T is for Tiger

Today: The New Kid.

In looking at this election, I’m reminded of Grade School and the might-is-right mentality of locker room fights, popularity contest student-government elections, pretty-girl cliques, and alienation to anyone who wasn’t just like everyone else. I came out in High School, though it wouldn’t have mattered—as far as most of the student body was concerned, I was gay the second I stepped into the school as a 3rd grader from a poorer town. Not that any third grader really knows what gay means, but it’s what they use for bad and wrong. And I was that gay to them.

I had imagined a warm welcome accompanied by a newer, cooler me that I would invent upon arriving at Fredonia Elementary. As has often been said, however, children can be so cruel, and my classmates were not by and large warm or open, only mistrusting, judgmental. I was the ‘new kid,’ and without ever having a chance to invent one, the new me was constructed by the other kids--one where was even less cool than I could have imagined. I was immediately an outcast.

But why should they have been open to me? Girls thought I was strange and lacked the mystique they felt the other boys had. Unlike most of the boys, I didn’t care about the WWF or Guns & Roses or even comic books. And though my parents always urged and sometimes even forced me to participate, I sucked at sports, which are the preoccupation of most boys in third grade. I liked art class and chorus. (What a fag, right?) I wanted to be in the gifted and talented program, but wasn’t let in (for reasons that still seem suspicious to me) so I was even an outcast from the other nerds. I wasn’t great at anything that was important.

In short, I had nothing special or exciting to offer anyone. I was just the new kid, and another Matt, besides. There were three Matts in my third grade class, and even another Matt M who was much cooler than me all ready. To make matters worse, due to the hyperactive energy I’ve always possessed, I had a special diet free of sugar and corn products, so most kids thought I was fragile and chemically imbalanced. Needless to say, the kids treated me horribly, which I think still effects how I treat my peers.

I realized at one point (probably 5th grade) that all the intelligence and knowledge in the world could not save me from intimidation and isolation from people who didn’t know shit about who I am or what I’m trying to say. I’m reminded of a specific incident when a bully cornered me in the back of the school bus and I just started crying because I was afraid of him. He asked me why I was crying and I said ‘you’re really intimidating.” He didn’t know what the word intimidating meant and thought I was insulting him. I had to go on and say ‘you scare me because you’re bigger than me and I’m afraid of what you’re going to do to me, even though I’ve done nothing to you.’ Finally he left me alone, but having to explain why I was upset made the reason for it all that more poignant. Little me blubbering in a corner and a bully having no earthly clue what I meant—god, it’s depressing even now.

I just wish I could have addressed my classmates in a way they could have understood. I wish I had had some way of making them see how it feels, just to put in their minds what was really going on.

Okay, so I am a little socially awkward; I’ve been isolated for a long time. I haven’t been on the scene all that long, and I haven’t figured out all the ropes of the school—but I will. For now, you don’t think you have to listen to me because I have different ideas than you, but someday you’ll know that what we want isn’t all that different. For now, I’m just another Matt who wants so desperately to be cool like everyone else. I know you’re used to and happy with your other Matts, which is fine, but I know I’ll be around long enough to change your mind about me. You all might not listen to me now, but I’m not going away, and I will be heard.

I guess it’s easy to forget that we were all new kids once.