th grade, even. I had a crush. It had actually been there since junior year, but only because the girl in question was a fox. When I actually started talking to her, it was less because she was a fox, though she was, and more because she was actually as smart as me. It's an arrogant thing to say, but that's fairly rare. I actually had a reason to go to history class, and since that was in the middle of the day, I thought that I might as well go to the classes afterward, too.

Unfortunately, the same thing that ended my first relationship crippled my chances with ever "getting the girl", namely, being a giant pussy. This is a trait which has continued to cripple interactions with the opposite sex. Well, not quite true. I'm kind of a jerk to women (and people and general) I don't like, but if I have an infatuation, I become a giant wimp. Out of the (admittedly few) girlfriends I've had, things have gone fine until I started feeling. Since in the senior year case I started feeling, whatever the hormone-to-emotion ratio, before I even asked her out, I was in dead from the start.