Ah, the primary school years....such an idyllic time. Playing in the schoolyard, wtih ones schoolyard chums, laughing, playing, generally having an easy time of it all.
Bullshit. Absolute poppycock.
One of the idle questions I ask myself from time to time, is which did I hate less: primary school or high school? It's a hard question to answer - my memory's not anything watertight at the best of times, and we're talking about a series of experiences occurring between one and two decades ago. But, from what I can recall, they were both pretty wretched. As the primary school years go though, kindy-second grade wasn't too bad however. By the time second grade rolled around, I was one of the rising stars of my class when it came to numeracy and literacy. Classes were spent sitting at a table with the three most popular boys in the class (Bob, Bill, and Borris) and a sociable tomboy who I got along well with named Em.
My closest friend from school at this time however was a girl by the name of Tyra who lived in my neighbourhood. She was loud, obnoxious, vulgar and more than a little troubled. Her family situation wasn't great, consisting of a unemployed lethargic single mother, and a violent troubled brother. She was generally attention-starved. She wasn't exactly the most popular girl in school. I knew her since before kindergarten started and we spent quite a bit of time together outside school. Sometimes I loved her, sometimes I hated her.
What's this all got to do with the price of a home loan in the US? Well, it just so happened that Borris was the object of my affection. He was tall, blonde, smart and damned good at cricket. What more could a young and talented Aussie girl want?
The affection that I experienced was not one-sided. Borris' friends were at a point when they were referring to a couple of the popular girls as their girlfriends. While that is possibly one of the lamest excuses for wanting to "date," it did in fact happen that Borris had cast at least one speculative eye in my direction. At the time, having a delightful propensity for missing certain signs, I didn't really see us ever actually getting together as something that would ever happen. Nonetheless, we became closer and talked more as time went on, and I heard from a couple of people that he 'liked' me.
One day, in those early years of our life, we had a conversation that would forever define the course of our relations. A conversation where he asked me one simple, straightforward question pretty much out of the blue;
"Are you friends with Tyra?"
"Yes" was the equally straightforward answer I gave at the time. I didn't give any thought to the political or romantic ramifications of my answer then. I searched for the most correct answer and gave it. Sure, she was downright mean at times, but, for better or worse, she was my friend.
He then uttered a reply something like "huh," and we didn't talk much more after that.
Ever.
He started 'dating' another girl, and I realised that if I had disassociated myself with the tainted Tyra, I could have had my full-blown childish relationship with the cricketer. There were several times when I wished that I had done so. However, I also took pride in not ditching one of my best friends due to the pressure of a boy.
THE VERDICT IN HINDSIGHT
People obsessed with popularity are fuckwits. I did the right thing, despite not knowing what I was doing. If I was going to ditch Tyra as a friend, which, admittedly, I probably would have benefited psychologically and socially from doing, it should have been as a result of the fundamentals of our relationship, not due to her being unpopular. I honestly don't know whether, if I'd been aware of what was going on, I would have acted differently. In any case, it was a valuable lesson in the dark side of the adage, "it's not what you know; it's who you know."
All's well that ends well.
Popularity is soo overrated.
