I did a shitty thing and I felt bad

[Sbbruin 21865]

19 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Son, it's time you learn an important lesson.

 

[Jive Turkey 12637]

1 hour ago, Brian Fantana said:

Your teacher should have told you to fuck off and not assigned you a new lab partner. I don't know why he would admonish you and then give you what you wanted.

I never really picked on anyone in high school. I was one of those people that had his foot in every camp. I was a football and baseball player but also was in band and mostly hung out with a group of less popular people and didn't much care of what people thought of me. I mostly actively refused to play the high school game. There was one time, though, I did something real bad and I still feel horrible about it 20 years later. There was this girl who was the quintessential sort of "outsider" girl. Cute, smart, very nice, and everyone thought she was a slut because of rumors I'm sure some idiot started after she rebuffed him and spread like wildfire. I pretty much knew she was nothing of the sort. We were in band together and by happenstance ended up assigned to the same pair of seats on a trip to Washington, DC (on the plane, and on the buses the school had chartered to ferry us around on the trip). We ended up connecting on the trip and spent most of our time together. We spent a wonderful day walking the Smithsonian together. Towards the end of the trip, a big bunch of us students were walking back from watching the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetary, and she had worked up the courage to ask me out, basically in front of everyone. In any other setting, I think I would have immediately agreed and that would have been that, but in front of all the other students, because I knew she was not well liked by most of the students, and just to score cheap high school popular guy points (which I had never ever done before), I said in a loud voice: "Bitch you'd be lucky to be seen with me" and walked away like I was some sort of bad ass.

The aftermath is I successfully scored cheap high school popular guy points at the expense of humiliating and breaking this poor, sweet girl's heart in front of a bunch of people. She later negotiated a seat transfer with another student on the bus and later the plane back home, and more than once I caught her looking back at me with a face that really hurts to recall even to this day. I have never in my life (before or since) been so ashamed of myself. We never spoke again and the next year her family moved off who knows where. I hope she found a good life wherever she ended up.

I'd hate to think a stupid impulse decision made by a stupid ass high school kid like myself later helped influence someone to take own life or worse.

Who the fuck are you, Danny Zuko?

 

[JBJ 3664]

4 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Because then they'd have to look at themselves in the mirror maybe ??

I'm definitely a cerebral personality, but I was not socially ackward or isolated.

Geeks and freaks are social pariahs because of their personalities, even when healthy.  Geeks withdraw, usually both physically and emotionally, from social conflict.  Freaks use social conlict to emphasize their individualism and uniqueness.  For the vast majority of both, this stays healthy behavior.  Geeks get into mental activities (chess, DND, quantum theory) freaks get into personal expression (art, music, fashion).

Killers are usually social-pariahs because of the level of mental unhealthiness out of a broad range of personalities.

You are reading "social pariah" correctly, but it's the wrong interpretation.  It's not a personality, it's a level of unhealthiness among several personality types.

Furthermore, the geek/freak personality types are usually self-destructive not externally destructive.

Edited May 21, 2018 by JBJ

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

One time the night before a big football game against our hated rival, me and my friend went out cruising in his older brother's car. We were kind of fucked up, and trashed it. So we drove it back to the school, and spray painted graffiti all over it to make it look like somebody from our rival high school had vandalized it. I felt kinda bad, but the older brother (he played linebacker) was so pissed he had the game of his life, getting something like five sacks in one game, so it all worked out, I guess.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

One time the night before a big football game against our hated rival, me and my friend went out cruising in his older brother's car. We were kind of fucked up, and trashed it. So we drove it back to the school, and spray painted graffiti all over it to make it look like somebody from our rival high school had vandalized it. I felt kinda bad, but the older brother (he played linebacker) was so pissed he had the game of his life, getting something like five sacks in one game, so it all worked out, I guess.

Were you a stoner in high school and your friend a short, younger black guy?

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

5 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Every one of us has a moment (usually several) where we could have acted with kindness and decency towards someone who deserved it or needed it....and we opted be selfish and even cruel.  It's a simple fork in the road, and sometimes, we take the wrong one. And we can never take it back.

