Okay, so there were occasions I hated that felt observation or level of scrutiny, but only in the way someone might dislike something but also secretly love it, like being tickled, even if I wasn't entirely sure of the reason why. Was it in jest? Was it in admiration? The former I could believe, the latter no. And yes I would also want to run, to hide, to shield myself, to act like I wasn't aware but also let whoever know that I was.
It was a game. A risky game. A dangerous game, maybe. For an innocent to play.
The late teens and twenties are for flirting with life, though now I believe it starts younger – too soon, too soon - with modern traps that aren't as forgiving. Though it's probably truer to say I started late, if I ever really started at all. An all girls' school will do that: divide its pupils into two streams. One, more closeted and shy, the second to the all boys' school across the way. Boys, those alien immature creatures.
No, I was always from a distance sort, if I admired anyone, and my nature, as it is now, was contradictory: wanting to be noticed but be invisible; wanting recognition but not to be praised publicly; wanting to be liked by my peers but not to be singled out by the popular crowd who would only tease and bully. Just whispers and giggles, that sort of thing. This they did randomly; it wasn't sustained. I was too dull, too ordinary, too good even for that. Girls together can be cruel – even amongst your own set. There's always some falling out. Someone out of favour. Our friendships too close, too exclusive.
I mostly ended up in triangular relationships, where either we all got on or one was out of sync with the other two, and felt and knew it too although nothing to that effect was ever said. It would all be subtleties: significant looks, in-jokes from classes shared and the occasional shaded put-downs. We all did it: this one-upmanship and competing with each other for friends, sometimes without realising it because it was so ingrained and because it was worse to be unpaired. Groups were marginally safer but only if you could fulfil a role i.e. the pretty one, the naughty one, the clever one, the sporty one, just like The Spice Girls, but girls being girls could still turn: against each other as well as those outside their hallowed circle.
Girl Power! takes on a new meaning, one that implies girls transitioning to women can be bitches. Sugar and spite. Unless this was caused by the lack of boys. I was grateful for being spared a deeper shade of beetroot red, because public speaking in front of a classroom of girls, under a spotlight I unwillingly sought, was nerve-tremblingly. Going to a mixed college was an eye-opener I can tell you and didn't instil further self-confidence in me because there I was still 'the swot'. On a determined course to ace my studies, which was not as my fellow students may have thought a case of being top but a case of perfectionism because whilst I was good with the written word I didn't excel in examinations, but naturally this didn't endear me to them, and when teenage boys (as well as girls) dislike this about you it's very difficult to build anything with them, any foundation of respect or friendship. And when you're quiet and seen as studious, you're also seen as standoffish when that couldn't be further from the truth. Your shell just needs to be cracked a little. Tap, tap, tap, are you coming out...?
Youth! No, it wasn't dismal, not by definition, but I kept making the same mistake of one or two close friends, which left you in a pickle if their attendance was below 100%, and where being really noticed (by girls and boys) was best avoided, unless you were mooching round a shopping centre or on the dance floor, making and catching eyes.
Picture credit: Paris la Nuit dans un Dancing de Montmartre, Manuel Orazi
