carlos the dwarf. so who do i identify with: the geek or the freaks? obviously, the geeks. but here's the thing, i don't think i was a geek. yes yes, george might disagree. but a geek wasn't what i was in high school. a geek is somewhat socially inept, i wasn't inept, just asocial. i had social skills, i just don't know if or when i used them. i got along with people fine, even if i can't recall for the life of me, any real conversations i had with people. things i might of had talked about with my friends: classes, teachers, school gossip, video games, sports, role playing games, comics, books, movies and sometimes girls. but i can't remember talking to anyone all that much at school. i just got through my day somehow.



i had my group of friends at school. the kids who were in all the AP classes, competing for the best grades and the approval of the teachers. but i was a step below them. i didn't care about my grades (which weren't as high as theirs were either) and i didn't hang out or talk to any of my teachers. i just coat tailed my way into various activities -- like key club. i had no real interest in extracurricular activities and the things that i did, i just did them because my friends did them. they were the nerds, i was like the nerdling. but we weren't nerds either, i mean, at least not the type of pen protector wearing nerds that you might see on tv. we just weren't cool, like at all.



it's hard to be cool when lunch time was spent playing video games in the computer lab or huddled in a classroom playing dungeons and dragons. i was unaware that this type of activity was uncool. i just did it because i enjoyed it. i don't think i ever went through the whole "where do i sit in the cafeteria" thing. mainly because we didn't have a cafeteria, but also because i always had my lunchtime activities. video games or basketball, that was it. needless to say, i didn't exactly hang out with any girls in high school. in fact, i can't even name a single girl that i was friends with from high school. how odd. the closest female friend that i ever had from high school was....nobody. george? does that count?



gosh, what would i have done in high school without george? she always had girl friends, and they were nominally my friends because i sort of knew them, if not personally, at least by name. and she was always up to date on the school gossip so she could fill me in. her social standing at my school was a few notches above mine. not in the totally cool crowd but in the almost pretty cool crowd.



the thing about my school -- that might in retrospect be a saving grace -- was that our classes only had eighty students total. so even if you were on the outskirts of the scene, everyone knew who you were. and because you could've gone to school with these people for many many years (the school was grades k-12), you sort of got to know people by osmosis. so yes, that was my social evolution: osmosis. and because the school was so small, nobody could be totally shunned because if you didn't have classes with somebody, you were probably on some mandatory sport team, belonged to some club or rode on the same bus. everyone knew each other and the class was too small to have impenetrable cliques.



so i guess what i got out of my ten thousand dollar private school education was the lack of normal social pressures and stresses that most other people might have gone through. thanks mom and dad.