The cool kids

I was never very cool in high school, a trend which I have faithfully continued to the present day. There were these girls in my class... I guess they weren't cool, either, but they acted cool and it always seemed like they knew something the rest of us didn't. For some reason, I always wanted to be one of them. Well, not a girl... I mean, every guy goes through phases, but that isn't what I'm talking about. Anyway, they were always my ideal of "cool."

One of them was actually a good friend of mine, but she spent most of her time with them. Of course, I had friends of my own and we all pretty much existed in our own world, our own inside jokes, our own agendas. But there was something special about those girls.

Maybe it was because they didn't ask for or seem to want permission from anyone to do anything. Or maybe it was because they could make you feel like you needed THEIR permission to do stuff. It might have been that they were the perfect balance of funny and confident and smart. But, probably it was because they were all pretty hot and still talked to me.

Looking back I'm beginning to realize that, except for the confidence thing and the hot thing, I was kinda one of them. In Government class we all broke away from the rest of the class to form our own political party. In journalism I was included in their inside jokes... usually as the butt of the joke, but still, I was there. And even now they remember me fondly, I am told.

I wish I had realized this stuff fifteen years ago.