5 Comments

Excellent. A privilege to read.

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What Brian Dunning said. I, too, got through high school thanks to a handful of kind classmates -- and I was more fortunate than you by having several supportive teachers. Survival is the ultimate riposte. Thanks for this honest and thought-provoking piece.

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I’ve read this three times and wanted to thank you for sharing it. There are profound feelings that come from it that are hard to put into words and you’ve captured that time so well, both the parts that I feel adjacent to and some that I never knew or understood.

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Thanks for reading it, Nate. It was a long time ago, and the world was a very different place. We all do the best we can.

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Very brave and honest.

I somehow escaped the normal fears of being "found out", as I wrestled (in the shadow of my older brother, State Champion), and hadn't the mannerisms that drew suspicion. This despite going from K-12 in a mostly second-generation Italian Catholic parochial school.

I became close friends with my opposite: a nerdy, slight & effeminate bespectacled invert. One day he suddenly grew so jealous of the school top athlete and handsome stud that he challenged him to a fight in the lunchroom. The jock hadn't even a clue who he was, being so far outside his jock clique, and was nonplussed. I stepped between them and did the "why don't you pick on me" line. That's when his 6'2 200 lb. (kept many grades back) teammate grabbed me in a full Nelson so the jock could get in a cheap shot. But he was embarrassed by the whole ludacris scene he just stepped back. But the other guy held on so I stepped onto one of the benches and flipped the big guy all but through a lunch table.

I'm an old man now, but can honestly say the worst anyone did was give me the nickname Angel because I never swore or made trouble, and acquired the honorific "Bookworm" because I actually read for pleasure & edification rather than just the required curriculum.

The kicker was the jock didn't just became a friend, but my first sexual partner.

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