“You Don’t Talk Much.”: Or, Finding Oneself Back at a High School Party in One’s Late-Twenties

Sorry, dad. Mousy brown hair is just NOT ME!

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

“You’re kinda quiet, huh?”

“You really don’t say much, do you?”

…Words that I used to hear on a habitual basis when I was in high school, especially outside of actual “school”, at high school boozefests, in the company of people who didn’t seem to care if I lived or died.  This may sound hyperbolic, but I don’t really think it is.  I was not interested in discussing the same things they were, like “that time when so and so was soooooo high/drunk that s/he blahhhhhhhhh blaaaaaahhhhhh!”.  I don’t even know what else these people talked about, I just know that I had nothing to say on any of the topics they brought up, nor any desire to join what’s his face from the prep boys school in his little sister’s bedroom while his parents were out of town.  I did something like this once, maybe twice, and that was enough.  I had seen the movie from start to finish, and it was pretty goddamn lousy, so why was I going to watch it again?  I remember, once, actually leaving one of these parties and walking home, all alone, and nobody, not even Anna, the “best friend” I had come with, noticed.  And there was no phone call later that night, or even the next day, to see where I was, and if I was okay.  So – no, I do not think that it’s being overly dramatic to say that I could have died and no one would have taken much notice.  At least not until much, much later.  Then there would have been the necessary guilt that would allow what’s his face and so and so to relieve themselves of any cognitive dissonance, and wondering if they might have done something different, or any consideration that rather than telling me that I didn’t talk much, they could have tried to talk to me.  Of course, high school is long gone, a decade gone, and I certainly ain’t goin’ to no reuinion.  Nor had I thought about those horrible parties for a long, long time.  Until the other night when I unwittingly arrived at one.

During my second year of University, a friend from France named Marcus said something to me that in a single statement relieved me of almost all of the pain I felt when one of those lousy statements was thrown my way.  (Why say such a thing to a person?  Why say anything at all if that’s what you have to say?  )  Marcus said, “You know what I really like about you, scars?  That you don’t say something unless you really have something to say. You don’t just fill the silence with bullshit.  Yes, I like that”  He sketched a drawing of me and I put it up on my wall at home.  He was a good friend.  That was a good summer.

So, I was definitely less than impressed when the same words were uttered to me this weekend, at a get together (no longer parties anymore, but “chilling at so and so’s place”, unless there is something significant to celebrate).  More than once.  I went to a party on Saturday night – a post-Canada Day celebration, or the tail end of a Canada Day celebration, after being invited by a young man standing outside my apartment building, looking rather angst-filled while smoking in the rain.  Maybe it was the two beers I’d had, or the gin and Mouintan Dew I shared with the others – indeed, a pretty XTREME drink, and one that I don’t plan on having again…ever – but the others at the party seemed like pretty awesome folks.  They let me change the music from Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged on endless loop to some of my funky, previously unheard stuff, and they actually enjoyed it, rather than looking annoyed while waiting until their iPod could be plugged back into the speaker system.  I told the ladies present about how it had been such a long, long time since I’d had a really good group of girlfriends, and they hugged me tightly, stroked my hair, and told me they new exactly how I felt, and that the wait was over – I had arrived home.

Now, I’m not so gullible or naïve that I believed that this apartment downstairs was some kind of magical Eden where all of my problems making good female friends would disappear forever, or that we would spend every last summer day together running around eating apples and talking to snakes, that with them I could share every sorrow and almost-tear and they would cleanse me of my past and show me that all of the suffering had been worth it, after all, as from now on, I would have fellow women beside me, women to support me, women who would be present each time I had to make a difficult phone call or receive bad news over an e-mail.  But I did expect something.  I was invited to go on a boat cruise the next day, to make up for the bottle of gin I supplied.  One of the guys at the party claimed that it was, “Only, like, the second biggest party of the year!”  Perhaps this should have been a red flag.

The next day arrived.  I don’t drink in excess very often at all anymore, so even though I only had about two beer and 3-4 shots of gin (with Mountain Dew for colour and not much more, really) I was feeling pretty crappy, but excited nonetheless, to dance my hangover off aboard some kind of party boat with new friends.  Actually, the last time I went on a boat party was during Frosh week at McGill when I was a wee seventeen year-old.  This time chanting along with jingles about how much we loved McGill University – even though we had not yet attended the school; a little presumptuous I must say – while lining up to take turns shotgunning beer, would not be mandatory.  Unfortunately, one of the gals who looked very much like a Barbie doll in sober Sunday morning light and seemed to have about the same amount going on upstairs as a plastic figurine lacking genetailia – let’s call her Barbie, though she shares the name of a major city in Texas  – spent too much time changing outfits over and over and over, and we missed the boat.  (How often do you get to say that literally and figuratively?  …I’m looking for silver linings here.)  I guess one couldn’t blame her, after all, that is basically all Barbie dolls are good for, right?  Changing their outfits?  (Yes, I’m going to burn in hell.  Sue me.)

