Sunday, May 2, 2010

In Which the Internet Kinda Made Me Cry

I live on the Internet.

I mean, I live in London (having mentioned that approximately a million times now), but the majority of my time is spent in front of the computer rather than in front of tea and crumpets.

It’s hard not to live on the Internet – even the weeks when I limit myself to an hour a day (those weeks are commonly called “nightmares”), I still have to check my email or write on Facebook or read my favorite blogs or leave a comment somewhere. Stepping away from the Internet only allows more content to build up, more words to read, more cute kitten videos to upload. We’re cyborgs, y’all. We have to plug in to live. But that’s OK too – it makes living a little bit richer, in a weird way. I am far from home. I can’t call my friends every day, I can’t drop by my mom’s work, I can’t run into an old office chum at Starbucks. But I can Facebook them all and say hi. Of course, I’m an adult, who grew up without the Internet. I’ve had to learn how to navigate social situations, how to have personal relationships, how to entertain myself without the instant gratification of YouTube. There are pluses and minuses to this.

But here’s a plus, friends.

On Jezebel, there is a thread chatting about prom, after a young girl wrote in lamenting her lack of a date. Prom has been on my mind lately, with the story of Constance McMillen and her civil rights struggle, and with the Roehampton Summer Ball right around the corner. Prom is one of those unavoidable things in American high school. Prom is also, in the grand scheme, one big non-fucking deal. Really. It’s nothing. It only seems like something because you’re stuck in a controlled environment, under the constant pressure of peers and stress of academics, and forced to function at god-forsaken hours of the day. (High school starting at 7:20 a.m.? Seriously? Not even 7:30 – but at 7. 20. A.M. In retrospect, I’m surprised I graduated.)

Says the unnamed girl:
“…right now, being a teenage girl, i feel very ugly and lame for not having a date. and i know a lot of jezzies are sympathetic to classic teenage drama.”

This sparked great discussions and stories of horrific prom escapades, all delightful and humorous and somewhat cringe-worthy. You’re starting to think of your own prom now, aren’t you?

Remembering the pinching shoes and the awkward dancing and the hairspray. I’ve got a couple of good prom stories myself, since I was smack dab in the middle of my “How the hell do I fit in?” phase. (One that ended as soon I stepped out of school and into the rest of my life. Controlled environment, lack of sleep, peer pressure, not knowing how to brush my hair = the ending of high school was the beginning of my adult life.)

High school wasn’t a barrel of puppies and posies, you know? And that’s not to say everything magically got better afterward – one has to learn how to become an adult.

Post-HS a lot of really horrific and a lot of really wonderful things happened, but all of it combined, centrifuged, made me the pretty awesome, faux-Snuggie-wearing, Starbucks-drinking, Bowie-loving, Feminist-proclaiming, world-traveling woman I am today. (Humble, too. I can be humble. I swear!)

But before I became my awesome Wonder Woman-esque self, I could very well have been this girl on Jezebel, feeling ugly and lame and out of place because there was some magic formula for fitting in that continued to elude me no matter how many times I tried to combine the right clothes/fashion magazine/people/crush/identity/hairstyle/speech into equating happy and popular. That formula still eludes me.

So, instead of writing about the time my date locked his keys in the car during junior prom, I took what the girl was saying – “I feel ugly and lame and god, how do I fix this?” – and gave her the only answer that I knew, in hopes that maybe, just maybe, through the over 400 comments about prom puke and pigs blood, it would help.

And here’s what happened.


Written by Me 02:19 PM:


My words for you, my dear, are these:

You. Are. NOT ugly or lame.

I promise you this.

Chances are, you are too smart/ too fabulous/ too amazing for the pea-brained and intimated guys in your school to notice. High school boys? Ugh. Ten years from now you'll be getting messages from said boys on Facebook or whatever new social media is in vogue in ten years, and all of them will tell you how fucking hot you were in high school, and how lame they were for not asking you out, and if you could maybe swing by the old hometown the next time your fabulous jet-setting fulfilling life takes you that way, could they buy you a beer?

Yeah. That's when you'll smile, shake your head, and continue on your way with the adult men of your choosing, with the career that you want and desire, with the knowledge that high school, my dear, is such a small and insignificant thing that barely matters in the big picture, and even though it seems to matter SO MUCH right now it's only a month or year until it's over and your life will move on to bigger and better things.

Take a picture of yourself today, smiling brightly, and know that in time you'll find that photo again, laugh and say, "Damn! I was such a hottie! What was I thinking?"


Reply by greenbean 02:29 PM:


@Me: speaking as a different high school girl who is going to prom without a male date, thank you for this.


Reply Written by Me 02:36 PM:


@greenbean: It's totally true. And the fact that you are here, on a feminist website, shows that you are intelligent and compassionate and most likely able to outwit any guy you meet. You'll have a blast at prom, but more importantly, you'll have a blast for the rest of your life after all the high school BS is said and done.


Reply Written by Hazee103:16 PM


@Me: I second the thank you :) Honestly, much needed pep talk. Scrrrew you high school boys, I'm not impressed with you anyway!


Reply by lexieloves 03:16 PM:


@Me: I'm in high school right now, going through the same situation as above, and this... is just the best advice I've ever received. Thank you.



No, actually, thank you.


I hope it helped.


In an odd manner, I feel that I am reaching backward to my high school self, and saying that somehow, someway, everything is going to be all right. And those girls, those three Internet girls, Greenbean, Hazel and Lexie, who I will never meet, never speak, never recognize?


You’ll be fine. You will. Because, I promise you, somehow, someway, everything is going to be all right.

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