Being Friendly

During eighth grade "Shannon" moved to town. It was clear from the beginning that Shannon would be part of the popular crowd. It was also fairly clear that Shannon was not a fan of mine, as evidenced by her declaration, "I don't like that girl." I pretended that this did not bother me in the least, but deep down, I was wounded. Not only because this girl that I did not know had hurt my self-esteem, but because I knew that this was the nail in my popularity coffin. I'm not sure what the popular equation involved, but I'm fairly certain that your neighborhood, attractiveness, and involvement in certain activites played key roles. I had a few strikes against me already, and now I had been black-balled by one of the queen bees. Our dislike for one another culminated in an unseemly exchange during ninth grade (which I am not proud of). She made a snide remark, I flipped her off, and three of her worker bees called me aside in an attempt to intimidate me into submission. I'm fairly certain that was our only interaction until some minor conversation occurred during our senior year. At yet, as an adult, I still recall that interaction with clarity. Mostly, I think, because I deeply yearned acceptance. I wanted all the girls to like me and every boy to have a crush on me. As an adult, I realize the foolishness of this desire. But somehow I still feel a residual sting from the whole high school experience.

These memories are floating at the surface of my mind because I have recently joined the world of Facebook. It has been great to reconnect with friends from the past and keep abreast of the goings-on of my local friends. However, I never considered who would ask to be my "friend." Some of the girls from high school, girls who I perceived to be in a crowd that I didn't feel welcome to join, have sent me "friend requests." And quite honestly, my gut reaction is to ignore them. I tell myself that they are probably just friend-hoarders and this is not a genuine effort at being my friend. Or that this is not real human interaction anyways, it's just computer networking after all. But truly, I'm ignoring them because I want to return the favor. I'm keeping record of their wrongs. And I thought I was more grown up than that.

In actuality, fourteen-year-olds are not the only ones who yearn for acceptance. My mind knows that I should not strive for the approval of man, that God is the only one I should seek to please, but it's a struggle to put that into action. For now, I suppose my next step will be to quite clicking the "ignore" button.