Ramblings about Emotional Stuff

Today at church I was experiencing some emotional tension, and it had little to do with doctrine or what was being taught, but rather when it came to feeling like I fit in. Fitting in has always felt like a problem for me, and so today, I kind of just want to talk through some emotional history, because it's very therapeutic.

When I was in elementary and middle school, I rarely felt like I fit in. In the summer between third and fourth grade, my family moved from St. George to Cache Valley. My favorite cousins lived in Cache Valley, and we would be living in the same city as them. Over the summer before I started school, things went really well. It was like paradise. Michael (my cousin), his older brother, and I got to play every day, and there were plenty of things to do, places to go, and fun times to have. 

School started, and things started to get bad. Though we got along very well, Michael and I were extremely different. He was strong and athletic and would win every game at recess. I was slow and overweight, but I loved books and I compensated any feelings of inferiority by clasping on to intelligence. Michael was the strong one; I was the smart one. So later, when Michael started telling me that everyone in our class hated me, and telling them that I didn't like them, I took refuge in my books. I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire over ten times that year. It was just dawning on me then that Michael was a compulsive liar, something that, by the time we were in high school, had become truly pathological. He would make up all sorts of stories about people, including me. He would tell me that this person or that person hated me because of the way I did my hair. He succeeded in making sure that he was my only "friend" that year. And I was absolutely miserable. It was my first experience with complete despair. I remember sitting at my desk in class repeating in my mind over and over "I just want to shrivel up and die. I just want to shrivel up and die."

Luckily, fourth grade ended, and in fifth grade I changed schools. My dad was a fifth grade teacher in a nearby elementary school, and so he worked things out so that I could transfer to his class for fifth grade. That year was great. I had lots of friends, and all of the kids loved my dad, and by extension, I was automatically popular as the son of the coolest teacher. I still was awful at sports, though, and so I established my identity firmly in being the "smart" one, which didn't always do too well when it came to friendships. Luckily, I actually did fall in love with reading. I think reading was one of the best decisions I ever made. Seriously. There's so much out there to learn, and there are so many worlds of understanding that can open up to you in a book.

In sixth grade, I was back in the same school as Michael. I quickly discovered that our paths had parted, and that I most definitely did not want to spend too much time with him. I was often forced by necessity, however, to eat lunch with him and hang out with him (it was either that or eating on my own. New school district--I didn't know anyone). By seventh grade, though, I had found lots of new friends, and I didn't have to spend any time with Michael. Six and seventh grade were when I first started feeling attracted to other guys. I still had no idea what was going on, though, and so it didn't really bother me. They were just feelings. I didn't know how to interpret them. It was in the summer between seventh and eighth grade when I went to scout camp and just wanted to keep staring at the life guards that it finally occurred to me... oh... this is how I'm supposed to be feeling for girls.

In eighth grade I met two people who would really serve to give definition to my high school experience. Both of them played the clarinet with me in band, and I met both of them around the same time. The first was a guy who we'll call Cory. The second was a girl who we'll call Sarah. I sat by Cory on the first day of band, and immediately felt drawn to him. A few months later I would be sitting at the edge of a swimming pool watching him play a game with some other guys in the water, silently crying and repeating to myself "I'm not gay. I'm not gay. I can't be gay." I met Sarah a few weeks later, and we hit it off immediately. She loved books. She and I had lots of the same interests. And we both had a proclivity for sarcasm that led to the creation of a plethora of inside jokes. I quickly decided to have a crush on her, and when ever my thoughts turned to Cory, I would try to replace them with thoughts of Sara.

In eighth grade I found a lot of new friends, most of them through band. There were four of us in particular that quickly became very close, and we would remain best friends through the rest of high school. I felt like I fit in with them. But the reason I fit in with them, and I think this is important, is because our relationships were primarily intellectual. They all loved books. When we hung out, we would discuss Harry Potter and the Series of Unfortunate Events, and then as time moved on, we would talk about politics, philosophy, religion, etc. We never bonded much emotionally. And I learned to live an emotional double life: on the outside, I might have been very overweight and bad at sports, but I was "smart" and I had friends. On the inside, I felt deeply that no one would ever like me if they knew who I really was. If they knew how I felt when I was around Cory, they would think I was bad.

I need to talk for a minute about my best friend. We'll call him Brayden. I met him in seventh grade, and was immediately attracted to him because I was not at all attracted to him... if that makes sense. I hated being around other guys because it made me feel guilty. But I didn't find Brayden attractive at all, and so I could be around him guilt-free. We became really close in eighth and ninth grade, and did everything together Senior year. He always knew I had a secret, but he never really knew what it was.

Sophomore year I finally realized that happiness was a decision, and that people would like me if I was happy. And so I became obsessively optimistic and was happy all the time. Lots of the time it was to cover up how distraught I was inside, but there was also a degree of genuineness to it all. In Sophomore year, to my delight, Sarah started to become an important part of my group of friends. But whenever I saw Cory, I still knew there was something wrong. 

Junior year was especially hard. Brayden really had a way with girls... seriously, like half of the girls in our friend group were in love with him (which I never understood, because he's not in the least bit attractive). He, unfortunately, also fell in love with them. Like... three of them. I don't need to go into details for you to guess that much drama ensued. And I went back into a level of despair I hadn't known since fourth grade. I felt so alone. Brayden could like girls, flirt with them, and hold their hands, but I couldn't be a part of that world. I finally admitted to myself that my "crush" on Sarah was a classic case of me lying to myself, and realized the enormity of what lie ahead. Sarah was the first person I ever told. We were texting about Brayden, and I was telling her how frustrated I was over it all...and then I just told her. I told her that the reason I was so frustrated was because I was deeply jealous.

Senior year was even worse. I took AP Government, and we did a program called We the People where the whole class divides into six different units and writes papers on questions to do with the Constitution, and then you go present them and get questioned about them at a competition. Cory was in my unit. We spent time together almost every day. Our class won state, and then went to nationals in April of that year, and I spent a lot of time with Cory and roomed with him. It frustrated me so much, because no matter what I did, I felt like I couldn't become good friends with him. I wanted so badly to just sit down and have a conversation where we really connected. But alas, it seems like straight guys don't do that with other guys... ha ha. 

And that leads me to the whole point of this monologue. My whole life I've used books and intellectual activity as an emotional crutch for being socially awkward. Anyone who knows me can attest that I can talk for hours about Buddhism, Post-Modernism, the history of China, or any other host of academic subjects that interest me, but I have the hardest time relating with people. I can have great conversations about ideas. But I really wish I could be better at just being a friend.

At church I was just really frustrated at my own inability to connect to people. And that's what inspired this narrative of my emotional life since fourth grade. 

Also, I have an interview with the Stake President this afternoon. I'm excited to see what happens... I'm having it because I failed a temple recommend interview with my Bishop for not completely sustaining the Brethren and holding views contrary to the Church's... so we'll see what happens today. Wish me luck!