Uncool

This is the story of my getting my first and, so far, only girlfriend.

I keep hearing and reading bullshit about "high school life." High school athletics, cheerleaders, cafeteria meals, nerds being openly ridiculed and mistreated, cool cars, marijuana in some secluded spot that everybody except the administration knew about. Using fake i.d. to get into bars and clubs, or at least showing the i.d. to your friends and telling them it actually got you into a club. Teachers having sex with deluded students, and, above all, students having sex with each other.

Sure, all that stuff existed, except during Covid, when all life stopped.

But I can attest that you can go to high school, or Zoom to high school, for four years, and not go through

any

of those experiences.

In my school, the only kids calling anybody "nerds" were the nerds. "I'm a

Game of Thrones

nerd," "I'm a

Star Trek

geek (but only TOS or TOG)." "I'm a

World of Warcraft

nerd" (or whatever online game they were into). I wish I had ten bucks for every stunningly gorgeous talk-show guest these days who says, "I was such a nerd in school," or — even trendier now — "I

am

such a nerd," because they once read

Lord of the Rings

or they knew that Dumbledore's first name was Albus or they came in third at Trivial Pursuit at a friend's party.

I was what, in some high school movies, would have been called a nerd. Usually what that comes down to is you get very, very high grades and actually turn in projects which you did yourself, on time; or you don't have cool clothes because (a) your family doesn't have any money, or (b) you don't give a shit about what's cool.

I did my assignments on time because Mom calendared them all and went through the checklist with me every night. I got high grades because I paid attention in class and was never on my phone because I didn't have one. We didn't have any money, so if I had known which clothes were cool I couldn't have bought them anyway. And I didn't care which clothes were cool or notice who had cool clothes or give a shit about anybody who wasn't me.

Yeah. I ate lunch alone, a sandwich I made myself and brought in my backpack. I didn't gossip with anybody. The closest thing to a conversation I ever had was a scrawl by a teacher on a paper or exam saying, "Nice work," "Exceptional work," and my all-time favorite, "You should be teaching this class." But I didn't think I was friends with any of the teachers. They had their lives, I had mine, so even after getting a note like that, I just shuffled out of the room after class and never met the teacher's eye.

During Covid, my life didn't change

at all

except that my dad let me use his computer to sign on for Zoom classes during the day. (He wasn't using the computer much himself because he was laid off from his middle management job during most of Covid and spent his days doing contract work at a metal shop in town.)

I was reasonably healthy. I walked everywhere because it saved money, saved my parents a lot of hassle, and saved me having to sit next to anybody on a bus. Walking kept me lean and I could cover a lot of ground pretty quickly. I read that walking for twenty minutes used up the same calories as jogging for twenty minutes, and when I was walking I could think my own thoughts instead of thinking about traffic and trying to get to the corner while the light was still green, because whenever I got there would be soon enough.

Walking meant that even in winter, the same lightweight jacket kept out the wind, and walking kept me warm, so I never got a new jacket my last three years of high school. I also grew four inches during that time, bringing me to my current six-two-and-a-half, so the sleeves were pretty short and the bottom of the jacket was actually right at my waist, but the thing about not caring is, you don't actually care.

Mom would look at me and say, "We need to get you a new coat," and I'd say, "Tell you what. Donate this one to Goodwill, and then take me into their store and I'll buy this one back from them and call it new. It suits me fine." She grumbled, "Doesn't

fit

you fine," and I'd say, "I can still get my arms through the sleeves and zip it up across my belly."

"If only you actually

had

a belly," Dad would say, and the whole conversation dissolved in laughter because they knew I meant it, I didn't need or want a different jacket, and since they couldn't afford to buy me one, even at Goodwill, I didn't change my appearance at all those last three years, except for getting taller and skinnier so my clothes, while too short, fit loose.

See, I thought my life was fine. I didn't even think about whether I was happy, because I didn't know what that meant. I knew that if I ever became, like, a school shooter or something, everybody would go on camera and say, "He kept to himself," and, "He was a loner."

