Tag Archives: high school

I think I have a new best friend, which is nice, but I kind of hated her today, and then I hated myself for it. It was when she told me the story of how she and her high school boyfriend fell in love. That’s perfectly nice, and I shouldn’t be such a bitch about it, but I find myself resenting people, and, even more often, book characters when they seem awkward and smart like me, and yet they end up getting the guy (or a guy) in the end, because that never happened for me.

It’s so silly to resent a person who’s not real, and it’s no nicer to resent a real person just because others clearly see the nice qualities in them that you see. But it’s also silly to fall in love with book characters, and what awkward indie writer girls don’t have crushes on their Mr. Rochesters or Marcus Fluties? This is why I plan to write books where you don’t end up with any guy, and it’s okay, but it’s not really okay, but still, it’s okay. Because in high school, that’s what happened. And now, that’s pretty much what’s happening, though I will admit that while no one was even interested in me back then, in college I have done some blowing off and rejecting, and some of it was on purpose, while some of it was more of that I’m-scared-I-don’t-understand-I-don’t-know-how-to-deal stuff, and lately it’s that I literally don’t have time to make myself happy, let alone meet someone else and try to get to know them. I’m barely above water with what’s on my plate now.

Anyway. I meant to talk about books. It is my belief that most good YA books (or just the ones I like to read) are written for awkward indie girls who are actually really cool, because that’s what we are (am I an awkward indie girl?). I’m all for us getting the boys, be they indie boys or hipster boys or jock boys or whatever, as long as they understand and appreciate us. But I feel like the best of us did not in fact have that happen to us in high school, though this is based on limited personal experience and the experience of my friends at my tiny, tiny high school. This is why I hate it when I read cheesy and boring books like the one I finished today, which only serve as cautionary fairy tales, because they are about girls who are uncool and antisocial, and yet the popular guy finds them interesting, but then he does turn out to be a jerk, but oh, her guy best friend is her real soulmate, so it’s okay. I’m fairly certain that when you’re antisocial and bitchy like I am, people do not find you interesting and they do not ask you to the spring formal. They just think you’re antisocial and bitchy, and that’s either true, or it’s half-true and the other half is that you’re too busy driving around town with your best friend, going to see indie movies and dream about those boys asking you out to spend any time being social with the dumb people you go to high school with.

I think I just want to live in indie movies, and I wish people wrote more books like those, rather than boring books. I am thankful for the existence of Stephen Chbosky, Rachel Cohn, and Megan McCafferty (and I shout out to Sharon Creech, whose Guthrie was my original literary crushboy). That is all. Because I now need to practice the shit out of piano if I want to not fail it. Literally. I’ve never been so bad at school in my entire life.