I do not appreciate my hero complex. While it has helped a lot of people, it has also cost me my life (in a number of ways). Many of us know of the phrases "Nice guys finish last" and "Don't be a hero". I didn't understand these phrases when I first heard them, thinking about all the times that nice guys finished first, and all the times heroes were celebrated for their amazing deeds. If those guys did well as heroes, how could they be losers as the phrases indicate?
Later in life I heard the quote "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." That one resonated with me more, but I still did not fully understand it.
When I was in 5th grade, I had a tall blonde man as a teacher. He seemed to think I was a cool student, but also seemed to hate me at the same time. He would have outbursts at me after being charming toward me regularly. Examples of me upsetting him basically revolved around me exploding a water balloon the moment he left the room and another time I broke a plastic ruler and shards went flying everywhere.
The plastic ruler bit was an accident, same with the balloon. My fingernail punctured the balloon with zero effort, and I was just trying to see how far the ruler could bend. Both times the teacher got red in the face and probably punished me. My memory kind of blanks out upon registering his red face.
One day during recess at my school, a small boy was being followed by a mob on a field off in the distance, viewable from my classroom. Having the hero complex I mentioned before, I walked out of my classroom (don't recall why I was in there during recess) and ran up the hill to save him from the mob.
The students ganging up on the boy had thrown a tennis ball at his head. As I recall, the tennis ball connected to his face, and he was on the ground by the time I got there. I helped him up off the ground, looked at the angry mob with frustration, and shot my eyes toward the school where I walked him down the hill, and off to safety.
I don't know why that happened. I don't know why anyone was angry at him, and there is no real "See, I was punished for being nice" narrative to validate my earlier statements this time. That was just one example of a moment when there was no reward or punishment for being a nice person. But that experience did teach me to dislike mobs even more than I had before. The popular kids became a little more "the enemy" to me. A seed of anger that would grow over time, making my imagination become monstrous in my later high school years. You know the series "Batman"? There is a reason that specific comic book hero is so popular despite Batman having no physical superpowers. Many of us relate with Batman, we most all want to be that strong, independent hero, or at least, be the friend of that hero. But what a lot of us don't realize, is the majority of us? We're the mob.
I've been on both sides of the war. The little boy, destined to be a hero from his traumatic childhood experiences, and just another face in the mob, carrying out the will of the hive mentality. I've been the fist, and the bruised face. I've been the bullet and the hole.
We, humans, are often the enemies of ourselves. Most of us don't know it however, because many of us have the amazing inability to effectively execute self-reflection exercises. Or to paraphrase: We often don't see what everyone else sees when we look in the mirror. There were a couple girls I dated in 5th grade. One, was a blonde, white girl. She was obsessed with me in the most toxic way imaginable for a 5th grader. My name was written all over her pencil keeper, her binder, everything. She stared at me during class obsessively and talked about me to everyone. I know, because they'd tell me. Not just about the talking, about the numerous obsessive things she was doing as well. This girl would constantly physically hit and punch me, despite me telling her to stop. At some point, I told her if she hit me again, I would dump her. She hit me shortly after, and I yelled "We're done!" Unfortunately for me, it was a very awkward place to dump someone. So? I stepped out of the line we were standing in to walk off into the bathroom. Why? I had nowhere else to go due to the fact that our classroom door was not yet open at the front of the line.
The other girl I dated, broke up with me. She was also white, but brown haired. She wrote me quite possibly the most idiotic break up note I've ever read or even heard of. In the note, she wrote something along these lines:
"Dear Greg,
I wanted to let you know that I really like you, and I'm glad we got to spend time together. I think that you are a really nice guy. I feel really bad. I was dared to ask you out as a joke, but because I started to actually like you, I have to break up with you. I'm sorry." Obviously, the grammar wasn't the same, and the message is not a verbatim recreation in any form, but the message itself, is what she sent, and I received. It was essentially: "I like you like a boyfriend, but I don't want to date you." I know, you could perceive that differently. Like you could introduce the logic "Come on Greg, she didn't want to date you because she was dared to, and it made her feel bad to continue dating you because she started to like you and saw you were a person!" and my reply to that is: We were both getting what we wanted, to date each other, so why would you stop just because you feel bad about something that clearly doesn't matter anymore?
Can you imagine? 20 years down the line, laughing with family members about the origin story of your relationship? "Oh yeah, I was dared to date Greg, but then we hit it off, and years later, I had our 5th baby!" *Crowd of family laughs and celebrates the existence of their family members spawned from that silly origin story* See how stupid her reasoning was now? Ruined something perfectly fine.
Anyway, point is, I felt she was being dumb, but I accepted it, and moved on. But what did I move on to? A mature-looking girl, that was four years older than me, that's what.
Remember the lady I talked about in a previous chapter? One of the girls I hung out with who were associated with the church located where my dad is from? (He lived in Ohio, Christian capitol of the world is what it felt like) I'm talking about the girl who stared at me intensely, smiled at me constantly whenever she saw me. Well, that summer, we spent a lot of time together. We never dated, but things were heating up since my height had exploded and I began to tower over her despite her being my senior.
