I mark my growing obsessions in my own interests as the point when I should have begun to lose my footing in the friendship circles I called my own. I am amazed my peers put up with me and my peculiarities. Truth be known, they may not have, had it not been for a very good friend of mine named Craig. This friend was very bright and very funny and very well-liked. With him by my side, I was given an instant elevated status among our group and even beyond. He had been my friend almost forever and over the years he had become almost like a guardian to me. I do not know if he knew the struggles I faced when I tried to accomplish social skills without the benefit of some kind of direct instruction, and I do not know if he understood there were knots in my belly when I was around new people or faced with new situations, but I do know that he was somehow always there for me whenever I found myself swimming upstream or feeling penned in. In subtle and overt ways, he would show his support for me by saving me a seat at lunch, walking me to class, or picking me up to take me to a party. He fixed me up on dates, made me laugh when my nerves started to twitch, and kept me company if I was all alone in a crowd. He even came with me on a family vacation once when the person I had invited to come along had to cancel. Craig jumped in to my rescue even before I knew I needed to be rescued.
My friendship with Craig was perfect for me, it worked. I am good with friendships that allow me the freedom to assert my differences. I am comfortable and content with a few friends who know me well and understand my nuances. But I rarely remember a time, best friends in the background or not, when I did not prefer to be alone. Unlike most people I knew, I did not grow up feeling the need to make deep and strong connections with others. I do not think I ever consciously sought a friend or disregarded a friend. I was nice to people I knew and friendly to people I only passed in the halls. I was particularly good at fast bits of witty conversation, the kind of quick retorts that sounded more like a monologue I had snared from drama class, than a two-way conversation.
Overall, I think I would say I was rather perfunctory about my relationships with peers. In reality, they were not too awfully important to me. Not that I did not like the people in my group, I did. It was just that I would not have been terribly upset if I had been all alone and without a group to identify with. My own conversations and thoughts were always my best friends. I was happy spending time with only me, happy to talk to myself and happy to entertain myself. I think the only reason I ever invited a friend to come spend time with me was because my parents suggested it and because I knew it was something friends were supposed to do. I knew how to follow the rules of the teenage jungle, exactly like I knew how to follow the rules of baseball.
I was very conscious of the rules my friends set for themselves and the group, particularly as they applied to behaviors and other social skills. As if I had a Rolodex in my mind, I would categorize the actions of people, noting their differences and subtleties with a mix of abstract appreciation and real curiosity about why they acted as they did. I became very aware of the smallest and most subtle aspects of my peers’ movements. I took note of how they threw their long hair over their shoulders, or tucked their bangs behind their ears or how they turned the whole presentation into an art show with braids and bows and curls. I mentally recorded the way they used their eyes, how they would open them wide when they spoke loud and animated, or how they would cast them downwards if they spoke quietly or slowly. I was captivated with the way their hands moved when they spoke, how they would bend them into shapes that looked like little buildings or twirl them about as if the hands were the message. I watched people like a scientist watches an experiment. Never did I feel like I was looking in a mirror. Always did I feel I was here and they were there.
Just as I took good notes on how people acted, so too did I make mental notes of how they dressed. Fashion trends have always diverted me, though I have never been able to understand them as entities deserving of a life filled with purpose. I was able to tell that my peers took their clothing choices seriously because everyone copycatted everyone else’s style. I knew I was supposed to follow the rules set by fashion but try I as may, I broke them all the time. I still fought with textures and colors and patterns, like I did when I was a child and I simply could not bring myself to wear certain clothing no matter how many rules I knew I was breaking. Tight jeans that fell to the hip, shirts that were the color of clay, coarse wool jackets that wore the back of my neck raw… they were not for me. I settled for coloring a smidgen outside the lines, finding a handful of outfits that blended in well enough to avert stares, but not so well that I was miserable in them. And if those almost-trendy clothes of mine were dirty, I would wear whatever I happened to grab from my drawers even if what I had selected did not look well together. Not that I noticed. I designed myself for comfort and convenience, not trends.
This drove my girlfriends beyond distraction. They were forever advising me to pay more attention to my appearance. They would take me in the bathroom and give me hints on how to wear make-up and how to fix my hair. They would remind me how gross it was for me not to shave my legs or tuck my shirt in or wear the same outfit several times in one week. And they particularly hated my shoes, but not as much as I hated having my feet bound up in the stiff canvas of tennis shoes, or the slippery leather of dress shoes. To beat that feeling, I wore house slippers to school. I thought they were rather interesting little shoes and I saw nothing wrong with them, no matter how loudly my friends protested.
As long as things followed a set of rules, I could play along. Rules were — and are — great friends of mine. I like rules. They set the record straight and keep it that way. You know where you stand with rules and you know how to act with rules. Trouble is, rules change and if they do not, people break them. I get terribly annoyed when either happens. Certain things in life are givens. «Thank you» is followed by «You are welcome». You hold doors open for other people. The elderly are treated with respect. You do not cut in front of other people, you stay in line and wait your turn. You do not talk loud in libraries. Eye contact is made when you talk to someone. The list goes on, but the intent never changes: rules are maps that lead us to know how to behave and what to expect. When they are broken, the whole world turns upside down.
If all teenage rules had been open and shut cases grounded in right and wrong, I am inclined to believe I might have slipped through my high school years uncharted and unrecognized as someone who saw things so differently. But as I have discovered, most rules fade the moment they inconvenience someone. With broken rules forcing cracks in my boundaries, I was left to develop my own. My rules were different than any I had memorized before. My rules allowed me to set my own trends and my own pace. They also allowed me to showcase some of my less obvious differences.
As I went through the motions familiar to many teenagers, I came to notice that everyone had some odd little habit they used in times of distress or absentmindedness. I noticed the nail biting, the lip biting, the hair chewing and the tiny muscle twitches. I heard friends humming to themselves, sucking their teeth, and tapping their feet. I knew there were all kinds of rules that people followed in order to calm themselves or occupy their time, but I think my favored habit was unique, at least among my friends. I had a preoccupation with round numbers, even though I hated and was terrible at math. Eventually, I incorporated that fascination into little chains of behaviors I would repeat by the tens. I rode my bike ten miles a day, exactly ten. Not one bit over or one bit under, even if I had to carry my bike up the driveway or ride it in circles in the garage, until I hit the ten mile mark square on my mileage counter. I also exercised around the count of ten. I might have bounced up and down in my pool one in ten groups of ten or I might have completed ten sets of ten movements for ten different calisthenics. I used to spin in a circle on my swing, stopping after I had gone around ten times. I took ten steps to make it up any set of stairs, skipping or repeating stairs, as I needed to so that I would come to the top on the count of ten.