Nerd Love

I am a Nerd. At school, from the 4th grade on I crushed on girls who were unobtainable, or, more often less likely to be interested in me than enthused about getting a filling at the dentist. To be fair, that was pretty much any girl, it wasn't like I was focused on the most beautiful girl in my class. Was I annoying, yes, creepy, sometimes, of course I was, that was my dictated role in society. Between 9 and 18 years of age, awkward, outcast and unloved.

I did not commit rape, did not entertain the idea of rape. After all, as a civilised human being, sex was something intimately tied to the idea of being liked and accepted. Was I hurt by the continuous rejection, yes. Did girls sometimes tease me, abuse my desperate loneliness, even set me up to be physically assaulted by loveable Bad Boys to demonstrate their power to manipulate, hell yes. Did I hate women, no, did I become murderous, no. I despaired.

In the 9th grade a definitive moment was standing in a phone booth, well, one of those half shell things with a pay phone in it, in the strip mall across the road from the school. A girl I vaguely knew wrapped her arms around me from the side as I rang off, and said "Give me a hug…" I froze, confused and absolutely convinced any action on my part would be a mistake. After several seconds of cajoling, I put my arms around her, loosely mirroring the limpet like full body grip she held me in. Her gaggle of friends began laughing uncontrollably and calling out something. The girl stepped away, and her boyfriend stepped through the encircling girls, grabbed me, flung me against the wall and punched and kicked me until I was on the ground. Then a half dozen of his friends and some of the girls joined in kicking me. I was only rescued by a construction worker from the site next-door, who after driving off my attackers, helped me to my feet and told me he'd seen the whole thing and that a girl had done something similar to him when he was a kid. Did I plot murder, no.

A year or so later I was in the school counsellors office, in trouble because I had a crush on a girl and that this had become known was an embarrassment to her. "What," the counsellor sneered "Do you think you love her?" I replied:

"I am a 15 year old boy, who nobody likes, how could I possibly know anything about love. I have a crush on her which is at least as uncomfortable for me as it is for her."

A year or so after that, a different girl I had a crush on said what was probably the nicest thing a girl said to me at high school. "It isn't that I hate you, it's just that I am utterly repulsed by you."

Somehow I managed to survive those and many more experiences without dialling the crazy up to random murderous rampage against women. My life since has had ups and downs. I have known love, and I have known loss. I endure.