Welcome to my so-called life
Campus Times
October 31, 2003
My life is not any great story, nor is it all that interesting. There
has not been a great deal of drama in my short time here and all in all,
I have led what I like to call an unusually normal life.
Every guy I know has experienced, to some degree, situations that parallel
my own.
Yet, like many others, I am still very capable of finding my own past
intriguing and most definitely amusing at times.
I went through an extremely long socially awkward stage.
This stage lasted, for as long as one would expect it could last for a chubby,
glasses wearing, only child from a single-mother-family that has been through
two divorces. Looking back now though, all I can do is laugh at what a disaster
everything was, at least through my eyes.
It started in elementary school when I started wearing glasses.
I remember quite vividly trying to wear them as seldom as possible. After
my mother and teacher convinced me that it was OK to wear my glasses, I
gave in and wore them all the time. I wasn't made fun of very often, but
unfortunately, the anticipation of being made fun of ruined any chance of
me being a healthy child. This fear led to me participating in few social
activities.
My whole problem, however, was that I was so self-conscious of myself
that when I was made fun of, my whole world was shattered. Being the loser-dweeb
that I was, I could not think up a snappy comeback until later that night
or I would imagine myself violently beating the culprit into a pulp (whether
I could or not was irrelevant).
Being fat was probably the one thing that agitated my self-esteem the
most drastically. If you were fat in middle school, your existence was wrong
and everyone knew it. Fat people were automatically herded into their very
own nerd subcategory.
Girls, of course, were a big issue (not that I was much of an issue
to them). My heart must have broken a thousand times with all the crushes
that I had during my tenure as a student. The guys all know what it was
like: always trying to get the girls to pay attention to us. But me being
the shy, stumbling, dork that I was, I prevented any chance of my finding
a relationship with anyone of the opposite sex.
The clothing situation was bad too. Not only was I outgrowing everything
that I thought was cool, but what I had thought of as cool was no longer
cool.
Everyone else had those cool skater shirts and shoes, baggy clothes
and an attitude to boot. I was stuck with my generic Target shirts and elastic
Wal-Mart shorts. After much begging and pleading with my mother for a chance
at coolness, I was able to go shopping. For some reason, I decided that
Macy's was a really cool place to shop.
I certainly experienced a rude awakening when I found out that I was
already pretty well set into my social group. No matter what I wore, nothing
was going to change that.
Looking back now I can't help but laugh. I wish I had seen it then it
as I do now because all it was was a stupid sitcom; a television show for
me to laugh at.
Seeing it this way helps me realize that all my school experiences were
just a series of posturing contests. It was a time where inclusion was the
most important thing and exclusion was the thing that ruined your life.
Adam Omernik, a sophomore journalsim major, is photography editor
of the Campus Times. He can be reached by e-mail at niteyet@yahoo.com.