But I didn't think I was a loner. I got on great with my folks. I did my share of work around the house. As a family we laughed together a lot, sang around Nana's old piano while Dad played, and basically had a family life together.

I didn't care about movies, I didn't care about TV, so not going to movies and not having a working TV caused me no grief.

"Don't you have any friends?" Mom asked me more than once. My answer was always the same. "When I sit down on a bench or at a table to eat my lunch, the other people don't get up and move away." The answer never made her happy, but it ended the conversation.

In the middle of senior year, my dad and I were replacing the air filter on the car when he asked me, "Luke, what about girls?"

"I've seen 'em," I said.

"Don't you

like

girls?" he asked.

"Dad, I'm not gay. If I was going to get laid, I'd want it to be with a person who had a vagina and a pair of nice breasts."

"So you're fussy about the number," he said.

"Two is traditional for breasts," I said, "and I think I have to insist on exactly one vagina."

"Do you actually

know

anybody who fits that list?"

"They're all over school. They're in every class."

"Do you talk to any of them?"

"Sure," I said.

"When?"

"When the teacher makes us go into small-group discussions or assigns groups to do projects, I talk to the people in the group. Which usually includes girls. Though now at age 18 they're starting to call themselves and each other 'women.'"

"And you find them attractive?"

"Dad, I said I'm not gay."

"You find any of the girls

particularly

attractive?"

Where was this going? "Yes," I said.

"And what makes them more attractive to you?"

"Smooth complexion, never talking other people down, school smart, funny smart, clean and even teeth, though that's not always a requirement, because nobody can help how their teeth grow, unless they can afford orthodontia."

"I'm glad

you

have nice even teeth," said Dad.

"I brush them all the time like I'm supposed to," I said.

"Luke, have you ever actually

touched

a girl?"

"You mean, on purpose, not just bumping into them in the halls?"

He shook his head and suggested we go see if dinner was ready. Mom usually wouldn't let us in the kitchen when she was cooking.

I knew all about girls, of course, on a theoretical level. I knew the names of all the parts, the scientific names, the polite names, the crude names, the fighting-words names. I never had a reason to say any of those aloud, except when Dad asked me that time and I named some essential female parts. I knew the mechanics of sex, I had a reasonable number of erections per day, but seeing a girl at school did

not

trigger any such response, unless she was wearing a croptop.

I don't know why, but croptops make me pretty alert, especially when they don't have any kind of elastic or tie at the bottom. I once saw a girl with a croptop that had obviously been cut from an old faded tanktop with household scissors (or maybe pruning shears), and the bottom was ragged and fraying, so that from the lawn where I was sitting, when I looked up from my book as she walked by, I caught a couple of glimpses of underboob, and yes, at that time the sight gave me a champion hard-on.

Well, champion for me. I didn't see other guys' dicks, erect or limp. Also, that girl in the perfect faded frayed croptop, I could see her nipples through the fabric and, when she and her friend walked between me and the sun, I caught the silhouette of her right breast as if her croptop didn't exist.

That girl, who did not go to my school and was probably in college anyway, became a regular player in the nickelodeon that played in my head at night. She left more than one cold spot of spontaneous emission on my sheets. I had no reason to doubt my own interest in girls, or my ability to do my part in making babies, if such a time should come.

Look, I know, you're wondering if I'm going to tell an actual story here, because all I've told you so far is that during high school, I had

nothing

going on. Except good parents who liked me a lot better than I liked myself. And good health from all my walking. And I

know

you already reached the conclusion that if you had been a student in my high school, you would not have ever spoken to me or asked about me or remembered my name.

Here's my diagnosis, the one I reached about a week before spring break, when reading a book about introverts. I realized that I was more than an introvert. I was worse than shy. I was deeply, deeply depressed, and I always had been.

Not suicidal — never. But I was unhappy all the time and didn't even notice because I had never actually been happy. I saw confident people who put themselves out there, but I had always assumed that it was because they had something to say, which I never did. I thought of stuff, I just didn't have any impulse to say it — except with my parents.

That day, walking to school, was the first time that it ever occurred to me that there was something wrong with me that I could change. Being an introvert was a perfectly acceptable character trait, and I didn't have any hunger to alter myself. But being depressed was a psychological malady that could and should be addressed.