The summers before we did a lot together. We went on roller coaster rides together, to restaurants together, had pizza nights together and much more. Basically, I loved this girl, who was four years older, because I was naturally attracted to those with the opposite gender as me, and unlike the girls my age, she was actually already fully developed. This, for a young boy like me, was, awesome.
I loved how she looked at me with her eyes so intensely it felt like she was shooting energy right through me. I loved how she laughed at most everything I said, and how she clearly liked hanging out with me. She had long curly brown hair, was obviously Latin & smelled awesome.
Her parents lived next to a massive mansion. Their home was centered in a, impressive, gated community where mostly only rich people lived. Their house was the smallest of the gaggle, but still pushing a good 2,000 square feet.
One day that summer, we were on the pond near her house in a paddle boat. We wound up all getting wet, and decided to go to her friend's house, which was a good 5,000 square feet. Just an absolute beast of a mansion.
The insides of the house appeared pretty messy. Junk was all over the place like they hadn't had anyone clean it in weeks. The girl 4 years my senior said they were away, and she had all four of us come in. The other two were the other girl who I adored, 3 years my senior, and her brother, who was one year younger than me. The sister was a thin Asian-appearing girl, her mother being white, and her dad being Chinese. Her brother reminded me of a young Asian Keanu Reeves. Very cool dude. One of the cleanest guys I've met to this day, in every way.
As we went up to shower, the girl I was infatuated with said "I'm going to shower first, you can join me if you like." In that moment, I wanted to erupt into a "Yes please!" as the tension had been building all day, but she quickly said "Joking!" before I could react at all. I was bummed, but not for long as I had my awesome other friends with me to explore the house with while she showered.
There was another incident where the little brother and I were going to get the same girl from a restaurant bar she was at. We wanted to all spend time together that night and she needed a ride. As the little bro and I stood there outside, the girl I loved was seemingly having conflicting interactions with older guys before she walked over to us. As we waited, I folded my arms, a towering 5'10 11-year-old next to his 5'5 10-year-old friend, waiting for the much older girl we were both in love with.
She concluded her business, whatever that was, with the guys outside, and walked over to us. I seemed upset to her, she commented asking if I was ok and I told her I was fine. In reality, I didn't like the competition, I had it in my head, that she wanted to be my girlfriend, and I wanted to be her boyfriend. Remember that for references later in this chapter. I'll say it more clearly: I was upset, and overprotective of her (overprotective meaning, way too much aggression for the situation), because I was in love with her.
Later that summer, three families from my church wanted to go stay in a time-share cabin for a little while. I was excited, because guess what? The little bro, his sister and the girl of my dreams (at the time) was going to be there.
The cabin we were staying at was awesome. It was made of stripped logs, treated with a fantastic finish that made the wood shine. The insides were as expected (covered in natural wood furniture with an awesome kitchen), and the upstairs was where we were all the younger folks were destined to sleep. One big, large, upstairs room.
It should be known; I had never kissed a girl before that night. I was just an 11-year-old kid, in love with a much older girl. I had no idea what to do about that, but as I found out, she clearly did know what to do. We were all going to bed, and she set up her sleeping bag about 4-5 feet away from mine. There was a stairway opening that split us apart, I was on one side of the carpeted walkway, she was on the other.
As the lights dimmed, she put a pillow in between her and me, and she reached her hand under the pillow. Watching at her as much as she was watching me, I figured out what she was doing. I knew she was trying to hold my hand, so I reached my hand under the pillow as well, and there she was, waiting for me.
I had struck out with girls my age back home and here was a girl, much older than me, wanting to hold my hand? My head was exploding with excitement. Just then, we heard a "Goodnight!", and the lights went completely dark.
It didn't take long for her to slide over to me and begin kissing me. At first it started with kissing from the side, but she eventually slid on top of me. For me, this was, without question, the best moment of my life up to that point. I was not only kissing back, but I was sticking my tongue in her mouth and touching her everywhere she was touching me.
ANYWAY, unfortunately I can't go into too much depth about what happened because you have to remember, I was an 11-year-old boy I don't want to freak people out too bad/it feels weird talking about it, so maybe we'll save my more intense experiences for periods in which I was much older.
The point is, she and I went to third base together. And the next morning, we went to third base again in the front room downstairs... that is if I understand the bases correctly.
I remember her prickly legs that morning. It was kind of funny, but it was really nice to see her in the daylight, looking in my eyes and welcoming my kisses. Like the night before wasn't just some weird misunderstanding.
The rest of the summer was awesome, and I was madly in love with that girl for some time. Unfortunately for my simple boy mind, there would be no repeats of what happened again with her. Her future was far stranger than a continued relationship with me. Personally, I'd say she'd be happier having stuck with me. In my opinion, I grew up to be a really generous, strong, handsome & reasonable guy... or so that's what a lot of people in my life have suggested I am.
