Reflections from Dana Pt. 1

People are never how you think they are, and you are never as people think you are. And chances are, what you think they are is what they think you are. I think life’s funny in that way. Take my pal Dominique for example.

One day she came storming into the dressing room, threw her bag unto the floor, turned to me, and said, “Dana! I am about to KNOCK OUT your little friends Gabby and Sameera! I swear, those two are the most annoying people EVER.” Aside from fearing for Gabby and Sameera’s lives a little, I came to remember last week when Gabby and Sameera were spouting the same nonsense about Dominique, albeit with less violence.

And I thought, “Ah, what an interesting world. I wonder if it works for everyone like this.” Perhaps if I had been smarter, however, I would have realized that this was Newton’s Third Law in action, except not for motion but for people: “For every action there is an exact and opposite reaction.” So Dominique wanted to blast the guts of Gabby and Sameera, and it turned out that Gabby and Sameera wanted to do the same to Dominique.


But onward to the topic at hand. The point of this story is not to relate the reciprocation of hatred between some of my friends, but to showcase some of my own experience in the subject. Isn’t it the worst thing EVER when you think, “This would never happen to me. I’m too smart/experienced/I know better,” and it does, only you don’t even realize it until way later and you think, “Well so much for that.” Well in addition to trying to lessen some of those moments myself, I want this story to guide me to truth and understanding, and if it happens to entertain along the way, who’s complaining?

I suppose a story like this would start at my birth, how I was born at this Israeli Hospital (no, I’m not Jewish, although that would be interesting if I was) in Boston, a feeble and small child with some serious asthma. Fast forward a few years, and you get the typical asthmatic child: small, frail, with huge glasses that I STILL have to squint through, and sort of messed up teeth. But unlike the movies, no one really ever referred to me as a nerd, well at least not to my face. To be honest, I can only think of one time that someone seriously “bullied” me (is that still a lot?). Anyway, flash through middle school (very unimportant years) and freshman year of high school, all the way until I reach the end of my sophomore year.
THEN it happens: I see this boy.

If you’re thinking, “My gosh! It’s one of those stories?!? A multi-paged fest of expressing unrequited love or worse a relationship that was supposed to last ‘forever and ever,’ which in teenager terms translates to a couple of months,” then you are as cynical as I am, so read on. And for your information, it is about this boy, but nothing in the usual sense. First off, from the first couple of paragraphs, I think one can deduce that this does not end well for me. And second off, I’m not some love-struck teenager who thinks that the perfect male specimen exists. This boy was sort of slow, too nice, and would “throw you under the bus” in a second (and as I would later find out, a womanizer!); yes, he is definitely perfect (sarcasm, you’ll catch on). Now is this a story of what an awful, disgusting creature this boy is? True, I’ve spent the last couple of months HATING HIS GUTS, but after we met up and tied a few loose ends, I have to say that he’s just a normal dude.

But, ah, I digress....

I see this boy, and I am awe-struck. I had seen him before, but onstage, not this close up. But he was hand in hand with this chick, and they looked happy and basically skipped through as if they noticed nothing but each other. I know, I promised not to get “moviesque,” but I promise you, theater kids REALLY DO act this way, or at least from what I’ve seen, they do. So, I did feel a little empty. Sure I hardly knew the kid, but it still sucks to see the guy you like with some other chick, especially when she’s prettier than you are. So there I was, sitting down on the floor, in my glasses and messed up hair, and he came dancing in with this bright-eyed girl with flowing brown hair and a great smile. Yeah, I sure in hell didn’t stand a chance. Not only had I NEVER been in a relationship before, but I never even been ASKED OUT before (unless preschool counts?).

Now we’ll flash time a little more to the beginning of junior year. And there were some major changes in me for sure. Having attended this summer program thing, I felt invigorated, confident, and more ambitious. Number one on my list? Getting this boy (who does have a name, by the way, but let’s just call him Alan). Yeah he did have a girlfriend, but that didn’t faze me. I mean, I wasn’t going to plan to break them up or anything, but how long did high school relationships last REALLY?
So I waltzed into the theater, posh first day of school clothes fresh on my back, hair styled (not messy!), and contacts in, a new habit I had picked up during my summer program. Fate (and the alphabet) had placed me in a seat right next to Alan during roll call for the remainder of the year. So things were looking good, right? Well except for the fact that I was so nervous that I didn’t even look at him for the whole first day and the fact that he was morning for his “Moroccan Princess,” who had evidently spent her summer in Morocco and was STILL not back yet; though I was slightly disappointed she wasn’t there myself, eager for the chance to look upon her and decide, “Hmpt, she’s not as pretty as I thought she was.”

In fact, little Miss Morocco didn’t show up until NEXT week (is that an excused absence?). Definitely smaller than I remembered, she stood next to her seat at the beginning of the aisle, flashing her big doe eyes, flipping her lengthy, streaked brown hair, and fluttering her cute little skirt. Barf. She was even cuter than I thought she was. And the sight of him rushing over to this chick, hugging her, looking at her like that, and telling her over and over again that he missed her was enough to make me hurl again.

In that following week, I remember cold reading for our first production when a classmate rolled her eyes, “Alan! You keep missing your lines. Why aren’t you paying attention?”
And to this, another classmate smirked, “It’s because Diana’s finally arrived. He’s so into her that he can’t focus on anything else.” Want to know how I felt? Annoyed as hell. Yeah, I know, I had no reason to be, but this infatuation was stronger than I had ever thought… so much for waiting for a breakup.