I Was Wrong About That Being the Last Time
So back in the high school days, I worked at an outlet shoe store, where I frequently had to tell people, "But I don't touch feet!" Because I never did. Okay sometimes I had to touch a kid's ankle to put their foot in the right place on the What Size Shoe Do I Need mat, but that's as close as I got.
Mainly I spent tons of time hanging out in this strip mall, having a great time at work. I liked that job a lot. There was a girl from my school - a grade ahead of me - who worked there too. She was popular but nice, a rare combination in my town, and we became friendly through working at the shoe store.
I was a very negative kid then. Not in the black-wearing, Plath-reading type of way, but more in the pro-death kind of way. Wait, I'm still pro-death. I was ... pessimistic and extra. But the girl I worked, Deana, was very upbeat and positive. Any time something slightly negative happened, Deana would say, "But ... that's okay!" very brightly. She started dating this guy Scott who was equally popular and nice.
Deana and I used to close the store often, and Scott would come by to pick Deana up. He'd get there early and hang out with us. We would turn the radio up and dance around the store to "Brown-Eyed Girl" while throwing shoe boxes to each other. For years every time I heard that song, I thought of Deana and Scott.
My mom used to point to them as an example to me. "See? Nice people find each other." Deana and Scott got married. But this post is not about Deana and Scott. I have no clue what's become of them since I heard they were married. Of course, I only remember Deana's maiden name so I can't successfully Google her. Anyway.
In this strip mall there was a supermarket, a drugstore, a card store, bagel shop, pizza shop, and liquor store. Among others. Out here in San Francisco, I never see teenagers working in stores like these. (Do they not work in public or something?) In Long Island kids are working at every store you go to.
Sometimes when I was working six or more hours at the shoe store, I'd run over to the pizza place on my break. Daniel, a kid from school, worked there - he'd moved to our town from .... Dallas or somewhere, back in eighth grade. Sixth grade? Whatever. He was also popular. He was neither mean nor nice to me.
It seems funny to say it, but we developed this professional working relationship, even as high school kids. We never talked outside of seeing each other in the strip mall. We certainly never talked in school! But when I was on my break and in his pizza place, he was completely professionally friendly to me.
After a while, another strip mall close by decided to open a new pizza place. I went there one night to pick up dinner for my family (remember when you first started driving and were totally psyched to drive ANYWHERE your parents would let you go, even if it was doing mundane errands?), and Daniel was behind the counter. I figured he'd quit the first pizza place for the second, and said nothing to him about it.
A week later I was at the first pizza place on a break from the shoe store, and I saw Daniel working. My eyes got wide as I looked at him. He looked back at me, and put his fingers to his lips. Don't tell them I got another job at the other pizza place. I nodded, and didn't say anything. I guess the second place paid better.
I grew up, moved out of New York, and never thought of Daniel again. Until tonight when I opened my e-mail to see that Facebook sent me a message saying Daniel "friended" me. Why yes, I believe he was friends with Jason Greenberg.
I couldn't deal with MySpace. People bragging about how many "friends" they have. I take friendship really seriously, for reasons you can figure out if you're a regular reader here, or know me in the real world (you know, the real world, where I see people at Safeway who were on The Real World). People, I know nobody famous. And yet, on MySpace, I am "friends" with Ashton Kutcher. What the fuck is that?
To me, being a friend is a pretty big deal. I don't like the idea of tossing the word around cavalierly. Yes, I know that most people don't have my issues. But I do have them, and even though I roll my eyes at girls who say things like "but where is this relationship GOING?" and "what are you thinking about?" I am tempted to ask Daniel, "What does it mean to you to 'friend' me on Facebook?"
It probably means nothing, and since I link to my blog on my Facebook page he's probably wishing he'd never "friended" me in the first place (maybe it's obnoxious of me to think he's now reading my blog, but whatever - I'm obnoxious that way) now that I've written this.
