Homecoming was pretty bad. I showed up all by myself and strutted in with zero swagger. A lot of faces I didn’t recognize, the music was too loud, I stood around awkwardly with nothing to do. I didn’t want to look at my phone too much because that would be uncool, so I walked from the gym to the hallway, waited, walked back, so on and so forth. I felt dumb and probably looked dumb too. And there was a rage brewing inside me and my anger towards that snake was renewed.
After about ten minutes of shame, I found some of my classmates. I was not particularly close with them, but I still pathetically asked if I could tag around them for the rest of the night, and they allowed me to. So it was them walking around and me awkwardly following them, not really a part of the group. I made some small talk and joked around with them throughout the night, but I always felt like an outsider, except for one kid who knew me from last year and thus was a lot friendlier.
For most of the night we all walked from place to place, occasionally
“dancing,” or we just stood around and shouted at each other just to be heard. It was very thrilling. At one point we waited in line to get our photo taken, which took a very long time. And a lot of girls had their shoes off for some reason. My legs hurt from standing so much. And my ears were numb. Some party it was, just a mosh pit in the center of the gym, and groups of people standing around it talking to each other, and further away from the center of the circle were the people who were alone or too cool to do anything. I prowled the premises for vulnerable young women, which I did find, but they looked depressed and I did not want to be creepy. The girls who were not depressed were in groups and were good dancers and I knew then that it was a lost cause.
I was moping in the gymnasium, hovering the small group of people I knew when a girl came up to me. Then she asked if I had Snapchat. I said I didn’t, then she said that her friend would like to know my number. I said okay. Then she went back to her friend and showed me her number and I realized I did not know how to add a number without texting someone and the girl watched as I traversed my phone’s menus like an old man and she was probably going to report my ineptitude to her friend. And so the only thing I could think to do was just text the number, but I did not know what to write.
I texted, “Hi.” And I am ashamed and I am embarrassed.
But I didn’t feel ashamed immediately because after the girl left a sense of euphoria filled my soul and the guys around me started hyping me up and I sent a smug text message to that snake.
Then reality dawned on me and I realized how stupid I sounded. I mean, “Hi.” Really? And the girl probably reported to her friend how awkward I was being.
And the girl didn’t even approach me the whole night, so I got to the point where I assumed I had been pranked. She never responded to the hi either. This sucks. I hope she never responds because I don’t want to deal with it. How shameful my behavior today was, but I can only use this moment to grow and learn. I walked around for another hour or so and a pit began to grow in my stomach and I felt terrible and so exhausted. As I waited for my grandmother to pick me up, I listened to a No Buses album and that made me feel like the main character for a bit, and that this depressing scene was being displayed to a sympathetic audience. Two people were sitting under a streetlight as my grandmother drove me home. It was ten and few cars were out. I want to forget tonight, I hope that girl will forget my awkwardness, I hope her friend never texts me, I hope her friend forgets me too. It is better to not worry and only deal with it when the problem punches me in the face. I have school on Monday, and everything sucks.