This is an oversimplification, of course. But plenty of truth can be found in oversimplifications. Vienna, the rather nice girl, is surrounded by friends. Erica, the extremely popular girl, is surrounded by worshippers. Philip has a name for the guys who worship but do not date Erica. He calls them her guy-bitches. In contrast, he calls the guys who are friends but not boyfriends with other girls like Vienna metro-friends.
To be clear, the average guy at Hermes High School—in fact the average freshman guy at Hermes High School—is neither a guy-bitch, nor a metro-friend. Most guys merely fall into or not far from one of the traditional categories of scholar, jock, nerd, delinquent, or loser that have existed at least since I was in high school, though under varying names. Philip is a scholar (that is, having the good qualities of both the jocks and the nerds) and I am trying with only limited success to introduce Philip to the idea of also being a metro-friend. Among the freshmen at Hermes High School, only a small handful of guys succeed at being metro-friends.
The guy-bitches deserve a closer look. For some, it is merely the hopeless ambition to win Erica’s love. Self-deception plays a role in these cases. For others, it is an acceptance of the fact that Erica’s love—though still desirable—is beyond one’s reach, so the next best thing is to be in Erica’s entourage, especially since Erica is also surrounded by a bunch of girls who also worship her with an enthusiasm that rivals that of the guy-bitches. And then there are the chief-guy-bitches. The chief-guy-bitches are a handful of jocks—each of whom is popular in his own right—who nonetheless chooses to play into Erica’s guy-bitch game in support of high school’s popularity hierarchy. The chief-guy-bitches also enjoy the benefit of not being fully under Erica’s control. One of the chief-guy-bitches is Walter, who Philip privately refers to as The Chump. Walter defied Erica by calling her parents when Erica got herself drunk at a Halloween party. More recently, Walter waved Erica over to join a group of freshmen celebrating Philip’s athletic prowess in the previous day’s lacrosse game even though he knew Erica was not speaking to Philip.
Not all girls have metro-friends, but Vienna is certainly one of them. Vienna brought her best friend Kayla and two metro-friends Rob and Noah along with her to Philip’s party in late February. It was what saved Philip’s party from being a complete disaster. In early March, Kayla and Noah announced to the world via their Facebook “relationship status” that they were boyfriend and girlfriend. One has to respect Noah for spending a long time getting to know Kayla and genuinely befriending her ahead of asking her out. Most freshmen at Hermes High School rush into boyfriend-girlfriend relationships that end up lasting only ten days.
With all the time she spends hanging out and chatting it up with Noah and her metro-friends, one would think Vienna would have no trouble talking to Philip. But this has not been the case. Since his party, Philip has been making a sincere effort to get to know Vienna better, but he has been disappointed by how little she communicates.
“Do you ask her open-ended questions?” I asked Philip when he told me his attempts to engage Vienna in conversation kept falling flat.
“Of course I ask her open-ended questions, dad!”
“Alright. Maybe she is having trouble talking to you because she is shy or nervous.”
“It doesn’t matter, dad! She could be non-communicative because she is shy, nervous, lost interest in me, or was never interested in me in the first place. No matter what the reason, there is no way I can have an actual relationship with her if we cannot actually talk!”
Philip’s astute observation impressed me. And he succeeded in his goal to get me to stop asking him about Vienna. Still, as a parent I like Vienna a whole lot more than I like Erica. Both Erica and Vienna are fourteen-year-old girls who are still growing up. Each is a tangled and imbalanced mixture of maturity and immaturity, wisdom and foolishness, bravery and insecurity. Each wants to be admired by guys, especially the more mature-looking jocks and scholars. And each finds the prospect of a real relationship with a guy both desirable and terrifying.
It is unclear whether either Erica or Vienna is truly ready for a real relationship with a guy. I also wonder whether Philip is truly ready for a real relationship with a girl. But I do think there is a core difference in attitude between Erica and Vienna. Erica wants to get. And Vienna wants to share. And while that core difference in attitude holds, I hope Philip will never fall for Erica or someone like her again. But girls like Vienna deserve a genuine shot at the dear scholar who is my son Philip.
No comments:
Post a Comment