First Conversation: Boys & Stuff

“Yeah, but what’s your body count?”

I hate when I’m in the bathroom and a group of girls start having a loud conversation. Their words tend to bounce off the walls to make even their whispers sounds like screams. Since I drink about 100 cups of water a day, I’m in there pretty often; I hear a lot.

This time I was in one of the dingy, smaller bathrooms that our school has downstairs. These girls walked in while I was in a stall to go the mirror. Then they started talking.

It was pretty explicit, and I won’t really bother summarizing, but something about what they were saying irked me. They seemed to talk about their sexual endeavors like it was a contest. It was so aggressive, not to mention downright uncomfortable to listen to. What they were saying seemed like what a 50 year-old guy scripting a bad Netflix show for teens would write. I didn’t know people actually talked like this.

Whatever. I leave, having to shuffle awkwardly pass them, and go back to culinary.

Second Conversation: Sad Stuff

I was walking to my friend’s car after school, going down the sidewalk to find wherever she had parked. As I scuttled down the hill, a pair of girls in front of me (the kind of girls that you think permanently have a smile plastered on their face) and the wind was just blowing low enough for me to hear a little of what they were saying.

(I’m nosey, okay?)

They were on a more normal conversation when one of the girls suddenly said to the other, in the same peppy tone: “Do you ever get sad at night? Like just randomly get sad in the middle of the night for no reason?”

I walked out of earshot to hear what the other girl responded back with, but I was once again baffled. I had never thought that people so positive and adored for their ever-present happiness would ever ask a question like that. A question that I would ask.

Third Conversation: Inner Thought Stuff

My perceptions and shallow judgements of people formed because of things people would think about me. But when all things were said and done, and all of those silly, immature notions had been dropped, I still clutched on to a scarce few of those thoughts I had formed years ago. I sometimes forget how complex people are, how we all want to simplify concepts down into macromolecules we can process.

Sure, this can work for some things, like science and numbers. But people are too much to break down. Instead of judging girls for trying to seem so experienced and desirable, I see people just trying to fit in. Instead of thinking all those perfect, pretty girls are always happy, I remember that all of us have nights where we feel like nothing.

These 2 conversations were oddly comforting. They reminded me how similar we all are–girls and otherwise–and how even if we are alone, we aren’t really alone.