DAY 17. THEY LIKED ME. THEY NEVER LIKED ME.

Write two essays.

Start one with They liked me.

Start the other with They never liked me.

 

The teammates I played alongside throughout my career liked me. Starting in high school, girls on my basketball teams appreciated my talent. I could dribble, shoot, and rebound as well as any of them. But they also made me, a shy, quiet kid, feel comfortable on a team that had its share of dominant personalities and popular girls. The same is true of my college teammates. Again, among them I felt I belonged and I held my own. It was a slow process that began in high school, but I was coming out of my shell as their welcoming encouraged me that it was okay to do that.

 

Playing softball, basketball, and soccer in recreation leagues after college exposed me to even more people that liked me. Again, my abilities opened the way for socializing and developing friendships. And though the relationships may have ebbed as we went our separate ways through marriage or jobs, thirty years later several of them have flowed again as we reconnect. And our reconnections are as though we had just seen each other yesterday.       

 

 

 

The iconic teachers at the school where I first started my career never liked me. The reason for it was never clear to me, though I ventured some guesses.

           

First, I was young and just starting my teaching. They were veterans of ten, fifteen, twenty years. They were also strong personalities who enjoyed the adulation of students and other staff. Maybe I was a threat to them.

           

Second, they loved to kid people. I became the butt of their jokes because of my clothes and appearance. On one Back to School Night, one of them commented on what I was wearing. “Gee,” he said, “I thought I was the only one who didn’t care about dressing to impress parents.” This hurt. I didn’t have much money and I wasn’t exactly a fashionista. I simply wore plain but clean clothes. Most teachers spruced up for parents’ nights. Both my lack of fashion sense and my inexperience (it was my first year) led me to simply wear what I wore teaching every day. The comment, coming from someone whom everyone thought was such a nice guy, cut. But perhaps I should have seen it in another way. Maybe he was kidding around with me and I should have seen as his finally accepting me as one of the gang. Maybe he finally felt comfortable or accepting enough of me that he thought I would take it as a friendly joke, an initiation of sorts.

           

Third, they never invited me to sit with them at lunch or come out to their happy hours. Admittedly, they were an older crowd. Maybe they just thought I didn’t want to socialize with them. Still, an invitation and the chance to decide for myself would have made me feel they liked me.

 

All of this treatment stuck with me. And as I became a veteran teacher and one of the icons, I forced myself to reach out to the new teachers. I offered them help and advice about teaching when they asked. But I also tried to make them feel welcome in the building and among the staff with a hello, an offering to sit at lunch with me, or an invitation to go out with the group for a Friday cocktail. I don’t know if it really made a difference in any of their lives, but I felt better doing it.