I had been nervous to attend that party. The assortment of alcoholic drinks built up a pleasant buzz that protected us as we sat with friends from past times when a girl – we’ll call her Louisa – patted me on the shoulder. Minutes later, we’re laughing freely as we exchange memories. The group are still together. They’ve fallen out with Rhea (who hated me all through school for reasons I still don’t know) and whenever I run into them, they act as if nothing happened. Partway through the conversation she informs me with a little smile that she ‘completely forgives me.’
At school, Rhea was the only one of us who had a boyfriend. In a group of girls becoming very much interested in boys and ‘dating’, this granted her extreme power as friends of Rhea and her boyfriend had access to his friends – a whole array of opportunity for potential awkward playground relationships! As I was someone very much led by my own imagination and considered ‘weird’ (a trait seen as negative in a pubescent setting), I struggled to fit in but desperately wanted to.
I was 13. There is a naivety at 13 that friends are loyal, boys are worth losing your education over and that your experiences then are representative of the life you’re going to lead, so you need to get used to it. So, when I entered a harshly silent classroom whose giggles had previously drawn me in from down the hall, suspicion was an especially hairy spider creeping up my neck.
Thank goodness for Louisa! Louisa was the smart, amicable one who everyone adored. Far too mature, too honest; too kind, pretty, even, to leave me uninformed. In a moment of insecurity I once asked her, ‘do the others ever talk about me?’ and she blinked her Disney Princess doe-eyes down at me and, in a voice several pitches higher than usual, feigned complete ignorance, insisting everyone loved me. She assured me that because we were friends I could trust her and if I told her who I was worried about, she would tell me if anything was said.
I couldn’t be more grateful. I carried on as I was. I smiled, listened, laughed at insults thrown at me in the name of banter. All to be a good friend to these incredible, intelligent, funny people. The year before I’d abandoned a less interesting group of friends. They preferred sitting down and talking about shows I didn’t like to making jokes and messing around. They were kind to me but they didn’t make life exciting in the same way.
I felt included, occasionally even comfortable, and then one evening Louisa didn’t answer my Facebook message. Holed up in my room on a weekend, I opened snapchat out of boredom and there it was. All of them at Louisa’s, snickering into cider cans and wailing along to some of the shitty indie pop I had introduced them to.
It was like a pole had been thrust into my stomach. All I could see was red. I felt a sharp tingling run from every corner of my body and meet in my nose, snatching my breath and whirling my small suspicions into an epiphany: all of my friends were complete wankers.
I was being left out, but I didn’t know why. I didn’t understand what was so complicated about explaining to someone what they do that makes you hate them so much. I thought, if I was only told what was wrong with me I could at least try and make myself better. Instead an inkling that I wasn’t liked by everyone eventually evolved into ugly paranoia that made me so convinced everyone hated me that at some point it probably became true. A collection of betrayal and confusion and hormones forced my fingers to type like quickfire through my tears and shaking. Before I could think rationally, I had poured all my anger into a single (albeit several paragraphs long), ridiculously abusive message to Louisa.
It did nothing. Louisa saw the message but never responded. When the anger dissipated, it didn’t feel like it was any weight off my shoulders. The fire was extinguished by a pitiful need to be included. Maybe it was the loss of naivety, but I’ve never flown quite so off the handle since.
In hindsight, this was an example of terrible, terrible people. My efforts to suppress the ‘weird’ parts of myself felt like a waste of a lonesome edition of happiness. Now there are a couple of people who like me as I am. Something they taught me is no matter how safe or bored I might feel, I would rather be part of a loving and accepting community than spend my time laughing at jokes that root from hate.
Social media can be toxic. Interestingly, the reason they stopped talking to Rhea? She sent an aggressive message after they met up without her in the pub across the road from her house. She saw it on snapchat. But without exposure to that snapchat story I might have gone much longer thinking the wrong people were my friends. Without social media I wouldn’t have met the friends who love me. Ignorance may be bliss, but the longer you remain ignorant for, the harder it is to overcome.
Creative Non Fiction Writing at Reading 