Straight Bloomer Pt.2
“You take a deep breath
And you walk through the doors
It’s the morning of your very first day.”
2010 - 2011
I would be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t completely nervous. It’s my first day of 9th grade. A new year, which means a new me. New friends, new opportunities, and new boys to fall in love with. (Wow, I sound like the intro to a new reality show on MTV. ) What’s nice is that freshman get the first half of the day to explore the campus before all the upperclassman arrive. The school is two huge buildings, and in my opinion, the outside doesn’t look like a school but more of a prison . The inside smelt like dusty paper and wet cement giving memorable character to the main halls that were gray with accents of maroon, a subtle nod to the school colors. My first class is the most dreaded… P.E. For today, we are directed into the small side gym where we are handed our P.E. uniforms and go over the class syllabus. I am eager to see if I know anyone, and luckily I did. Waving at them I head over to find a seat on the bleachers, I take sight of the most beautiful, pale skinned, ear pierced boy. He has the softest looking dark brown hair, and blue eyes. He looks over and smirks a bit with the others he’s sitting with. Once I settle into a seat, I ask how my friends’ summers were. Abruptly, our gym coach, a preppy, short haired blonde lady with a deep voice started whistling. “ATTENTION CLASS!” she yells, silence filing the space. “We are gonna start with attendance.” she confirms. Finding it hard to concentrate, I tried my best to sneak glances over in the boy’s direction. As the coach is calling out attendance, I patiently wait for his name to be called, “JAMES!” She yells, “Here!” He replies chuckling with his friends. James…it’s cute, “Steven and James,” I say in my head. Towards the end of class, we go to the boy’s locker room to pick out our lockers. I pick the one furtherest away. Awkward is only one way to describe how painful it was to not be friends with any of the guys in class, I didn’t have my friend Justin like I did in middle school to find comfort in times like this. Scanning the room, I noticed James picks the locker on the other side. So at least I will get to see him shirtless occasionally. The bell started ringing, from there we’re dismissed to find other classes, I didn’t really focus too heavily on James, due to the overwhelming stress of finding these damn classes. It was like trying to spot Waldo. They were everywhere, some were in one building, while others were in the second building. It involved lots of planning, thinking about how much time it’ll take to get from one class to another under 4 minutes, and where can I stop to socialize with friends in passing. Overall, a very exhausting day. But once I got on the bus headed home, releasing a sigh of relief, and Panic! At the Disco playing through my earphones, I tune out the noise, and look out the window. James comes up occasionally in thoughts, I am now realizing that I may have found the first high school boy to fall victim to my affections or at least so I think.
It should come as no surprise that nothing goes anywhere with James. Through careful observation, and multiple sources, I find out he is straight. Once that was confirmed, I didn’t tell anyone of how I felt in worry of humiliation. It was challenging not having Aleia my best friend either, she decided to stay with her dad in Pennsylvania for high school. And while we still talked, it’s wasn’t like how we used to. I had to pretend to be a girl when I called her because her dad was really strict about her having no guy friends, and it was even worse if they were gay ones due to his beliefs. We had to code our conversations so he didn’t know we were talking about boys or anything else that would go against the rules he had for Aleia. I’ll admit it was fun, but I couldn’t ignore our differences, different timezones, different schools, and the most important difference I felt was the fact that I was still fantasizing about straight boys, while she was experiencing what it was like to actually be noticed by straight boys, she even started talking to a boy. To make matters worse, I hated her first boyfriend. Frustrated, I was growing quite bored of James. I hated thinking about all the things I wanted from him, to hold hands on the way to our classes, furthermore for his hands to caress my cheeks and hair as we kissed, I felt like a fool for how badly I wanted him to notice me. Overall, he didn’t do much to stand out, nor did we have any interactions, so I couldn’t see if there is a chance he could have felt anything for me. Though something about my frustrations fueled my crush for him more. The more I couldn’t have him, the more I would get in my head about it. The only person losing these mind games was me, and James happened to be the cause of it.