The group decided to head to Wreck Beach instead, my very favourite of Vancouver’s beaches, not because clothing is optional, but because of the gorgeous, and more isolated from the traffic of the city-type location.  Water seems to be warmest there for swimming as well, though I could not tell you why.  We picked up some cold beer and wine first, and then headed down the 300+ stairs it takes to get to the beach.  I laid down my towel, scrunched up my scarf as a pillow, took off my top (bikini top underneath – I only do nude in certain company, and I had just met these folks) and took in a deep breath of fresh, salty, Ocean air for the first time of the summer.  I immediately felt relaxed, closed my eyes, and lay down to soak up some rays.

When I next opened them I realized for the first time that I was strictly in the company of straight couples (except for one other man and woman) who were behaving… incredibly straight.  Barbie was sitting on the lap of the muscular dude who had made the comment about the gravity of the missed boat cruise on the Vancouver party scene the night before, and in front of me, another stick-figure with long blonde hair was performing something quite akin to a lap dance for muscular fellow #2.  Thinking back, I did not hear him say a word all night, but no one bothered him about it!  I had not noticed that either of these relationships existed at the previous evening’s party.  Maybe they didn’t.

The one-man not-with-”gf” had gotten naked  at warp speed and with adolescent enthusiasm and was standing at the shore hitting on anything with tits, even if accompanied by another man.  I am surprised a fight did not break out – but then again, his iddy-biddy weiner was barely visible in the glaring sun, so I suppose he didn’t pose much of a threat.  I speak from experience: during my heterosexual dating career, I was caught cheating with another man twice.  Both times the first question out of my “boyfriend’s” mouth was, “Was his dick bigger than mine?”  I kid you not.  I will never understand this penis size obsession.  When I was caught cheating with girls* {see endnote}, there was never any questioning about the size of her breasts.  I don’t know exactly why this guy had removed his shorts, except to give off an “I’m very liberal and cool” hipsteresque vibe.  His beige hemp fedora matched quite well.  As did his loud announcement that it cost $80.00 before taxes.

The single woman in the group was French Canadian, from Montreal, and could hold her own around all of this, but apparently I could not.  When single man returned to our group, he was first to utter the statement.

“You’re pretty quiet, huh?”

I should have said, “Your penis is pretty small, huh?”, but at this point I was still trying to make friends, so I just muttered something about relaxing and enjoying the sun.  What on Earth is there to say in such a situation?

When the sun started to hover on the horizon, threatening to dip beneath it at any moment, all beach-goers, including us, quickly cleared out, climbing back up those endless stairs.  Mademoiselle Montreal – let’s just call her Montreal, actually, since it’s so incredibly awesome to name a child after a city – and I stopped to catch our breaths together a few times, and struck up some conversation about how almost unbelievably beautiful the sunset was, about why we had both decided to leave Montreal and live in Vancouver, about life after one’s early-twenties.  I took quite a liking to Montreal and hopped into the backseat of her car, en route to another cold beer and wine store, and then one of the bf’s apartments.

Once there, with a couple more drinks in me, I got awfully cuddly with Montreal.  I spent the entire time at this new venue caressing her legs, with sporadic soft kisses.  She squeezed me and kissed my head several times, and each time she got up from the table, she made sure to wrap her legs back up in my arms when she came back, so I had no reason to believe that the feeling was not mutual.  This was when the barrage of “you’re pretty quiets” came on, but I was too enamoured with this woman’s amazingly soft, smooth legs to listen to the echoes from decade-old parties.  Another question that often accompanies such remarks is, “Are you okay?”, and the answer was, “I’m excellent!”

Nobody was too impressed that we were all kicked out – with the exception of Barbie – of dude’s place at 1:00 am very unexpectedly.  After all, we had been drinking and now we were suddenly expected to drive home safely.  Montreal decided she hadn’t had too much and we hopped in the car.  The shit on the radio, Nelly Furtado’s “Shit on the Radio” sounded fabulous for the first time and we all sang along to the chorus: “Myself, myself.”, “Myself, myself.”.  Everyone was hungry, yet everyone had no money, so I ended up buying McDonald’s for the three singles – well, more like two, since after about two bites of a Big Mac I had my fill of McDonald’s “beef” for the year.  I believe I even financed one McRib.  The horror, the horror.

