Popularity

I was never part of the popular crowd. I never thought I was, anyway.

I remember junior high school. I had a friend who, one day, showed off his ability to sing this stupid rhyme:

Eric Eric pho-Eric banana phana pho-fana, me my ph-fana

Or something like that. My popular friends would go to him and ask him to make one for another name, say, Matt, or Mike. I remember he used to do so at their request. I wonder if he ever got sick of doing so, of being their pet monkey. He wasn’t a popular kid, by far. He looked geeky, he acted geeky, he was Chinese, and even I thought he was an unpopular fellow. I guess he was, in a sense, a stepping stool for me to make myself feel better, by convincing myself that I’m a step higher than he is in the social ladder.

There was this one time when he asked me a personal question. It seemed personal to me at the time, anyway. He asked me if I used deodorant. I said, “Of course!” He said, “Oh, okay.”

At the time, I didn’t actually use deodorant. I basically didn’t want to be the kid who didn’t use deodorant. It did, however, make me feel less alone in this world of people who didn’t use deodorant. I guess, in order to make myself seem superior to him, I had, in the process, made him seem alone in that very world.

There was this one time, when we watched some movie about the origin of man, and Lucy, one of the earliest ancestors that we dug up. They had an reenactment of what happened when Lucy died, and right before she was struck down or whatever, she had made a face. I proceeded to make fun of it, making that very same face. Apparently, I had done a very good job of it, and my friend Emmanual kept telling me to make the face over and over again. At first, it was okay, I guess. After a while, I just felt so sick of doing this stupid face. It’s not like it’s something that I’m proud of or anything. I was just making this face that probably made me look stupid anyway.

After a couple of times, I got fed up, and I eventually refused to make the stupid face. After a couple of prods, he stopped asking, and left me alone. At that moment, I felt very isolated and conflicted. While I was no longer forced to do some stupid face, I also felt like I had let down my friends, to be their little toy. I was, at that moment, unpopular.

We were still friends, afterwards. Nothing really had changed. I wonder why that particular event was so memorable. Maybe it was that I had, despite the social pressures, decided to not play along with their little game.

Standing up for myself was something I could never do in elementary school. Just saying no was very difficult for me. I remember when my friends used to ask me for stuff, whether it was for candy, or whatever. (I can’t think of what else they would ask me for… I don’t think they ever asked me for money, and I would probably have lent them any pens or pencils I had.) Whenever they asked me for stuff, I would kind of lower my head, and whine, in a low voice, No…. They might or might not have been able to hear me, but either way, they would ask me again, probably. I would just kind of sit there, immobile, too afraid to say no, but unwilling to give them what they wanted.

A lot has changed. I can now say Fuck You! with no remorse. I care not what they want. I surprise myself. I don’t know when this changed, honestly. Maybe it was when I went to high school, when all of my friends changed. I had become a lot more outgoing when I went to high school.

Freshman year, I was probably still very shy. I hung out with Eric a lot, but not as much as I would have liked to. (My parents were pretty strict about where I was, outside of school.) I used to be very shy in front of girls, especially pretty ones. I was too afraid to talk to them, even when they talked to me. I think that I had come off as just a guy who was very rude and didn’t like girls, to them.

Sophomore year, I had mastered the art of cutting class. I had five day weekends, two days of class. I don’t blame my cousin as much as my parents do, but I guess it was her influence. I used to go hang out with her and her friends, who were “cool”. I felt like I had more friends, hanging out with my cousin. Higher up on the social ladder, I guess.

Junior year, my cousin went back to Hong Kong. I started going to class again. This year was the year that I did the best in, of all the years in high school. I also had the best time in high school this year, because I went to a lot of parties and actually felt popular for once. But holy shit, did I spend a lot of money. I suppose I would have been able to do all the same things, regardless of whether or not I got my friends the gifts I did, but at the time, it seemed necessary. Friends were important. It just seemed to be the “in” thing to do.

I made a lot of friends that year. I met this girl, Cindy, who was a year younger than I, and I thought that she was “perfect”. I tend to idealize people who I like. Smart, pretty, hard working, good grades, she had it all. I probably should have made a move back then, but I guess I was still afraid of girls and rejection. But she was very popular. Now that I think about it, I think she also had a boyfriend at the time. Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. Because of her, I made a lot of friends. I also felt like I should study hard, seeing as how she did the same. I wonder how she is.

Senior year, it turns out that Irene and my cousin had become good friends while talking online. When my cousin got back from Hong Kong, I became friends with Irene, and soon afterwards, I got together with her. As much as I’d hate to admit it, she and my cousin probably contributed a lot to my irresponsible behavior. I began to cut not only class, but work. I went out at night, while my parents were asleep, just to see her. I lost a lot of friends in the process.

Popularity. I guess it’s important to those who lack self-confidence. I like having friends, I like being accepted. I don’t like being requested to do stuff that I don’t want to do. I liked having a lot of friends, and I like having a couple of really close friends. I miss my old friends. I miss everybody from high school, two people from Syracuse, and a select group of people from junior high/elementary school. I hope that every one of them is doing well.