I arrived at the bridal shower underdressed for the occasion and half an hour late, and so I had to take a seat at a side table. There sat the bride's younger sister flanked by two incredibly sullen girls. Already disoriented because of my own tardiness and apparel problems, I was further confused and concerned, as I couldn't figure out why two people would be sitting at a party where they would soon enjoy free food with such pouty expressions, their arms crossed in front of their chests, slouching down in their high-backed chairs like a teacher had asked them who fought in the War of 1812. Had there been some earlier terrible and public argument that I was unwittingly putting myself in the middle of by sitting at this table? Oh wait, no. They were just fourteen, that's all. Makes perfect sense now.
Oh. My. Lord. Was this fourteen? This absolute oblivion to the world around, this innane chatter, this complete lack of perspective and tact? I sat by, amused, as one of them searched for the word "tomboy," describing one as "one of those girls who acts like a man and doesn't wear makeup." I wanted to get up close to her with my unembellished face and suggest the word "Sandra." Then the subject of Mary Kate Olsen came up (who can say why?), and one of the girls emphatically declared, "I love her!" I simply do not know how to respond to someone like that, someone who knows the Olsen twins solely as they are now (and even more bizarrely, respects them for it), and not as Michelle Tanner gone horribly wrong. I made some comment about Mary Kate perhaps not being a good role model, what with her throwing up her food all the time, and was haughtily corrected that Mary Kate was not bulimic, only anorexic. My bad. In that case, idolize away.
But the really funny moments were when the girls, in preparation for the PSAT, started showing off their vocabulary. Not that fourteen year old girls using pretentious words is at all funny, but fourteen year old girls using pretentious words incorrectly is downright hilarious. "Pass the spurious sugar, please," one asked. And then one of them managed to get the words "anomaly" and "apathy" mixed up, calling the lone butterscotch scone a lack of emotion or feeling.
Then one of the girls sitting with the bride had to leave the shower to go to work, and I hopped over to the big girls' table without a second glance.
I guess the best part was realizing that, to those girls, I am awesome, if just by default of age, confidence, and knowledge of polysyllabic words. I'm twenty-two. I can drive, I can smoke, I can drink, I can meet a boy at the movie theatre without asking permission, and then I can actually watch the movie, because I have my own apartment where I can go and make out with said boy in the living room! I know it's trivial and silly to care what teenaged girls think about me (particularly considering their opinions on the Olsens), but it was a treat to my former self, because I definitely was not awesome to fourteen year old girls when I was one. I was clueless and oblivious, too, though I knew what "apathy" meant. Fourteen is about the age where I learned to pretend not to care what other people thought, because even faking it saves you from letting other people have control over you.
Who knows why I got so much validation out of the experience? But as I looked at these silly girls that I barely knew, I saw the pretty and popular girls that I grew up with and realized that those girls never had a clue either, not even the cheerleaders who developed early and proportionately and had mothers who showed them how to use makeup. I could look at them and tell them that I've been there and that I know they're just as scared and unsure of themselves as the girls they belittle. I survived puberty, adolescence, and my teenage years and came out just fine. I'd arrived late and underdressed that afternoon with every indication of still being every bit as socially hopeless as I was eight years ago, but I've arrived in ways they can't even begin to imagine.
And then I saw all the girls around me at the big girl table, the ones who showed up on time and somehow all knew to wear dressy clothes. It was really no different than every social situation back at age fourteen; judgment does not go away. Except this time, I wasn't really faking my apathy (or was it anomaly?) regarding the opinions of others anymore. Everyone's got a friend like me, someone oblivious to social correctness, someone who is forgiven for her ineptitude just because everyone else is so used to that kind of behavior from her. So I decided after that afternoon that I am completely okay with being that person. That girl has the freedom to do whatever she wants without regard to the expectations of others, because that's exactly what others expect of her. So no, I do not know how to put on makeup, and yes, I am late, and yes, I am wearing jeans and Birkenstocks to a bridal shower, but I'm here to celebrate my friend's wedding, and I don't care what you think. Which is really convenient, seeing as I'm going to go ahead and act as if I don't anyway.
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