Hemlata Patel

I came accross one of my old writings while browsing through an abandoned flash disk. The poignancy of it startled me, as I remembered what had made me write it at the time.

I guess it’s always an odd feeling to encounter a past self, like meeting an old  friend after years, who feels familiar, yet not wholly so. It’s a mix of nostalgia and happiness, and a mild sense of guilt and awkwardness.

Things have changed so much since.

But then again, the more I think about it, the more it feels that the loser kid lives on, somewhere, waiting. In fact, it would seem that he had already started to become more prominent lately..  It did strike me as very similar to a previous blog post, but  while at the same time, being extremely different from others. Confusing, huh?

Maybe we are all made up self-contradicting facets, sometimes neatly compartmentalised, sometimes not quite so. I have tried to rationalise and reconcile the oppositions..but sense makes no sense sometimes. So I lazily give in, give up, and content myself with compartmentalising.

Here it is, in part. 

 ***

It would seem that no matter how hard the loser kid tries to belong, he would always be a loser kid, the one with few friends, no plans for the week-end, no random sms’s from people who think of him, no one to miss, no one who thinks him important in any way. Instead, all his efforts at having a quasi social life serve quite simply to potentially expose him to ridicule by those who are snugly well-settled in their lives of constant social interaction, fun times, some not-so-fun but still eventful times… their exciting, or in any possible way, engaging lives.

And the loser kid, well, if some day his life went on a holiday (without him, as seems to be the norm), he would probably not even notice, and proceed unaffected in his nerdy boring existence.

So what does our loser kid do? Truth is, he has had a number of disappointments (but then, who hasn’t?) and is by nature a very sensitive creature, perhaps overly so. He reads too much into things and presumes that everybody else sees him as a loser kid, makes fun of him behind his back, and everything he says and does, only confirms what they were already sure of anyway.

So, he stops trying to have a social life, trying to be cool and hip and in. He convinces himself that he does not need that kind of superficial ephemeral existence, where one is judged on the basis of such hollow things and nothings. And instead, he goes deeper into himself, his little shell where nobody could hurt him, where the opinions of others do not even matter, where he does not have to panic all the time lest he should be making a fool of himself.

He becomes a nerd, immerses himself into his studies, befriends the great thinkers, all dead and therefore harmless. He lives for nothing but to become the best in all he does. He will never admit that he actually cares about not having a friend, a potential girlfriend, a few secret admirers (who are interested in him romantically, not academically), although he feels it very much.

In his little world, he is happy, driven by an insatiable thirst for knowledge and academic excellence. He needs nothing. He avoids everybody. The people he used to hang out with (well, sort of), he steers clear of. Literally. He has lost the habit of having a social life, and now finds it increasingly difficult to go out to somebody and befriend him.

He doesn’t care. He wants to be happy now, hence is.

Tags: simply me

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