As the months went on I came to learn that besides weight-lifting and changing in our uniforms, things seem pretty co-ed in gym so I’m still able to seek refuge with my girl friends most of the time. I have come to understand the social structure and cliques in the school. James is at the peak of the school’s social chain being part of the “conventionally” popular ranks, I did not have any common friends with him whatsoever. I begin to notice that I didn’t really stand out myself, it was nice not being asked if I was gay, but I also missed being somewhat in the spotlight… even if it was for negative reasons. I was in a big school with hundreds of kids, I just blended, and it felt like I was no one. I didn’t like it, I wanted to stand out, I wanted people to talk about me, I wanted to be at the rank James was at. They were talked about, they were attractive, and they had it all… including James. So I aimed to befriend them, I went to football games, became outwardly cruel to any of what I deemed to be my“lower” status friends (I was a real bitch), I went a step further with the way I was dressing, and practically sat on the sideline waiting for at least one of them to notice me. I thought for sure, I could make it in through befriending the girls but in all honesty they were equally as horrible as the boys. It was silly how desperate I’d become, none of these kids talked to me outside of academics, and they could care less if I existed. The last straw was at a Friday night football game, my friends were annoyingly having a good time with each other and I was just sitting there at a school function I didn’t care to be at fawning over this group of kids I had no courage to approach. I noticed James hanging out with a girl the whole time. Finding out later they started dating that night, I had had enough, I lost all motivation trying to catch the attention of this crowd James hung around, and for that matter I lost all interest I had in James too. I was tired, defeated, and overall coming to the realization that I was never going to be friends with these people nor was I going to date James.
Instead of focusing on new clothes, and my outward appearance. It was time to focus on what was inside. I realized that I mistook conventionally popular kids for just being conventionally attractive. They weren’t even popular, just exclusive. Looking at them reminded me of Cher and Dion from Clueless but instead in the 2010’s. Overall I stopped caring about them, I didn’t overthink about what part of the social structure I was in. I just let myself be, I didn’t care who knew or didn’t know I was gay. I just wanted to have fun again. I opened myself up more, talked to people in all kinds of cliques, spoke up for myself, tried my hardest not to judge others, and wanted to remain kind to others. Through this, I was being noticed but positively, I was making new friends, creating space for everyone, and enjoying my time. I thought that no one was watching but found that my peers can see me no matter how invisible I thought I was. And if you’re wondering, I am pleasantly surprised that those I was meanest to still wanted to continue being my friends after the way I treated some of them. I was awful, picking fights for no reason, annoyed that they could care less about wanting what I wanted, and ultimately disguising my jealousy for embarrassment when they were able to feel comfortable being who they are. I knew that I needed to change if I wanted to keep them, and in my heart I did. They saw me for more than what I was trying to be, they accepted me for my weirdness and didn’t question it. Ultimately, they read through my bull shit, grounding me, and inspire me to keep going. I apologized to the ones I hurt the most and vowed to never take them for granted again. As time went on some of us grew apart, others went to new schools, some just found different interests and connected with like-minded classmates. Overall I had respect and love for them no matter what. The ones who were still around, I knew were going to be there for the rest of my years in high school.
Towards the end of freshman year, I cut my hair short. It was up to my shoulders for so long, and wrapping up the rest of this year, came another new me. The primary reason I cut my hair was to get over my insecurity with my ears. I was born with a genetic defect on one ear causing me to only have one functional ear. I feared people would think I looked like a freak, but used this as an opportunity to get over what others thought of me. “Your hair looks amazing!!!” says a friend in my history class, combing through my hair. After class walking the hallway in passing I hear someone say “Nice haircut,” looking around to see Harris smiling at me, one of James’ friends and the boy who took over the space in my head. I smile giddy with excitement however very shocked he noticed the change, “Thank you!” I said. Harris had these enchanting green eyes and feathery peanut butter blonde hair, thinking about it could ruin me for days. But due to my new found perspective and where I was headspace wise, I didn’t obsess over Harris as I did James. Sure he was very handsome and I made up scenarios of him running up to my front door step to kiss me in the pouring rain… he was (no shocker here) straight. He dated this stunning girl, they made a really cute couple actually. Did I envy her? Yes. Not because she had Harris, but because she had a boyfriend. While I had desperately wanted a boyfriend, I was in no rush. I wanted him to look like Harris, but give me the life I listened to in love songs. I’m not willing to sacrifice quality for looks and I’m not willing to waste my time trying to get straight boys to notice me anymore. My standards are set high and with three years ahead of me, I’m moving forward.
