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Jan
23
Awkwardness abounds
2009 at 6pm Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
in my store tonight. Exam week in our local schools just ended, and we’re packed to the gills with middle-schoolers.
The pimples. The braces. The questionable fashion choices. The oh-so-urgent conversations about who’s texting whom.
And, oh yeah, that couple making out in the middle of the cafe, completely oblivious of the hundreds of people around them. Adolescent hormones really are amazing.
It reminds me of all the horrors of being 13. Still in the thick of the awkward stage, I had my first boyfriend, and he was way cooler than I was. (Hey, I’ll admit it, I didn’t really get cute until I hit 16 or 17.) He was a “skater,” so I made the unfortunate decision to try out baggy, low-slung jeans and hemp necklaces (c’mon people, it was 1995) and to learn the terms for those “tricks” he did on his glorified rollerblades.
Sure, our moms had to drive us on all of our dates, if you can even call them that, but we were cool. And so in love. Talk-on-the-phone-for-three-hours-a-day-and-write-really-awful-poetry in love. Get-caught-making-out-in-inappropriate-places in love. It was real, and it was forever. Or so I thought.
Then I heard through the grapevine that he was making fun of me with some of his friends. And when you’re 13, you know that means that everyone is talking about you. It sucked. It was awkward. I hated his guts. And I cried way more than I should have.
The last time I was at my parents’ house, I couldn’t sleep one night and found myself digging through my closet. I found pictures, diary entries, and poems from 7th and 8th grade, and I could only cringe at their awfulness. I mean, really, it’s just so embarrassing, and you can’t know it until you’re old enough to look back.
Seeing these kids tonight, I wish I could tell them that it’s going to be okay, that they’re going to get through it and grow up and finally figure out how to dress for their body types. And that, yes, someday the boys really will start to like the smart girls.
Since I can’t do that, I’ll ask you, dear readers, to make my night more fun. Tell me an awkward teenage story of your own. It’s okay, you’re safe here.
Related posts:
Oh, middle school. How I don’t miss thee. I was 13 in 1996, just after you, and I remember wearing overalls and Doc Martins to school “socials.” (I went to an all-girls school, and we’d “dance” with boys from a neatby boys’ school). I remember very awkward moments sitting on the bleachers, waiting to be asked to dance.
Then there was overnight camp. I was one of the oldest girls in my bunk, and I used to get teased a lot because a) I was a tad bit overweight and b) I was physically more mature than some of the other girls. Not fun. Yes, a lot of my middle school experience had to do with physical appearance. And then it was awkward too because some of the other girls would walk around the bunk (age 12) wearing leopard-print Victoria’s Secret lingerie–and there was me in my plain white cotton Jockey briefs. I shudder to think about those now. One time, we all went to a social with a boys camp an hour away (see a theme here?) and a bunch of boys asked me to dance, one right after the other. Turns out later that my bunkmates put them up to it! How humiliating.
I too kept diaries, and I cringe when I think of them (my mom came across a box of them in my closet recently and said I should publish them. Yuck). But if I could go back and time and tell me 13-year-old self anything, I too would say that things turn out OK in the end. And it’s so true that the boys end up liking the smart girls!
Goodness… How do I narrow it down to just one? I lusted, yes lusted after a boy that went to a rival high school. He was a model. He was gorgeous. I worked with him at the pizza joint at the mall. It was very Fast Times at Ridgemont High’ish.
Anyway, he showed an interest in me and invited me out to lunch and then we went back to his place to “study”. He layed a kiss on me that practically took the skin off my mouth. I was dazed. I was in la la land. I saw stars and heard the fireworks ala The Brady Bunch.
THEN, when it was over, the kiss that is, he told me that I didn’t know how to kiss and that I needed to learn how if we were to go out again.
Um.. I nearly passed out and died right then and there. Yeah, he went to a rival high school but we WORKED together. Hello! Can you ring the awkward bell??
Needless to say. I learned how to kiss better (pronto) but he was never graced with the polished version. LOL.
I remember all me and all my friends listening to Korn, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, and Marilyn Manson. Korn and Kid Rock are still around, but whatever happened to the other two? (This was 1997-2000.) One of my friends was in love with Rob Zombie. Go figure. Yeah, we were a bit odd.
One particularly awkward moment: my unfortunate decision to wear red socks with black platform Mary Janes. A GUY had to point out how bad that looked!
What comes to mind is my “most embarrassing moment” story. When I look back now, it’s funny, but at the time, it was horrifying.
I was in 8th grade, and I was not as physically mature as most girls my age, so I was only starting to wear a bra. Some days, I guess I would forget to put one on, because it really didn’t matter if I had it on. However, if I was in gym, wearing a white shirt or in a situation where I’d be in a locker room changing, I of course wanted my bra.
