The Boy I Could Never Love

Lonely

My impressive command of language suited me well in carrying on conversations with adults but meant my schoolmates found me odd. When I started preschool, it seemed no one wanted to play with me more than one day at a time. The common belief that we are all friends here made me view this form of abandonment as friendship.

*Never knowing anyone outside my family, I longed for relationships with my peers. A quiet boy let me stick around, and the teachers thought it cute. Noticing us together often, they dubbed him my little boyfriend, but he was just the only one who didn't tell me to get lost. It made it weird, and I stopped hanging out with him.

A short time later a girl asked me to play. Kids randomly selected to entertain me often did this. Starved for interaction, I usually agreed. It came understood that they would play that day or at recess, but after I went back to not existing. When she returned the following day to initiate another play session, I thought it was a joke.

It took a while, but eventually, I warmed up to her being around, gaining my first real friend among friends. She and I sat on the bus and played together all the time. I acted happy each day I woke to go to school. Nana made a comment about how she didn't know if my being there was good for me at first but was glad to be proven wrong.

The first day of Kindergarten I looked forward to seeing her, but she wasn't in my class. I came home crying about it and got told I should look at it as an opportunity to make more friends. I tried, but no one wanted me around again. Without my friend, I became lonely.

We learned she did have the same teacher, but with half-day classes, she went to the opposite. If I got lucky, we could see each other as I left and she came in, but there was never any time for more than an excited hi. I begged to get the other time so I could be with her, but no one listened. In first grade, it happened again. She made friends with other kids, and I stopped trying. Her family moved shortly after the start of school, and the only place I saw her again was a failed attempt at girl scouts.

One girl in my class attempted to be friends, but her attitude left something to be desired. Still, with no one else to spend time with, I decided she was better than nothing. She laughed at me and stole the doll I brought to show and tell. As she gained other friends, she told me how much they hated and she joined in the fun of bashing me.*

Being drilled on how children should behave became an obsession built from dread of harsh punishment. The thought of not telling the truth scared me into submission. I wholeheartedly believed by telling when my classmates did something wrong it saved them from further penalty.

In trying to be a good kid, I came off as a brown-nosed little shit that acted better than everyone else. You know, the one you want to stomp into the mud to shut up. This and the way I talked created a rift as I struggled to understand why everyone around me hated me. I came to dislike school, my teachers, and my peers. Even my friends weren't very nice.

How did you start a friendship?
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