There are many people who say they left high school and never looked back. I truly did that. Prom? No. Graduation? No. Yearbook? No. I picked up my diploma from the front office a week or so after school ended. There were no reunions. On break from college there was no getting together to catch up with old friends.
So what are you saying when you contact someone to "friend" them, who you once vaguely knew 16 years ago but weren't friends with? Please don't bother telling me I'm overthinking this. I overthink crossing the street - overthinking is what I do. Please don't tell me I need to smoke a joint and just chill the fuck out; I'm sorry if I'm harshing your mellow.
Mainly I spent tons of time hanging out in this strip mall, having a great time at work. I liked that job a lot. There was a girl from my school - a grade ahead of me - who worked there too. She was popular but nice, a rare combination in my town, and we became friendly through working at the shoe store.
I was a very negative kid then. Not in the black-wearing, Plath-reading type of way, but more in the pro-death kind of way. Wait, I'm still pro-death. I was ... pessimistic and extra. But the girl I worked, Deana, was very upbeat and positive. Any time something slightly negative happened, Deana would say, "But ... that's okay!" very brightly. She started dating this guy Scott who was equally popular and nice.
Deana and I used to close the store often, and Scott would come by to pick Deana up. He'd get there early and hang out with us. We would turn the radio up and dance around the store to "Brown-Eyed Girl" while throwing shoe boxes to each other. For years every time I heard that song, I thought of Deana and Scott.
My mom used to point to them as an example to me. "See? Nice people find each other." Deana and Scott got married. But this post is not about Deana and Scott. I have no clue what's become of them since I heard they were married. Of course, I only remember Deana's maiden name so I can't successfully Google her. Anyway.
In this strip mall there was a supermarket, a drugstore, a card store, bagel shop, pizza shop, and liquor store. Among others. Out here in San Francisco, I never see teenagers working in stores like these. (Do they not work in public or something?) In Long Island kids are working at every store you go to.
Sometimes when I was working six or more hours at the shoe store, I'd run over to the pizza place on my break. Daniel, a kid from school, worked there - he'd moved to our town from .... Dallas or somewhere, back in eighth grade. Sixth grade? Whatever. He was also popular. He was neither mean nor nice to me.
It seems funny to say it, but we developed this professional working relationship, even as high school kids. We never talked outside of seeing each other in the strip mall. We certainly never talked in school! But when I was on my break and in his pizza place, he was completely professionally friendly to me.
After a while, another strip mall close by decided to open a new pizza place. I went there one night to pick up dinner for my family (remember when you first started driving and were totally psyched to drive ANYWHERE your parents would let you go, even if it was doing mundane errands?), and Daniel was behind the counter. I figured he'd quit the first pizza place for the second, and said nothing to him about it.
A week later I was at the first pizza place on a break from the shoe store, and I saw Daniel working. My eyes got wide as I looked at him. He looked back at me, and put his fingers to his lips. Don't tell them I got another job at the other pizza place. I nodded, and didn't say anything. I guess the second place paid better.
I grew up, moved out of New York, and never thought of Daniel again. Until tonight when I opened my e-mail to see that Facebook sent me a message saying Daniel "friended" me. Why yes, I believe he was friends with Jason Greenberg.
I couldn't deal with MySpace. People bragging about how many "friends" they have. I take friendship really seriously, for reasons you can figure out if you're a regular reader here, or know me in the real world (you know, the real world, where I see people at Safeway who were on The Real World). People, I know nobody famous. And yet, on MySpace, I am "friends" with Ashton Kutcher. What the fuck is that?
To me, being a friend is a pretty big deal. I don't like the idea of tossing the word around cavalierly. Yes, I know that most people don't have my issues. But I do have them, and even though I roll my eyes at girls who say things like "but where is this relationship GOING?" and "what are you thinking about?" I am tempted to ask Daniel, "What does it mean to you to 'friend' me on Facebook?"