For me, being so painfully aware of such episodes in my past serves as a huge yellow caution flag against repeating them.  As a result, I am MUCH better about opting for the kind path.  Not that I don't still fail, but I am aware of more chances I run across where I don't fail.

Like the other night, doing a pickup a the HEB pharmacy right before they closed.  There was an old man in front of me talking the pharmacist's ear off...just telling her everything about his day, his life, etc.  She motioned me forward, and as I was doing my transaction, he started talking to me -- telling me about when he moved to Austin, his dad was a professor at UT in the 30s, etc. etc. -- seriously, just rambling old man shit.  Mildly interesting, but inside, I just wanted to bail.  But he kept talking.  And it clicked in my head that it was obviously important for this guy to have someone to talk to.  And what the hell, I wasn't in a hurry, I can give this guy some of my time to make him happy.  So, I stood there and listened for around 10 minutes, until the pharmacist had to shut down and close the gate, making a natural break in the conversation.

I'm not putting that up to show that I'm a great guy -- there's plenty of times when I'm brusque and blow people off.  But it's an example of me being AWARE that another person needed some act of kindness/decency from me, and I recognized it.  Because I worry about all of the times that I haven't.

Being a selfish dick sometimes is the best way to learn how not to be a selfish dick.  Or at least, to be better at it.

 

 

[RPM 26332]

1 hour ago, High Plains Drifter said:

One time the night before a big football game against our hated rival, me and my friend went out cruising in his older brother's car. We were kind of fucked up, and trashed it. So we drove it back to the school, and spray painted graffiti all over it to make it look like somebody from our rival high school had vandalized it. I felt kinda bad, but the older brother (he played linebacker) was so pissed he had the game of his life, getting something like five sacks in one game, so it all worked out, I guess.

How long was your dad a TV repairman?

[Thetexashammer 1062]

I'm really ashamed of this. But.....one time....in high school.........I touched myself.

[RPM 26332]

It wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't happen in the middle of math class.

[Sbbruin 21865]

Were you a stoner in high school and your friend a short, younger black guy?

And you can tell your buddy's brother that those Earth, Wind, and Fire tickets finally came in.

[Equinox 95]

8 hours ago, F250 said:

 

2. What was a blind kid doing at a baseball camp?

 

Dammit

Edited May 22, 2018 by Equinox
someone else beat me to it

[RPM 26332]

8 hours ago, F250 said:

2. What was a blind kid doing at a baseball camp?

Trying out for the Angels.

[fattyflattie 4638]

9 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Striking out a lot, I would guess.

Damn. Can’t not lol.  

[RPM 26332]

7 hours ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Son, it's time you learn an important lesson. 

 

7 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

That lesson is imgur don't work on Surly.

 

[EastTexan 662]

9 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Striking out a lot, I would guess.

 

Couldn't field for shit either.

[TwiceHorn 31516]

There are a couple of these incidents that I regret.  In first grade, there was this girl that was an outcast and also weirdly antagonistic to people, but I participated in further casting her out and bullying? I guess it would be called.  Susie George.  She moved away after first grade.

 

Then, later, in fourth and fifth grade, a kind of dorky dude named Bob Scanlon, who actually had some positive qualities (pretty smart), but also would do strangely antagonistic things from time to time.  Same basic deal.  He later became a "freak," of the classic variety.  Don't know what happened to either of them, ultimately.  I hope they were able to get past it.

[JohnnyRage 1617]

Brian from Northlake Elemntary 5th grade. I'm sorry for the bullying to fit in with the 'cool crowd. We used to gang up on you until you would flip out and fight back. I'm sorry that we would slap chalk on your jeans to prove that you only owned one pair. I knew it was wrong and it ate at me.

The next year I said 'F' all that and exiled myself. My new best friends were a Nigerian and an Iranian.

 

Then the first Gulf War broke out and you fuckers couldn't care less that he wasn't an Iraqi.