"Greg as girl" age 4
For a while I was friends with other boys on my street. My house was on a corner and had the best yard for playing. We had three huge, amazing trees that were perfect for climbing and I had a rope swing in a tree in the back yard that provided hours of fun. Something changed with those boys though. Somewhere around 5th grade they started to notice that I was not the same as them. That's when they all turned on me and joined in on the harassment. They would scream vulgarities at me and call me names like "gay-bait", "fairy", "faggot"' & "gaylord" and taunt me me to no end. The same kids that I played with everyday inside and outside my house now turned into my worst tormentors. Some days they would even climb onto the roof of my house and stomp around leaving me feeling like a prisoner in my own home. The irony here is that I had played "doctor" with all of those boys and when the notion that they enjoyed it sank in they all felt riddled with guilt and shame and decided to lash out. I lived with that same guilt and shame for my whole childhood.
I have always marched to the beat of my own drum and I always had a crazy, if not awkward at times, sense of fashion. I had even decided I was preppy at one point and I thought "finally, I will fit in and not be teased." I was so wrong. Probably because I was REALLY preppy wearing pink and baby blue tops with bright green, Izod, golf pants and loafers. It was all too much for the other kids, especially the preppies.
By the time I got to high school I was full on goth and I hid behind my giant crimped hair. I always wore all black, over-sized clothes and had a permanent scowl on my face. I still got teased but I screamed back at people now and I always threw sharp daggers with my eyes. My whole attitude was "look at me - FUCK YOU - don't look at me!" I think people finally caught on that I was NOT changing who I was or how I dressed no matter how much they condemned me! By the time I was in 12th grade everyone (for the most part) had finally accepted me and, in fact, on our "Senior Day" I won 4 awards from my classmates including "Best Hair."
Now, I'm so happy that I was always different and did my own thing no matter how much I cried from all the taunting. I'm certain that I'm a much more interesting person than those that harassed me and stayed in Schenectady, NY. I'm not saying that I wish bullying on anyone, in fact, I wish the world could be way more opened minded than it is. I am saying that I developed a tough skin from all the horrid teasing and, luckily, somewhere inside I was strong enough to move past it and always be myself. In the long run being true to yourself is always the best option. Now, people love me for who I am and how I dress and I'm lucky enough to have a job where I meet cool people from all over the world everyday. Everyone, deep down, wants to be appreciated and accepted and I have learned that when you are open minded toward people 98% of the time they will respond with the same courtesy. Believe me, there are still TONS of assholes out there but their assholism is even more glaring to the world when you respond to it in a calm and kind manner.
Thanks for sharing Greg! I enjoyed reading about your experiences again. I've always had people mis-labeling me since I was a "Tom Boy" according to them. I just think I noticed the male-biased society early on. Especially when around 6th grade or before I would also get people implying I was a "lesbian" and then I was like, "what's that? And how come the context & tone of how they say it implies it's 'not favorable'?"
ReplyDeleteMy 6th grade year book has some kid who signed that in my yearbook! That I was a lesbian. Of course, I'm pretty sure he wrote that because I had more charm with some of the boys (and girls) and sometimes got picked for sports BEFORE him. And for a 1-dimensional "straight" male I guess that was too much to handle so I got insults in my yearbook.
Of course, if/when I or/& my friends got any bullying we just learned to make them "SHUT THE FUCK UP" via outsmarting their 1-Dimensional logic. Because honestly, a little girl who is infatuated with little boys early may also just be a REALLY BIG "PLAYER" in an era when one had to wear "sheep's clothing" to hang out with them.
And with the girls, in 5th grade, I got bullied by some girls who were also kinda on the "outskirts" of "accepted" so they like the little boy took out their aggression on me. Two of them took my Caribe Fedora hat (from a cruise ship called that from traveling) when I was walking home from school with my trumpet and threw it into some high wall-bushes.
So I climbed on my trumpet case to reach it because I'm short, and then they pushed me hard in my back, so that I was projected forward. The bushes had sharp spikes everywhere and one of them went through one of my eyeballs. They laughed and left. And I all of a sudden my vision in my one eye was all blurry. And to make matters worse, my parents were on a trip to Singapore & my grandparents (who often liked to blame my brother and I for random thing we didn't do) were caring for us.
I was super embarrassed to tell them I couldn't see because I didn't want to get in more "trouble". Luckily, that day I decided to tell one of my neighbors, another Mom that I guess I felt comfortable telling & she caused the reactions that led to me at the UCLA medical center.
I've also technically been "STONED" once (and not from reefer, though I have been 'stoned' that way too, ha).
Anyway, my eye healed itself before the surgery I was scheduled for when I was in the hospital at UCLA being monitored. I was there for half a week or a week if I remember correctly. I got to spend 5th grade wearing a fucking EYE PATCH! Can you imagine! There's some VHS of me around here with my eye patch. Then I was supposed to wear glasses with no prescription for "protection" but that didn't last long.
And I just found a "DOCTOR'S NOTE" from that time era & the way the doctor wrote the details of the scenario is such "crap". It doesn't mention ANY of the details I just mentioned. So "authorities" can "suck it". They had their chance to "BETTER" reality, but they looked the other way. So DESIGNERS GONNA DESIGN BETTER REALITY.
Also, when I was maybe 12-13 I remember I found some "FAGS" in Australia. And it was a pack of CANDY CIGARETTES, called "FAGS". I thought that was so funny when I was there! Because then all the insults seem really really really really silly. Have you ever seen that Southpark episode with the motorcyclists & how the boys look up the origin of that word? That made me laugh a lot when words lose their "sting" via altering the contexts. You know going beyond "1-Dimensional" or/& "2-Dimensional" definitions/viewpoints.
You're welcome! Thanks for reading and telling me your stories too!
Delete~ :D
ReplyDelete<3
ReplyDeleteLol, I got the same thing in jr, playing doctor with a lot of the other girls and some boys lol (most of em initiated it lol lucky me!) and then later to be shunned by them... In highschool I got complements for being myself lol...but now it just seems so different, like different is the new prep.. Which I don't mind! Open minds are always cool to me!! Anywho, love reading your stuff and your FB posts, WEIRDOS UNITE!
ReplyDelete