CLICK!
So I'm at work. I'm getting off my stand, picking up a few kickboards and then this girl I knew slightly on the swim team says "hi" to me. This is odd because she rarely ever talked to me before. Around her was another swim team girl, and then a lifeguard from the swim team up on the lifeguard stand. Somehow I got into their conversation.
But first a little history about the lifeguard. He's very popular. All the girls on the swim team like him in one way or another, even though he often tends to be a self-centered jerk most of the time (except when he agreed to work for me one time, that was about all I can remember). He's a big partier and is even one of the best freestylers on the team. Has everything going for him.
Back to the main story, he was talking about how he was grounded and his parents wouldn't let him go somewhere (not surprising in the least bit), but he failed to mention where. So I ask him, and he says, "So-and-so's birthday party."
A little history about "So-and-so." I assumed I was good friends with So-and-so, since I helped him out with his physics homework all year even though he was failing the class. But he never thinks to ask me to do stuff with him and never invites me to anything, but he hangs out with people like the lifeguard I mentioned earlier.
So I make a sarcastic statement about So-and-so not inviting me to his party when the aforementioned lifeguard says:
"I don't think you'd want to go, Zane. There's going to be alcohol."
It was at that moment that a little "CLICK!" sounded within me. That's why they never invited me to anything. That's why I wasn't included in the higher end of the swim-team-social-hierarchy. THAT'S THE KEY! They thought all this time that I was some kind of godforsaken goody-two-shoes. Which was probably due to the fact that I once said that I never liked the taste of beer. But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to try anything else.
Perhaps what they meant by not inviting me was the fact that they thought I would be MATURE in my consumption rather than them being IMMATURE, like they are, therefore making me a goody-two-shoes, or whatever. I wouldn't blame them. At the beginning of the year, I seemed to pass off an air of somewhat snooty maturity, even though a child inside me was screaming to be let out. Even so, I wouldn't rat them out. I wouldn't betray them. I may have a few drinks as opposed to their many, but that doesn't mean they can EXCLUDE me.
But then, a voice inside reminds me about the long history of alcohol abuse on both sides of my family. My cousin on my father's side was put in rehab. My mother's mother had been drinking since before age nineteen and is still suffering the effects.
So here I am, faced with the classic dilemma: Give in to peer pressure, or give out and be a loser in their eyes?
If posession of moderation and modesty mean you're a loser, then I'm going to keep losing their game. I still might not get invited to anything, but if they're all so close-minded as to go as far as shutting me out because I wish to be modest, then so be it.
Thanks for the good times, "friends."
But first a little history about the lifeguard. He's very popular. All the girls on the swim team like him in one way or another, even though he often tends to be a self-centered jerk most of the time (except when he agreed to work for me one time, that was about all I can remember). He's a big partier and is even one of the best freestylers on the team. Has everything going for him.
Back to the main story, he was talking about how he was grounded and his parents wouldn't let him go somewhere (not surprising in the least bit), but he failed to mention where. So I ask him, and he says, "So-and-so's birthday party."
A little history about "So-and-so." I assumed I was good friends with So-and-so, since I helped him out with his physics homework all year even though he was failing the class. But he never thinks to ask me to do stuff with him and never invites me to anything, but he hangs out with people like the lifeguard I mentioned earlier.
So I make a sarcastic statement about So-and-so not inviting me to his party when the aforementioned lifeguard says:
"I don't think you'd want to go, Zane. There's going to be alcohol."
It was at that moment that a little "CLICK!" sounded within me. That's why they never invited me to anything. That's why I wasn't included in the higher end of the swim-team-social-hierarchy. THAT'S THE KEY! They thought all this time that I was some kind of godforsaken goody-two-shoes. Which was probably due to the fact that I once said that I never liked the taste of beer. But that doesn't mean I'm not willing to try anything else.
Perhaps what they meant by not inviting me was the fact that they thought I would be MATURE in my consumption rather than them being IMMATURE, like they are, therefore making me a goody-two-shoes, or whatever. I wouldn't blame them. At the beginning of the year, I seemed to pass off an air of somewhat snooty maturity, even though a child inside me was screaming to be let out. Even so, I wouldn't rat them out. I wouldn't betray them. I may have a few drinks as opposed to their many, but that doesn't mean they can EXCLUDE me.
But then, a voice inside reminds me about the long history of alcohol abuse on both sides of my family. My cousin on my father's side was put in rehab. My mother's mother had been drinking since before age nineteen and is still suffering the effects.
So here I am, faced with the classic dilemma: Give in to peer pressure, or give out and be a loser in their eyes?
If posession of moderation and modesty mean you're a loser, then I'm going to keep losing their game. I still might not get invited to anything, but if they're all so close-minded as to go as far as shutting me out because I wish to be modest, then so be it.
Thanks for the good times, "friends."