I left Italy around 2003-2004. I thought I was leaving behind people who I considered to be good friends, we exchanged emails, said we'd keep in touch, you know, the same old shit.
That's where all veils of apparent amicality ended. I got the contact details of roughly a dozen people, so me being me, as soon as I got the Internet back on, I tried to get in contact with everyone to say hi. Two of the emails I had been given simply didn't exist. This sort of hurt me, as I was rather close to the people in question, you know? I thought they were good friends. The other emails, or the majority of them simply didn't bother to reply at all. Of the three that did, two were outcasts of the academic society, one of which has changed so much beyond recognition I don't know him anymore, the other doesn't reply much to emails. As of the other kid of the three, he replies to my mails, and seems to be interested in keeping in touch. But what of the others? Which brings me to the subject of today's blog.
See, I was one hell of an outcast back in Italy. Whereas the other kids in my year were the typical teenagers; they enjoyed hip-hop, football; they were athletic kids who did well in sports. I was into Heavy Metal, I detested football and I was rather chubby. Therefore, corresponding to the strict rules of academic society, I was an outcast. I don't know how many of you have read "Cell"; the new novel by Stephen King, but I can draw up a comparison to a scene in the book, where the heroes are deemed "untouchable" by the villains, so noone will associate with them; "Ecce Homo Insanus".
Of course, it's a bit of an exaggeration. I don't mean to imply that the other kids were "malicious" in any way, because they weren't. They were just kids. I mean, they were friendly to me, I never got any abuse hurled at me, like say a kid called Kaushik (the guy who I said changed beyong recognition). Even so, we never connected on a true "friendship" basis. These things can do horrible things to a child's mind. What does anyone in modern society want? To be accepted, of course. That was all I wanted, but instead I was shunned away like a sort of broken toy. And I think that this treatment has had adverse effects on my social integration. Nowadays, I still find it hard to fit in, I'm incredibly shy and I like being alone a lot.
Therefore, I take the "fuck it" approach to life. If people don't like me, they can go and fuck themselves. Strong, I know, but it's true. I don't care what people think of me any more, and I don't try to fit in; hence why I'm alone a lot of the time. Bizarely enough though, I now have more true friends than I ever have done. Among those people, Laura, Romain, Aslan: three kids who are incredibly different to me in ways of culture and tastes (they being French and me being English is the biggest gap) but we're very close friends.
Sure, being kept out of any social clique can really screw with your emotions, but it's an important lesson in life. In somewhat of a bizzarre twist, I am actually trying to get back in touch with some people I was at school with, via the social networking site Facebook. I'm not quite sure why, but I feel it may be worth it. A lot can happen over three years, maybe their attitude towards me has too.
~Peace and Donuts~
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2 comments:
As you well know I've had pretty similar experiences, and having moved country twice and city once I can say that the same thing happens every time. What's strange is that yes, even those people you were most close to you can lose contact with. I guess it's just really hard to stay in contact with someone you don't see any more. As I said to someone recently when you're a distance apart like that you're experiencing different things with different people, and this in turn changes you and makes you different people. As well as being why friends drift apart in these situations, this is also why distance relationships don't work.
As for Italy, I know the school you were in and there was a particularly heavy clique factor there. For one if you didn't speak Italian you were pretty much outcast right from the start. Secondly being a school full of rich kids who had been brought up with such a limited life experience, if you were even slightly diffeernt you were again outcast. This is why there were so few punks, rockers, or anyone else who could think for themselves.
I've lost contact with people in the past who were really really close to me, and luckily thanks to facebook I am starting to regain contact with them. But there is certainly that element of "casual friends" that have fallen by the wayside and will never again truly return. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
The psychological affect of being outcast like this can be quite damaging at the time, but as you grow up you learn from it and like you said it makes you stronger. I just hope this doesn't do to you what it, and my other situation that you know well, has done to me - turn me into social avoidant personality type!
~T
Found you looking up Cell quotes, your post made me realize what DON'T TOUCH meant. I often find King has fruddy duddy way of communicating things like an awkward uncle who just doesn't 'get it', untouchable makes sense, whereas I thought he was just being typical him and not making sense.
As for your blog post, Italian kids are all fucking dicks. They all want to grow uo to be black American rappers, and Brazilian soccer players, both at rhe same time. I'm of Italian descent and have had much experience with thwm. They REALLY dislike anyone who's not into R&B and rap. So, protip, fuck em, they're all dead beat dicks.
Add me on Twitter if you use it, @bashpr0mpt, or check my blog out at http://bashpr0mpt.com <3
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