SoulSurvivor

Hot Fries and Capri Suns

The other day I found myself thinking about how I perceived life when I was in high school. I remember having so much fun! I had, like, four best friends (the girls who you actually saw and/or spoke to on the weekend, your parents knew them, and they knew all of your good gossip FIRST), about eight friends (you hang with them every once in a while outside of school, your parents know their faces but may not remember their names, and they get the watered down version of the good gossip, after it has been properly filtered by the BF's), and a gang of associates (the girls that you spoke to if you passed them in the hallway, and most likely was connected to you by association - i.e. an associate could possibly be one of your friend's friends. Make sense?) At the time, this was simply logical. If you had these numbers down to a science, you could easily be considered (dare I say it) popular. The bus ride to from school was when all the action happened. People laughing loud, gossiping, singing to Walkmans, and undoubtedly, someone had set up concessions in the back right out of their bookbag. And you always were in the middle of the excitement, complete with a bag of Hot Fries and a Pacific Cooler Capri Sun.

And then there were the boys.

High school was the last time I remember myself and every one of my friends having pretty much the same taste in guys. Not to the extent of us all liking the same guy (there was an unspoken code about that) , but we knew if we unveiled a crush, none of our friends would say "ugh, you think he's cute??"

I wish I had the ability to just have a "crush" on a man now, and then plan (with my girlfriends help, of course) how it would all work out. We had a system. You develop a crush, and immediately, a code name must be assigned to him (by you and one of you BF's) so that you may discuss him at anytime without random people knowing who you like. Then, you felt it out, and put your friends on the case:

Me: When I answered that question in class, was he looking at me?
He left the cafeteria right as I was walking in; do you think he was avoiding me?
He brushed my shoulder when he walked pass me and said excuse me, so he must like me too, right?
Alicia's best friend's cousin knows his best friend, and she said that he said that he liked girls with big butts - my butt is big enough, right?

BF:Girl, I could've sworn I saw him staring at you on the bus this morning!
Remember when you dropped your pencil, and you both picked up the pencil at the same time? His finger lingered on yours for a long time!

This went on for several weeks. It seems childish, but not for nothing, it gave me a reason to get up in the morning. I was happy all the time because I saw him often, and when I didn't see him, I was thinking about seeing him. I was perfectly happy with him just saying hello and smiling at me; it could be weeks before he said one word to me! I wanted to always look my best if there was a slight chance I would see him. And if it didn't work out, all of your friends (all three classifications) were there to wipe your tears and find you a new crush.

I miss that.

In Adulthood, if you see somebody that sparks your interest, almost immediately you say or do something or he says or does something to get the conversation going. No mystery or time to daydream about what he would say if he were to talk to you. From there, everything is fast-forward untill the crash. Now all of a sudden, you have to alone with this man at some point, and your friends might not be right around the corner. You don't know anything about him, because there is no friend of a friend of a cousin or anything like that to get his bio from - for all you know, he could be a murderer. Then the Sex stuff takes over the entire intro, which you rarely had to worry about then because you weren't "fast" and eeewww, you swore you would never put your mouth on that!

So the new game begins.

Why hasn't he called me? You find yourself asking four days after the first date. You have forgotten what his face really looks like. In high school, by the time you got to the date part, he already knew a lot about you, especially if you had class together. You could easily find out from one of your many connections how he really felt about you.

Now you have added to your worries (thank you, Society) the notion that you probably "gave it up" too quickly and now he doesn't respect you, so he can't be your boyfriend now, but maybe he could still be useful, because it really wasn't half-bad...it's better than nothing...

And to think, there was a time you thought he would act shady if you didn't give him an end-of-the-night kiss.

So then you heard from your best friend's friend's cousin that he said he was going to dump you (Keep in mind, in high school, you didn't actually have to be together for you or him to get dumped). Life, as you knew it, was OVER! You were all the D's - depressed, devastated, down and out, and done with boys. Down drops the big mirror from the sky to show you everything about yourself that he must have hated, because why else would he have done this to you? You call an emergency BF&F Meeting and pull out all the stops. A slumber party, complete with popcorn, ice cream, a yearbook and a Sharpie (for mustaching his picture), lots of candy and a two-liter soda, music videos to sing along to (you automatically get dibs on the sad songs), and tissue for when you remember why you called the meeting in the first place. By the next day, you have already decided that he is a total A-hole, and you are now convinced (with the help of the BF&F Club) that you are too good for him - on to the next!

Somewhere between Then and Now, the logic has gotten lost. You're not nearly as excited to get up and go to work as you were to go to school. Instead of trying to look your best, you put on whatever you think won't make you look fat. You see, the good thing about a crush was that when you realized it was over, you only looked far enough into the future to see what would happen when you saw him in class on Monday. When it's over now, you look far into the future with pessimism and fear, because when you're grown, it ain't so easy to be 'on to the next'. Cuz you don't know when the next is...or if there will even be a next. There is no hallway to peruse for good men and hardly ever any best friend's cousin to get to scoop on him from. You are out there on your own.

What I would give to be back in high school. I reminisce about good times on the bus and in the hallway by the lockers. I find myself smiling as I write this.

And I'm craving a bag of Hot Fries and a Capri Sun.

posted by DramaQueen @ 2:03 PM