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The AfterEllen.com Huddle: Our Teenage Selves

All the baby dyke talk on our recent episode of The Lphabet got us reminiscing about what we were like back in high school.

Grace Chu: I come from a left wing town in a conservative state next to three colleges; pretty much everyone was the kid of a professor. The “cool kids” in my high school were the artsy/drama/literary dorks. The science/math/economics/journalist nerds were one echelon below them; I was part of this crowd. The jocks and cheerleaders were made fun of and were regarded as idiots and people who would never escape our town and move to big cities. Everyone else was at the bottom of the heap. No one went to homecoming or spirit day. In fact, an enterprising pair of punk-identfied kids made “[High school name here] sucks” T-shirts during homecoming week and made a killing. But because we had to vote, a theater gal with retro glasses and dyed hair was homecoming queen and a skinny, very pretty boy who was also in theater who everyone had a crush on was homecoming king. We openly ridiculed our more conservative brethren, which included some of our teachers. The teenage years can be pretty awful, but by some miracle I landed in this environment.

I did not know I liked girls, but I knew that boys had cooties.

Elaine Atwell: I remember being 14 years old and asking one of my few friends, in a great deal of distress, why I was not more popular. She said, “Elaine, you are always reading a book so people assume you don’t want them to talk to you. If you put down the book, you will make more friends.” Ultimately, this was a sacrifice I was unwilling to make. I spent so much of high school trying to bridge the divide between the things I actually liked (reading, hiking, writing) with the things I thought I was supposed to like (watching boys play video games in their shitty apartments between gravity bong hits). My one saving grace was theatre, where I learned to open up a little, but I didn’t really learn how to be happy until college. In high school I learned to get the most out of being thoroughly unhappy, a skill that has served me in good stead ever since. And I thought I was straight as an arrow even though I wanted to make out with my best friend.

Ali Davis: Too busy writing in my journal and trying to find a decent plume for my marching band uniform. Also, I’m finding an excuse to stay after school and talk to that one French teacher for reasons with which I am not yet ready to deal.

Dara Nai: I might in the minority on a site full of self-described nerds, but I was one of the “cool kids” in high school. I had a car, a ton of smart, hilarious friends, a girlfriend on the down-low, and a job at the mall with a really hot boss who never acknowledged my crush on her, but kept giving me raises and, years later, named her daughter Dara. Every weekend was a huge party in the woods, or at someone’s house or behind the elementary school. We cut school to go down the shore (as we say in NJ) or into NYC to kick around Greenwich Village. I had so much fun as a teen, my mom used to yell at me, “This is not a hotel!” because I was never home. I thought I would be sad to see it end but my 20s turned out to be even more ridiculous.

Chloe: Teenage me was ghastly. Always the smallest girl in class, I grew up looking at least two years younger than everyone else while quietly cultivating the interests of an elderly British gentile, which gleaned parent-teacher feedback like, “Chloe is seven going on 30!” and “It’s not unheard of for a 13 year old to still be losing baby teeth, but attacking her classmates in Shakespearian dialect is abnormal.”

When high school rolled around I decided to pour myself into the mode du jour (denim mini skirts, polos, extracurriculars, straightened side swept bangs) and bludgeon the weird into submission.

I was very quiet, sat in the back row, and only spoke when spoken to. I loathed P.E. and routinely lied, forged, manipulated, cried, and hid to get out of athletics. Show me a volleyball and I’ll show you a sociopath.

Obsessively aware of my own physical flaws, I would mentally recite the list of deformations at least once a day, methodically working from top to bottom with chilly precision. Scrawny little girls become naturally thin women, and I was very proud of this one small thing I was the very best at. When not sobbing in the Abercrombie & Fitch dressing room because the size 00 boot cut jeans (GAGGG) were cutting into my imaginary fat flaps. What a twit.

Onto the sad feels: I always knew that the way I felt about boys wasn’t like how my friends felt about boys and that I loved certain girlfriends far more than they loved me. I always knew than in the depths of my grubby little soul festered something grotesque that must never be acknowledged or discussed. At the time, I assumed this was a normal part of puberty. Maybe it was. Hard to tell. Once a shrink told me that if she had to diagnose all teenage girls, they’d overwhelmingly qualify as bipolar. So I don’t really put much stock in the importance of pubescent happiness.

