The day I became a hikikomori

XXII

I want a cat.

These days I've been thinking about my high school years, even though that's nothing new; I remember those days from time to time. But now it's different: I don't think of them as the time on my life where I was hanging out with my friends constantly and tried to get closer to my crush and played guitar and such, where everything was just easier. Now I think of those days as the time I got bullied maybe the most in my life—which is nothing compared to the level of bullying a lot of people suffered and is suffering rn, but for me it was pretty bad tbh.

And I did nothing about it.

It's funny how I have idealized those days. I mean, sometimes I remembered this but I only saw it as a bitter part of that time, something that's actually not that important—which I kind of agree, but I also feel I was constantly just brushing this off.

One day, at English class, my friend invited me to sit somewhere different we used to. I agreed bc that place was really close to my crush.

Two guys were sitting behind us—let's call them bullies. When I met them, I didn't know they were bullies, and everyone was really nice to me at that time, so I told them my last name, which isn't very common in my hometown, and they just started mocking me. They were calling me names and singing songs with lyrics that sounded extremely similar to my last name.

Just like bullies did in preschool and in first grade.

I got mad and instantly hated them. But nothing else. I never said anything about it, even when my crush heard everything. I did nothing (and I think that was my mistake; I think my silence enabled them to see me as someone that could be bullied. I don't think that justifies it, but maybe they continued to bully me from time to time because I never said "no." They may have interpreted silence as consent, as some people tend to do.)

After that, nothing much happened, but in the last few semesters their bullying increased, and all of it happened during class.

I just wanted them to shut their fucking mouths.

But I never said or did anything about it.

Sometimes I thought about going with them and telling them to stop. Maybe that was all that I needed, or maybe I had to threaten them or maybe actually fight them 1 v 1. They weren't the physical type bullies, they were a couple of thin and wealthy assholes who were always trying to grab people's attention, mostly by mocking whoever they could. I don't think they would even dare to fight anyone.

But I skipped class from time to time instead—until I couldn't do it anymore without failing my classes.

I've imagined so many times how I should have responded in that first interaction. I've imagined I just tell them the fact that their parents don't care about them doesn't mean that they could mock other people to feel good about themselves. I've imagined mocking them too. I've imagined kicking their asses. I've imagined just being chill and don't really caring for their preschool jokes.

Maybe it's just pride, you know. Maybe I still care about it bc of pride. In a way, they bested me, so I've been wanting to best them for a long time, which is kinda ironic, if you think about it—the fact that I can't still let go of something that happened 15 years ago means they're still besting me to this day; their preschool jokes are still getting to me.

Anyway, that's not the only thing I've been thinking about lately:

I've always thought that there's in any friendship between two people there's always the good friend and the bad one. I've been the latter in most of my friendships, ngl. But I used to think I was the good one with +++++++.

I befriended him just when I started high school. We liked music and other stuff.

We played in a couple bands from time to time.

But now I understand he was never my friend. And I don't know why I took so long to realize.

One time we were in ethics class—or something like that, I don't remember tbh. I was sitting next to a friend I knew since elementary school. ++++++ has sitting behind me with another guy who I thought at the time he was my friend too—let's call him -------.

The teacher handed us a bunch of pieces of paper and told us to write on each one something nice to someone else and then give each one to the people you wrote them to.

The only rule was that you couldn't choose your friends. It had to be someone you didn't know that well.

So I wrote those notes and handed them to some people I don't remember, and everyone did the same.

The thing is no one gave me anything—which is pretty sad but I kinda get; I don't really get out of my comfort zone and meet new people.

Even worse: my crush was in that class and didn't give me anything. I didn't give her anything either bc of pride.

Fortunately (?) I had an extra piece of paper and asked the friend next to me to write something. He did.

Then each person had to read out loud one of the pieces of paper they had received. Obviously, I read the only paper I had. I don't remember what it said, but it was nice. While I was reading, I heard that +++++++ and ------- were laughing at me for only getting one piece of paper.

That was the worst of all. I felt so betrayed that time. Now, I know they were not supposed to give me their pieces of paper bc we were friends. But that didn't stop them to give one to each other.

Another time I was hanging out with +++++++ and a bunch of friends. I needed to go to a teacher's office to give him an essay or something, so I asked them if they could go with me. We got to the offices, and they told me they would wait for me in the entrance. I remember that teacher's office was across a hallway. I walked through it, handed the essay and went back. It took me one minute or two, and when I came back I heard +++++++ talking shit about me.

Also, one time I told him who was my crush he convinced me that declaring my feeling through messenger (which, at the time, it was a different program, but it worked very similar) was a good idea, so I did that.

Needless to say, that's been one of the stupidest mistakes I've even done.

But not the only one: I thought my only mistake was that it didn't declared face to face. I told him what I was going to do and, just when I was about to go look for her, he just told me: "I hope he says 'yes'" loudly enough for everyone to hear.

And I stopped seeing him.

When I was in college, he contacted me bc he wanted me to lend him a guitar. I did. Years later, he still had that guitar, but he wanted to buy it from me. At the time I didn't care that much for it, so I gave him a special price—a friend's discount, so to speak. He wanted it even cheapier. I got a little mad bc I was giving him a great price, and he just wanted to rip me off. At the end, he accepted my price and visited me.

He gave me a bunch of bills, and I started to count them.

"Don't do it here," he told me just before I found out he only gave me the amount he had offered me in the beginning.

He then sighed, took the rest from his pocket and gave it to me.

I haven't seen him ever since.

In the end, I don't know how I really feel about all of this. Part of me just wants to let go, to just stop caring for thing that happened half a life ago. The other part wants to learn something from it, maybe something about me (why I never said or did anything about anything? Why am I so proud I'm still thinking about all of this? What can I do to let go?)

I should just forgive and forget, but it obviously seems I'm not doing a good job.

When I started writing, I thought I only needed to practice a little to become this literary genius. And I thought all these years proving me wrong—so, so wrong—helped me to realize how average I really am, helped me be a little more self-aware and humble.

But I guess I was wrong once again.

God, I really need therapy.