That was why, on that morning a week before spring break, I went to my guidance counselor and told her that I had figured out that I was probably depressed.

She looked at me in absolute surprise and said, "No shit, Sherlock."

That was not the response I had expected.

"You walk around the halls at school as if your favorite sister had just died," she said.

"I don't have a sister," I said.

"You give off gloom like a beacon of darkness," she said.

"Everybody

who sees you knows that you're depressed."

"Nobody ever said anything."

"Luke, you give off an air of annoyance whenever you make eye contact with anybody. It's been one of the real challenges of being your guidance counselor. You always seem to hate every second you're with me."

"Mrs. Powter, I have never been annoyed with you."

"Until now?"

"Not annoyed now, either."

"You sound pissed off."

"Of course I do. I'm depressed. But it has nothing to do with

you.

"

"You need to get a sign and wear it around school. 'I am not pissed off at you.'"

"That would be ... weird," I said.

"No, it would be helpful. Wearing a jacket that you must have gotten when you were eight years old,

that's

weird."

"I was fifteen," I said. "A cousin grew out of it."

"So did you. Years ago."

"But I don't care. It works fine. Keeps me warm in every season — except summer, of course."

"You talk as if you were auditioning for the part of Eeyore."

I shrugged. Since then I've seen a couple of Winnie-the-Pooh things and I get the reference. But I had skipped over most of the children's book stuff and gone straight to chapter books with no pictures except maps and graphs. I never even looked for Elmo.

"Luke," she said, when I had no answer, "it probably feels like I'm dumping on you right now. But I'm not. I'm confirming your diagnosis of clinical depression because I thought it was obvious to you the way it's obvious to everybody else."

"I guess everybody thinks I'm a wack job."

"No, Luke. They don't think of you at all. You make yourself invisible, you repel attention. They don't even

see

you anymore, I'm surprised they don't bump into you in the halls."

"They do," I said. "For a while I thought it was on purpose and I wondered why."

"They don't see you, Luke."

"I don't exist."

"Of course you exist," she said. "You're on track to be valedictorian of the school."

"Oh, right, like anybody wants to hear me give a speech."

"It would be the first time that most of the school would ever have heard your voice," she said.

"Can you put a stop to that?" I said. "I don't want to have to get some bad grades just to avoid giving that speech."

She laughed. But not a happy laugh, just a surprised laugh. "You really mean that."

"I can always just not show up at graduation," I said.

"If you

are

valedictorian, your parents would be notified, the local fishwrap would be notified. Don't you want your parents to see you get such an honor?"

"What's to see? Just tell them I won and it's done."

"Don't you want them to be proud of you?"

I was baffled, and for the first time in this ridiculous conversation I felt hurt. "What makes you think they're ashamed of me?"

"No, no, but parents love to see their kid getting honored, acclaimed, it makes them proud."

It took a few moments of silence before I could answer that. "Mom says I make her proud every day."

And that was when Mrs. Powter suddenly started crying for no reason at all. "Of course you make her proud," she said. "You're the smartest kid in the school. You're in good health, you are never unkind to anybody, you work hard, you fulfil assignments, which I'm sure you also do at home. I bet your room is even tidy."

I shrugged. Her point? I had no idea.

She used a Kleenex to dry her eyes. Dab at them, really, because of course she didn't want to smear her makeup. As always, I was so glad that boys didn't have to wear that shit. I'd rather wear a bag over my head with eyeholes cut out.

"Mrs. Powter," I said, "you've been very helpful. I only realized this morning that I might actually be depressed instead of just being an introvert. And now I'm glad to know that not only is my diagnosis correct, it's been obvious to everybody else all along. I have two questions left, if you can spare me a little more time."

"All the time you want," she said.

"My parents don't have any money and going to a shrink is expensive. Do you know any way I could get in to see the kind of shrink who could get me antidepressants? Not that I want drugs — I don't know anything about antidepressants except that they exist. I just think that it might be nice to know what it feels like

not

to be depressed, since I think I've been this way my whole life. My baby pictures show me smiling and laughing sometimes, but mostly I had a glum expression. Like I didn't expect my life to hold any joy."