Miserable bastards all around. Except for the tan.

p s. To boost myself into creative overdrive/case of chronic “fuck-its”, I’ve decided to pull an all nighter and drink lots of coffee and write. But I also love writing excessively long responses! But mostly coffee. Perfectly normal!

Bridget McManus: I was the same but my boobs were much smaller.

Lucy Hallowell: I feel like my teenage years contained at least three different versions of me. In middle school, I was surly and miserable because there was no room to be smart without either getting made fun of or being asked to teach the other kids in class. The charming kids in my rural, east bumblefuck school regularly made fun of me for my appearance and often asked me if I was a boy or a girl.

Boarding school was a great as middle school was awful. I was a jock and a nerd and that was just fine because everyone fit into several different categories and no one blinked an eye. I was still surly and sarcastic and spent a lot of energy trying to knock down my debilitating crush on my straight best friend. It was like some deranged game of wack-a-mole but with feelings.

When I got to college I was still sarcastic but was finally ready to give up pretending to be straight. By the end of my teens I met my future wife and couldn’t believe my dumb luck that this gorgeous person would give me the time of day let alone kiss me.

Emily McGaughy: As a teenager, I was perceived as the “All American Girl”-cheerleader, student council, National Honor Society, etc. I was very religious and a leader in my youth group and now I’m sure everyone at my hometown church still wonders how someone could backslide so far. I don’t think I was super-popular, but I was well liked because I had friends in every circle-jocks, nerds, slackers, etc. I was a good student, always sitting at the front of class with my hand up. Overall, I have good memories of being a teenager, but being so highly indoctrinated with religion and the conservative culture of the South caused even more confusion for an already sexually confused kid. I knew I liked girls, but I always assumed I’d grow out of it; we see how well that worked out.

Lindsay Hicks: As a teenager I was very tan, very blonde, and very “spirited.” I was a cheerleader and I dated quarterbacks. Eventually I started doing theater and became a little more brooding, but somehow tanner and blonder. Underneath that dark brown exterior was a little girl who was constantly moving all around the country and felt like an alien in pretty much every situation. I had such severe social anxiety, that I often wouldn’t speak at all. I dated guys because that what nice gals do! I honestly didn’t understand that a woman could be gay until I got into college, and then it was ON.

Anna Pulley: I wasn’t popular, but I wasn’t a pariah either. Mostly I was depressed and spent a lot of time copying down lyrics to Jewel songs in journals and watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. When not at school, I worked in the shoe department at Mervyn’s in the mall and ardently fantasized about the day it would be acceptable for me to wear Mushrooms (the most comfortable shoes grandma could dream of).

And despite writing 16-page letters to my female friends on a weekly basis, I had NO IDEA I was queer.

Erica Feliciano: As a teenager I was super overweight. I had long hair. I wore loose fitted clothing because I hated my body. I was a tomboy that felt uncomfortable in female clothing, played sports, hung out with the guys, and had crushes on my girl friends. I knew I liked girls since kindergarten. That’s the first crush on a girl that I can remember. I was always too afraid to try anything or make a move on another girl because I didn’t want people to think I was a freak. Junior year I lost A LOT of weight. I was more confident but still afraid to try anything on a girl. I dated guys because that’s what a girl was supposed to do. Whenever I was with a boyfriend I’d fantasize that I was with a female instead. When I think about it now, I should have just made a move on some of my crushes. A few of them later told me that they had done stuff with other girls and/or they are now lesbians as well.

Kim Hoffman: So I was a high school cheerleader then, and now I’m balancing 90s goth witch. I was platinum blonde and now I’m dark haired, pale and have nine tattoos and counting. I went to a catholic school and in the beginning was a gangly shrinking violet who barely passed as a 14 year old. I took photography and art, and watched this senior girl sneak booze during class in the dark room but would only ever stare in beautiful awe and not partake. A friend convinced me to try out for cheerleading with her and I obliged even though I really wanted to vomit. I began to retrain my thinking and decided that the really wild thing to do would be to shed myself of my painful self image I had thanks to years bullied when I was constantly told I was sooo weird. I wanted to confuse everyone by becoming a person full of spirit and enthusiasm and mastering it because I could do whatever the fuck I wanted. (Also, Friday nights were literally scenes from Friday Night Lights because Florida is a lot like that way Texas is about their high school football.) When it came to parties, I wasn’t there. I was at video rental stores, the movie theater, in my room clipping out things from magazines and writing stories, scripts, poems.