Montreal was staying at Barbie’s apartment, and when we got back to my building and walked up the staircase, and I began to continue on to the third floor – Barbie lives almost directly below on the second – but Montreal objected, “Awww, aren’t you going to come hang out?”

“Oh, okay, sure!”

All signs pointed to mutual interest in one another, and I fell asleep very comfortably in her arms on the sectional couch while watching a movie, single man snoring on the loveseat portion with his legs thrown over the armrest.  I awoke before the others, at 11:30 am, but did not want to leave Montreal’s arms.  I snuck upstairs to feed my new kitten, Penelope, and also managed to make it to my weekly Monday-before-noon appointment at the methadone clinic a few blocks away.  I then returned, and the two were still fast asleep, so I snuggled back into Montreal’s arms, and almost immediately fell back to sleep, myself.

After all this, I was rather surprised when around 3:00 pm I was awoken to the sound of Barbie’s voice:

“Can you, like, GET OUT, scars? Your bed is, like, right upstairs, is it not?”

I blinked my eyes a few times.  Montreal had made and poured coffee for everyone but me.  She was sitting on the porch madly text-messaging from her Blackberry, so I went out for a wake-up smoke and hopefully some conversation other than “GET OUT“.  It was not to be.  The only thing that was mutual now was the silence.  Then Barbie came and stood at the door to give us a lecture – she had found ashes on a table in the apartment, evidence of indoor smoking.  The ashes were Montreal’s, I remembered her smoking and tapping her ashes down on the table right after we got into the apartment the night before, and I assumed smoking was allowed inside, but Montreal shook her head “no” with a concerned but clueless look on her face.  Now Barbie was shooting me dagger-eyes.  It was time to make an exit.  But before I did…

“Back to reality, eh?” said Mme. Montreal.

Back to reality?  Are you kidding me?  Which reality would that be, the one where you’re not begging me to stay over for the night and positioning pillows and my body for maximum comfort beside yours?

“Right. Well, I guess I’ll see you guys, you can always come a knockin’, apartment 301.”  For only having been awake for five minutes, I think I pulled off a pretty damn good tone of indifference and look of annoyed but cool confusion.

“Yes, we’ll see you, probably tomorrow!” Montreal replied extremely rushedly, not looking up from her Blackberry.

I walked out not expecting to see any of these people again, and four days later, I’m right so far!

So much for “tomorrow”!

Later that evening I could hear a new party beginning at Barbie’s and I got more depressed than I have been for a long, long time for about 24 hours, as another party began (thudump-thudump-thudump) the following late-afternoon.  I was on the verge of tears but the tears didn’t come.  I couldn’t even smoke.  A small pile of garbage – wrappers off granola and ice cream bars – began to form at the bottom of my feet.  I didn’t even bother to go to the pharmacy to drink my methadone until 4:00 pm.

But this was high school depression!  This was no one ever asks me to dance at school dances depression. This was “you don’t say much, do you?” depression. F**k that!

So, I picked myself up off the couch with a new pet peeve – straight girls that lead lesbians on when they’re drunk – and signed up with a group on meetup.com for lesbians only that get together around the city to share friendship, food, fun, and, as their website states, “not taking ourselves too seriously!”

Phew, if that statement holds true, lesbian Barbie will not be a member.  She’s very high maintenance, too.  All Barbie dolls take themselves very seriously.

I’m completely over it now, though I will now always wonder, half-consciously, what’s going on in Montreal when I hear the thudumpidumping from below.  I can hear it now…

* This was another sign on my road towards full-on lesbianism.  When I was in a serious relationship with a man, I found it absolutely bizzare that they got upset with me for sleeping with a woman, the two or three times that this happened.  I felt it was my right.  When his feelings were hurt, there was never a question in my mind as to whether or not I would repeat the cheating with a woman in the future, as denying myself this part of my sexuality was unfathomable.  I would just have to make sure I kept it secret next time.  When in a relationship during which marriage or monogamy for life was considered, I never worried about what I might be missing out on in not having sex with any other men, but I would just have to have cheated with women at some point.  I now realize how mean and hurtful such actions were, and, when in the realm of the hypothetical, would have been.