"Has it?"

"I love my parents. It makes me feel good to be with them. Is that joy?"

She nodded. "There are social services that I can put your parents in touch with."

I had to put a stop to

that.

"If they find out I'm asking for a shrink, they'll be worried about me. And also ashamed they can't pay for it."

"These things always go through the family."

"I'm eighteen. The law says I can vote. I can marry. I can get a library card. I'm not a minor. Can't Social Services deal with me directly?"

"I don't know. I'm a school counselor, I don't usually look for ways to get around established procedures."

"Well. Never mind then. It was just a passing thought."

"No, no, I'll find you a therapist, I really will."

"Talk therapy doesn't work," I said. "I've read about it."

"Therapy is like having a friend you can pour out your heart to."

"I wouldn't know," I said. "I've never had a friend."

She looked at me with consternation.

I shrugged. "I've seen friends. I've read about them. Just like I've read about siblings. But reading about a sister never made me wish I had one."

"I'll get you an appointment with a psychiatrist who can prescribe antidepressants if they might help you change your ... outlook."

"I don't want anything that will make me crazy-cheerful," I said. "I mean, manic or anything."

"Meds are pretty good these days. Trust me, we'll get you what you need or even just want."

"Thanks, Mrs. Powter." I got up from the chair and put my hand on the doorknob.

"Luke," she said. "You told me you had two questions. One was about getting you a psychiatrist appointment."

"Oh, yes," I said. "But I'm afraid my other question might —"

She looked at me quizzically. "You can say anything, you know."

I took her at her word. "Mrs. Powter, if you — if everybody — saw that I was depressed, why didn't anybody try to do anything about it till now?"

Tears came to her eyes again. "You had perfect grades. You never missed a day of school. You never got into an argument, let alone a fight. You looked strong and healthy and well-tanned by outdoor life."

"And sad."

"I figured you were probably already seeing a shrink," said Mrs. Powter.

"I didn't give off any emergency vibes," I said.

"You seemed to be coping. Coping

brilliantly

. I figured your biggest concern would be applying to the right college."

I shook my head. "Nobody in my family goes to college," I said. "It costs money even to apply for admission."

"Are you really that poor?" she asked me.

And I shrugged. Because that was family business, not to be bandied about with strangers.

Apparently getting a psychiatrist for me was taking a lot of time, because Mrs. Powter didn't call me in before spring break. However, something else happened that threw me off my regular path. It was a girl. The girl I told you about at the beginning.

I was sitting on a bench outside the cafeteria eating my lunch. It was a cold day, so even in direct sunlight, nobody wanted to sit there except me. And I didn't

want

to sit there, I merely happened to sit there and when I noticed it was uncomfortable, I didn't think it was worth getting up and moving. It wasn't going to take me long to eat my cold cheese sandwich."

This girl, though, she came out of the cafeteria and looked around and spotted me, as if she had been

looking

for me. Which it turns out she had. She came right up to me. She sat right down.

Because of my conversation with Mrs. Powter, I didn't just look at her and then go back to eating my sandwich, which is what I would normally have done. Instead, I looked at her, thinking, Say something, Luke. My first thought was, Why the hell would you come out here and sit by me? I went with my second thought. "Where's your lunch?"

"I already ate," she said.

That baffled me. It was lunch hour. I was out here eating lunch. She had already eaten. I wasn't going to share my cheese sandwich with her anyway.

"Look," she said, "this is going to sound weird, but I'm going to come out with it, and if you want to, you can tell me to go to hell."

"I've been there," I said, "and it isn't worth the price of admission."

She looked startled, and then she laughed. It was a really nice laugh. "I didn't know you were funny," she said.

My parents knew. They were the only people I ever had conversations with, so I had said to this girl what I would have said to one of

them

.

She seemed to expect me to say something more, probably because it was my turn or something, but how could I answer "I didn't know you were funny"?

"Luke, there's this club, see. Among the seniors. Be A Friend First, it's called. We normally just call it 'baff.'"