It probably means nothing, and since I link to my blog on my Facebook page he's probably wishing he'd never "friended" me in the first place (maybe it's obnoxious of me to think he's now reading my blog, but whatever - I'm obnoxious that way) now that I've written this.
There are many people who say they left high school and never looked back. I truly did that. Prom? No. Graduation? No. Yearbook? No. I picked up my diploma from the front office a week or so after school ended. There were no reunions. On break from college there was no getting together to catch up with old friends.
So what are you saying when you contact someone to "friend" them, who you once vaguely knew 16 years ago but weren't friends with? Please don't bother telling me I'm overthinking this. I overthink crossing the street - overthinking is what I do. Please don't tell me I need to smoke a joint and just chill the fuck out; I'm sorry if I'm harshing your mellow.
Labels: Harshing Your Mellow, Little Green, New York State of Mind, Overthinking, Work
posted by Green at 1/01/2008 10:03:00 PM
6 Comments:
Green, your overthinking is the reason I and surely many others read this blog at all. Keep it up. Just don't blow a fuse.
Two things about facebook:
First is: on the off chance that Deana is on there, women have the option of listing their maiden names should anyone want to find them on it. Their married name is there but then under it, it'll show the "former" name.
Second: Totally getting you on the "friend" thing. My Space was too juvenile and am trying to keep my facebook adult-ish. I do enjoy finding old friends though. Enjoy seeing people I used to hang with but haven't seen or talked for years update themselves i.e. : Jakob is eating . Or whatever. Some of my old high school friends have found me. I wish they hadn't. But if they want to stay updated about my comings and doings, I ain't gonna stop them. They could google me anyway. But I'm ignoring them as best I can.
"Harshing your mellow." I'm sorry; that totally made me smile.
On the internet there is some kind of regression to high school where one of the most important things is popularity, or the illusion of it. How many hits you get in a day, how many people link to you, the number of comments you get, how many Facebook "friends" you have - these things are supposed to tell you whether you're cool or not.
Maybe Daniel was curious about where you are now. Just because he showed no interest in knowing you back then doesn't mean he's never wondered about you. That's why I registered at Classmates.com, then blew off my 10-year reunion. Or maybe he's been lost since leaving high school and needs some way to measure his worth now that he can't simply count the messages in his yearbook.
I only take invitations to be friends seriously if they are made personally and with reason. Signing my guestbook? No. Emailing me personally with assurances that we may still have something in common? Yeah, I may consider that.
I came over here from Stephanie Klein's because you told me to. Kind of. In a way. Maybe. Right?
Happy New Year.
I wish there was another word for it, other than "friending". Because I'm not actually friends with a lot of these people who keep finding me, but I did in fact know them more than a decade ago...maybe "acknowledging"? "acquaintanceing"?
I know I'm guilty of sending a friend request to someone with whom I wasn't too friendly... mainly to satisfy my curiosity.
That said, I wouldn't reject a friend request from you...
Ah, facebook popularity contest... I think some people may be motivated by trying to fatten their total friends count.
Funny you ask. I have a bunch of different groups on facebook. Family, friends, high school people I knew and didn't hate, people I only know from playing facebook games with them, bloggy people I've met through blogs, other people who are just maybe a radio personality I like to follow or perhaps someone famous. I was once reading someone elses facebook page, and this person made some funny interesting comments and I liked the way he thought so I friended him. He responded "Do I know you", and I replied "No, I just saw you on so and so's page and you are funny so I wanted to get to know you better". Which by the way is one of the reasons I sent you a friend request on facebook this morning... or was it last night? I don't remember, maybe it isn't even you, although I can't imagine anyone else would have the Green Yogurt page... or maybe you're under your real name, which of course, I don't know. Anyway, I sent you a friend request on FB. I'd like to be your friend because I like the way you think, I think we have some stuff in common, and I think we would make great pals.
Charlene
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