I was my senior year English teacher’s favorite. She was a true witch, always in black, scaring students, challenging me, and I adored her endlessly. I would love to thank her for showing me my mirror. I hated cliques, they were boring and the girls “in charge” deserved karmic failure for their crusty dictating ways. The meanest thing I ever did was join a group of girls who wore a black uniform shirt on this mean clique leader’s birthday, she cried and asked to go home because she felt “afraid.” She probably just ate a cupcake and watched Gilmore Girls the rest of the day. I feel no remorse. If you were popular, it was because you either partied a lot and had a dramatic relationship, wore hoop earrings and smacked your gum in class, or you were in student gov and went to church youth group and swore you were going to wait for marriage but decided to go all the way with your boyfriend instead. I wasn’t popular. I never had a date to homecoming nor went to prom. Inside my locker you could find the Cruel Intentions soundtrack, the big pink phone from Dreamphone, and maybe a cutout of Leonardo DiCaprio.

A week after I graduated, I cut off most of my hair and found my inner rebellion–hanging out downtown with like minded kids, artists, queers, musicians. I had my first experience with a girl that summer who looked like a baby Stevie Nicks with shorter hair, and I cheated on my first ever boyfriend with her (he was off selling pot anyway) (I was only with him for his gorgeous long wavy hair.) He was super androgynous and he listened to good rock n roll, but I just wished he was a girl. So I hung out with the girls and smoked cigs for like a grand total of two months, I listened to a ton of new wave and got a job at a coffee shop. I did shitty on my SATs because I’m not wired that way, and I was the person most excited to smell a yearbook on the last day of school. Story of my teens.

Valerie Anne: I most definitely did not have it together in when I was a teenager. Our high school didn’t really have “popular” kids necessarily; and if we did, it definitely wasn’t the cheerleaders. Cheerleaders were perceived as not very smart (whether or not it was true) and intelligence was pretty well-respected in my college prep Catholic high school. My AP Calculus class had a mix of kids from bonafide antisocial nerds to the actual quarterback of our football team. I fell somewhere in between; I was pretty smart, but I didn’t think I was, and I was plagued with a nice array of crippling insecurities, so I wasn’t outgoing enough to be noticed by the more charismatic circles. But I was nice and stayed out of their way and way out of their love triangles, so they left me well enough alone.

I had a great group of friends-actually, a few groups, because I was in the majority of our after school clubs including (but definitely not limited to) Drama, creative writing, yearbook, and Outreach, plus two dance classes, and my community theatre group. I wasn’t allowed to be social on school nights but I hated being home. I hardly slept to keep up with my activities, school work, and extreme procrastination, plus my diet pretty exclusively consisted of Diet Coke and pretzels, so I was tired and malnourished and just generally a big ball of hormones, prone to cry on a dime, especially if a teacher so much as frowned at me. I was really excellent at putting on a good front to people I wasn’t close to, especially teachers, but some of my closest friends have told me how happy they are to see me now without that dark cloud I lived in.

Though there were signs starting when I was about six, I didn’t know I liked girls until I was 14. But I was raised Catholic, so I rejected that knowledge like a diseased organ. I had a lot of other things going on that contributed to my dark cloud, but suppressing this huge part of me, trying to maneuver around it, ignore it, beat it down, trying to like boys but failing, and feeling broken and wrong because of it, that was definitely a catalyst for a lot of my perpetual unhappiness. I didn’t end up coming out until after I graduated, but college was a chance to start over, and my Big Secret didn’t torment me quite as much. Probably because so much of the dark cloud dissipated the minute I was dropped off in New York City without a soul from my old life anywhere in sight. Also it was like gay heaven. Rainbow flags everywhere. You could just do you, no one cared all that much. Plus, in college, I could make out with girls without anyone questioning my sexuality, because everyone was doing it. That helped.

Chelsea Steiner: I grew up in New Orleans, where the high school culture was drinking, football, and conservatism. Being the weirdo liberal Jewish feminist with divorced parents definitely set me apart: I was basically Daria. No seriously, they called me Daria-to my face. I was secretly so flattered: Daria was my hero!