But you know what did happen? The following summer she slept with the younger friend I had. That's right, they wound up full on, openly dating. By that time, she was 16 and he was 11. Jump forward to the last time I was around my father, when she was 19 and I was 15? She barely even acknowledged I existed. She showed up to my dad's house, sat on the couch with her new boyfriend, looked extremely unhappy, barely made eye contact with me, now had a double chin (genetics, just how life goes... I have skin cancer & severe acne problems in my family tree, so I get it) and left shortly after. God that was weird.
So that was it, the end of that story. The girl I lost my "kissing" and other things virginity to, was essentially, apparently, ashamed of ever going through that with me... and my friend (the following year). But I do understand there are a number of potential reasons for her to act that way when she last saw me, they could be:
She was ashamed of being with someone much younger than her.
She was ashamed of being with my even younger friend.
She was in a controlling relationship with her boyfriend where she was not allowed to be herself around me anymore.
She didn't like her appearance as it had changed since we last saw each other
Maybe another reason...
Come to think of it, when I did see her the last time, and she was with her new boyfriend, the little bro and his sister were nowhere around... there must be so much more to that story than I know. Would you believe it if I said that little bro is a doctor with a cookie cutter American family now? Awesome. Good for him.
Well, summer was over, and it was off to 6th grade. My friend David was there, and this, indeed, was around the time I started the "Mad Cows" gang. Innocently, it was just words. We didn't actually do anything, or even hang out. I just went around asking people if they'd join, they did, and that was it. I found out later my cousin also had a gang, but he was harmless too as far as I'm aware. Just kids copying what they saw in cartoons, like the Power Rangers (they're a gang by the way, numerous definitions identify a gang as just a group of people that work together, or a young group of kids just being dumb together).
The new school (which was actually old as hell) really sucked in the sense that it was a massive downgrade from my elementary school facility-wise. A short Latin girl asked me out when the 6th grade year started, but then dumped me because "I thought you had blue eyes"
You can bet I was wishing I was still with an older chick.
I also dated a girl who had a brother that seemed way too attached. When she and I started going out, he immediately felt it was appropriate to threaten me "If you ever hurt her feelings, I will beat your ass." and that was my introduction to the obviously incestuous brother persona. *laughs* Sorry not sorry, overprotective brothers are cringe to me.
I had two sisters, never once did I threaten any of their boyfriends, or even care who they dated. It was none of my business and I had no interest. Why? Because threatening people if they hurt someone's feelings? That's what you'd do for a girlfriend, not a little jerk you were raised with.
Same goes with overprotective fathers, talk about creeps. A great example of this, is a dude once threatened my life if I ever hurt his daughter's feelings, only to turn around and make an almost sexual moan with a "Damn" when he saw his daughter in a dress. She told me about it, horrified by his reaction to her dress, and I was like "Yup, he's creepy, and it explains a lot."
Brothers and fathers are only overprotective when they wish they were dating them instead of you. I said it. I called it. Live with that. It's the horrifying reality of overprotective men/women, which is why I'm only overprotective, of my significant other, that's it. My sisters? They can let their freak flags fly, I don't care.
Case and point: Do you ever see someone threaten men over extremely ugly, fat daughters or sisters? Nope? Boom. Dunked on, and, gross.
Some of you may be reading this, thinking "Wait, I have an overprotective brother (or dad)!?" And, if you ever say that to my face, reference that you have an overprotective someone in your life? I will laugh until I cry. Sorry for your loss, but it is what it is.
Anyway, I dumped his sister anyway. My sister had set us up in the first place, and I thought she was really unattractive from day one. She had major (in Russian accent) "I only use men for making baby and picking hairs out of my back with tweezers" vibes. Her brother wasn't even remotely upset with me dumping her, despite it hurting her feelings, because he never cared about her feelings, he just wanted to date her himself. In fact, after the fact, he was suddenly much nicer to me. It was almost as if his girlfriend/sister was available to him again. Says it all. Humans, still as gross as the day we all naturally hunched forward and lived in caves.
Other than these moments in 6th grade, I had brilliant cutting-edge video games like Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid to entertain me. Absolutely wonderful PlayStation treasures that I still play to this day. Amazing music, stories & gameplay. Chef's kiss.
The philosophies shared in those games lived on with me and helped shape my life. A life that is in shambles (in a few ways), sure, but god damn did I love those games.
Both MGS and FFVII featured main characters who could have been me (some day). Physically fit brooding mysterious men with a love for the concept of battle? That was me. In fact, up till I was actually in the military, I had a major urge to kick some ass. And I did, but it wasn't the men I thought would be on the receiving end. Life had a lot of surprises still waiting for me.
6th grade could essentially be summed up with superficial dating relationships and awesome video games. It was a brilliant year of staring at a 13-inch VCR TV with the game discs whirring inside the PlayStation my father bought me (instead of paying child support, according to my mom).
I did have a near kiss with a girl at one point that year. We had been dared to kiss each other as we stood in an empty darkened gymnasium at the local high school for a student event. She was of Latin decent, just like the girl who dumped me for having the wrong eye color. Only this girl, had a mustache, which I didn't care about. She was still pretty to me. But, before we actually kissed, we were called to leave for the night, making me still a one kiss wonder with the lady whose piercing eyes felt like they could kill.
Off to 7th grade.