7th grade sucks
April 6th, 2007 by joby
I meant to post on this post from Bitterkat:
A girl at school decided she liked him. But Sid, being Sid, decided that she was obnoxious and should just go away. For a whole week he either ignored her or told her to bug off (and Sid never told me a single thing about it). Yet she still hung around. She scoped out where he sat at lunch. Sat by him. Followed him around the courtyard. And because 7th graders are complete monsters, a bunch of other kids decided the whole scene was funny so they all lined up behind her and pretty soon, 20 kids were following Sid around. And that’s when he blew.
So this is pretty much a reply of my life at this time — although Sid is probably better adjusted and no where near as much of a dork as I was. From my own jaded experience (and I’m not sure if this is reassuring or more of a concern) but Sid may have had very good cause to want the girl to go away. At that age my first suspicion would be that this girl didn’t like me, but that she found an interesting way to torture and mock me. And because she was succeeding everyone else jumped in. But Sid isn’t me so it is possible that she was actually interested in him.
Bitterkat’s concerns are that he is:
Sid is a loner and doesn’t like most people. Sid isn’t very good at letting people know his feelings. Sid lives by his routines and if someone comes in and messes those up he gets very angry.
Honestly, I’m not worried about Sid.
a) I was (and probably still am) more of a loner — have I mentioned that I hate meeting new people? — but eventually you learn to deal with people. Sid gets a lot more interaction with people that I did — and I can work with people in a moderately competent manner.
b) Sid’s a young boy with geeky tendencies — of course he isn’t good at sharing or even understanding his feelings. Compared to girls, boys are riding in the short bus of emotional understanding. He’ll grow and learn eventually — he’s a smart kid.
c) As for Sid living by his routines, I actually think this is a plus. He may have obsessive tendencies but at least he has the discipline to carry them out — I was always more of a fantasist. Living in the real world and trying to make order of it is better.
d) Anger is the default male reaction to frustration — just as crying seems to be the default for girls. Anger is great because it can let you blot out all of the confusing emotions and focus on action. As long as Sid can maintain some control over his anger, he’ll be in the top 80% of emotionally competent men. At that age I used to fly into rages, but while annoying my Mom it never really concerned her because I knew where the boundaries and I stayed within them. Sid needs to learn how to master his anger not suppress or ignore it.
Hmm… It seems like my evaluation of Sid’s condition is based solely on him doing better than I did. It does occur to me that Bitterkat might not take comfort in using me as a benchmark… oops…