To deal with the overwhelming teen angst, I buried myself in pop culture: movies, comics, television…all the indoor sports! And thank goodness I did, otherwise I wouldn’t be the formidable pop culture nerd I am today. Here’s a picture of me channeling Ally Sheedy in my senior year pic.

I knew I was attracted to girls, but I was still attracted to guys, so I mostly just ignored it until college, where I found out that bisexuality is a real actual thing! Most of my classmates thought I was gay anyway, as I started the school’s feminist club and showed no interest in participating in Sweet 16. I spent most weekends with my gay boy BFF driving around, drinking boba tea, and seeing every movie at the local art house theater. (Shout out to Canal Place!) We even snuck out to attend the citywide gay prom for queer youth, terrified that someone we knew would see us there. All though if they were at the gay prom, wouldn’t they be gay too?

College was a totally different ball game: I discovered spoken word poetry, marijuana, and sex. Basically, I majored in Being Maureen from Rent with a minor in Casual Pantslessness. Damn, I miss college.

Dana Piccoli: I went to all girls catholic school, and it was as awesome as you would expect it to be. Seriously, I loved high school. I wish I had the confidence now, that I did back then. I came out between my junior and senior years, after figuring out that the constant fluttering in my stomach when I was around cute girls, wasn’t something that my friends were experiencing. My school was very liberal, and I was embraced by my classmates and teachers alike. I was lucky. My poor parents had to deal with the fact that their hard earned money was being spent so I could have a killer social life. Some of my fondest memories are from those years. My first real girlfriend was a member of the Pom Squad, and she was super special. S, if you are out there somewhere, I’m sorry about how obnoxious I was when I got to college.

Trish Bendix: My high school existence was all about making it through to get the hell out of Michigan. I never felt like myself in school. I had a few friends that I felt actually understood me and vice versa, but was surrounded by a lot of people and things I thought I had to like or participate in. I was both into sports and the arts and tried my best to balance them, though sometimes I’d end up having anxiety dreams where I was late for soccer practice because I was dressed up for the choral cabaret. I was really into the internet, which it didn’t seem like my peers cared about as much as boys. I didn’t know I was a lesbian yet-thought I was probably likely to be bisexual though I didn’t know any butch girls, and that as was likely why I didn’t come out until I moved to Chicago for college. I fluctuated between identities-trying out the “fitting in” aesthetic with name brands and bleach blonde hair, to my “alternative” look with esoteric band Ts.

I think my biggest regret about high school is that I cared too much about what other people might think, and missed out on opportunities to befriend some others who might have added more to my time there, other creatives who I could spot in my AP Writing & Lit classes but never talked to, staying quietly uncomfortable in my seat as what I like to refer to the least popular person in the “popular” group in my class. There were good moments, for sure, but most of the time I felt like I was going through the motions.

Eboni Rafus: Sure I had it together as a teenager. I was smart, confident and fearless. I knew exactly what I wanted to do as a career, exactly whom I would marry, how many kids I was going to have, and how my life would turn out. But that was before real life happened: rent, student loans, heartbreak, illness, before someone I love died, before I really understood how the world worked. I had never experienced failure. I hadn’t experienced overt racism. I hadn’t even met an out queer person. There were no out kids in my school, at least, not that I was aware of. But then, I was a bit naïve.

I used to think that because I went to a small high school in a rural area that I’d escaped the social drama that plagued all the teenagers in the ’80s movies I loved. Later I realized that I was just oblivious. There were indeed popular kids, I just didn’t think so because I was one of them and didn’t realize it. My popularity was not at all about being beautiful, dating someone beautiful, or even having a car. It had everything to do with the fact that I was an enthusiastic joiner. I was president of the Speech and Debate club, an alto in the show choir, an actor in every play and musical the school put on. I was in yearbook, National Honor Society, and even ran for Track and Field for a season. I was also captain of the varsity cheerleading squad. I had no idea that I was into girls. I never had a crush on any of my female friends and I had a lot of them.

Everything changed, of course, when I decided to skip a year of high school and graduate early. I moved to NYC to attend NYU at 17 years old and my whole world burst open. I’ve never been able to put it back together in the solid way it was when I was a teenager, but I’ve learned to prefer it messy and open.

What were you like in high school?

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