It was the day of our orchestra UIL contest, and at some point during the day, we were to be excused from classes to go to our competition. Our orchestra uniforms involved a white blouse. We were supposed to change all together in the girls’ bathroom (and NOT in the stalls in order to save time). See where this is going?
When I realized I had forgotten my bra, I panicked. I somehow got to the attendance office to call my mom and ask her to bring one to me. Unfortunately, my mom was in a meeting, and her secretary asked to take a message. Of course I didn’t want to have to tell this lady my horrifying secret, but she left me no choice. When I told her, she must have said something like “oh dear.” She did her best to help me. I can’t quite remember what happened next, but I think she sent a note to my mom in her meeting, and I just had to trust that it would all work out.
Back in class a bit later, I got a note to go to the attendance office to pick something up. What I found out is that my much older brother (he’s 12 years older than me, so he was about 25 at the time) was sent by my mom to go through my underwear drawer to bring me a bra. I was MORTIFIED. My older brother dug through my underwear drawer and saw my panties and bras?! I wanted to die. To make it worse (to 13-year-old me), he brought it in a brown paper sack and put masking tape around the top of the bag (he went around it about 7 times with the tape).
Looking back, I’m not embarrassed, but for several years after this happened, I thought this was the most embarrassing thing that could ever happen to me. Now, I really can’t think of an “embarrassing moment.” *sigh*
oh dear. I try not to remember my early adolescence. I don’t think I was ever absolutely horrified or embarrassed by anything in particular, but I was a bit of a wallflower in social situations and did my best to remain unnoticed in 7th & most of 8th grade–except in class when I knew I had the right answer. (I could be a little bit like Hermione then.)
I wish I’d been less scared of being wrong or rejected, though. (Neither was ever as bad as I expected it to be.)
well, I really liked this boy who was playing baseball at this tournament where my dad was coaching. I didn’t like my hair so I decided to trim the bangs…make it look good, get his attention, right? Well, I cut them while they were WET and yes, when my hair dried I no longer had bangs…I was devastated and I ended up wearing my dad’s golf hat that entire weekend. I looked like Gilligan’s twin!!!
Junior high. Yuck. When I was 13, I started at a new school, and it was the first time I’d been in a public school. I was adopted by a couple girls in my class the first day, so I didn’t spend too much time as the loner New Kid. But then a few days later, one of the girls called me and convinced me that I should “go out with” one of the guys. I said okay, even though I couldn’t have picked him out of a police lineup. For a few days, all the 8th grade boys snickered whenever they saw me, and after two days of being his “girlfriend” the same friend told me at lunch that he wanted to break up with me, which really didn’t bother me. But I found out later he’d had a bet with one of the guys.
The only benefit I got out of it was being able to say I already had a boyfriend when someone who I had NO interest in asked me to be his girlfriend. Saying that was much nicer than anything else my mind would have come up with at the time, though. I was kind of mean in junior high.
This post reminds me of a song on Jon McLaughlin’s new album. It basically encourages teenagers not to take anything in high school too seriously because it’s only four years of your life, and the high school social hierarchy collapses in the real world.
Oh geeze … I think I’ve used selective amnesia to hide from my jr. high antics. How cool to hear your first boyfriend was a skater – mine was too. Until my early twenties I dated skaters exclusively and did the complete ‘Betty’ style of dress, even though I couldn’t even stand on a board.
So of course my most embarrassing moment was when one of the boys convinced me of how easy it was so I hopped on, started off well enough. But once I was going pretty fast, I realized I had no clue how to make turns. I ended up sliding along the pavement, and getting myself a massive case of road-rash down my entire left side – shoulder to knee :/
The baggy pants also provided another embarrassing event – one of our favorite things to do in the winter was jumping off the roof of our houses into snowdrifts (we were crazy now I look back on it) anyways on one jump I went sliding down the snowbank perfectly, my pants however did not :0
I think my most embarrassing moment was in jr high when I sat down on a lollipop. Predictably, it stuck to my butt, and I went walking right by the guy I liked. On my way back, he smiled and waved and I was thrilled until one of my friends told me why he was laughing. That was embarrassing. It was also pretty bad when the guys I liked found out that I liked them (I suck at keeping secrets), but I find my level of mortification funny now given what my crushes were based on.
I definitely wish I could tell my pre-teen and early teenage self that little things like that are not tragedies, that high school is short, and that someday like you say, boys do like the smart girls. Awkwardness goes away and sometimes, when your hair calms down and your face grows to fit your nose, you wake up one day and discover that you’re cute, smart, and someone really loves you for who you are.
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