Spitballs
Spitballs are shockingly difficult to get out of your hair.
I can't recall a thing about high school algebra. But I can tell you about the spitballs Scott launched at me from the back seat of the bus.
I can tell you about empty, dirty candy wrappers shoved into the slots of my locker.
And spending the long lunch break alone in the school library just to feel peace.
I had one true friend. Loneliness.
I daydreamed about how things would be different in college.
And they were.
Higher Education
In college, no spitballs.
Extracurricular activities didn’t involve sweating.
I joined a club that planned campus lectures. A few fellow members became my close friends.
Peace? I found it. For a while.
The Shock
My new friends all lived together in the female dorm, so I’d linger outside their building and leave messages on all three answering machines.
When’s breakfast?
When’s lunch?
When’s dinner?
What are we doing tonight?
What are we doing this weekend?
In college, I didn’t eat alone anymore.
Until one day I asked what time we were going for chicken tenders and fries.
Silence.
One of my friends said, “Um.”
She said, “The thing is—”
And then she said, “You’re needy.”
Needy
I’d never heard the word before. But I didn’t need to look it up.
I got my chicken tenders and fries in a Styrofoam container. I took it to my dorm room ate alone that day.
And the next. And the next.
My friend’s comment didn’t feel mean. It felt true.
It rested comfortably beside other things I hated about myself. Like being nerdy. Like being gay.
But those things had less sting in college. Nerdiness was encouraged. Will & Grace was a hit.
But neediness didn’t have such great PR.
Empty, Abandoned, Useless
I tried to be less of a problem.
I stopped asking so many questions.
Stopped lingering outside their dorm.
Stopped assuming I was invited.
On endlessly open nights, I’d walk the campus.
Loyola New Orleans was quiet in a way that felt staged, like a movie set after hours, my own drama.
Empty streetcars toiled along under oak trees on St. Charles Avenue.
Academic buildings had lights on so you could see they were empty, abandoned, useless.
On those nights, all the learning was happening outside, the lessons of my own footsteps. Wondering if my friends were at parties. Wondering if they noticed I wasn’t there.
I turned to my old friend from high school. Loneliness.
Loneliness
He was available. Affable. Had a sense of humor about my Styrofoam dinners. “Where’s mine?” he’d ask.
But I noticed something else. He sure was needy.
My friend Loneliness was always around. He wanted so much of my time. To constantly make himself known. To nag about how to spend each long, solitary hour.
I started to wish my friend Loneliness would branch out. Not be so reliant on me. Why couldn’t he make other friends?
I imagined telling him, “You’re needy.”
I’d say, “I can’t shake you.”
I’d ask, “Why does your attention seem intense, heavy, desperate? Like your life depends on being with others? Like your safety depends on it?”
Suddenly, Loneliness reminded me of me. Of a kid sitting on a school bus. A spitball hitting the back of his head. No one helping. A kid desperate for friends to stick up for him, to save him.
“Maybe we think being alone is danger,” Loneliness said. “That we have to be vigilant.”
He gets me, I thought.
Sure
I couldn’t fill the void in my friend, Loneliness.
And I looked for other ways to fill my own.
I turned to books. I took longer walks. I got an internship that later became a career in journalism.
I came to admire the quiet buildings. And my own footsteps at night. And the streetcar empty save for the driver, so not empty at all.
The next time my friends invited me for lunch, I shrugged. “Sure,” I said. We had a lovely time.
CULT MEMBERS ONLY
Here’s what my therapist says about all this.