I’ll call this so-called friend, “Sandy”. Sandy was close to my age, lived in a small town that I had recently moved to by 1991-92. In the beginning Sandy and I hit it off great as friendships went, yet we were both attending different schools and this set us apart in another respect. Sandy went to a local public school in town, while I attended my “home away from home” in a familiar religious two-room school setting twenty minutes away. That being said, we had some differences as far as school friends went.
Like anything else though, peer pressure was thrown at me again this Jr. high year. Like my previous learning experiences with peer pressure, I knew this incident was again nothing but trouble. At the time I could have cared less about how to gain a foot hold in a popular crowd at school. I had transferred from one such public middle school that had a big student population, academics that prepared 7 and 8 graders for college (no, joke), and the meanest clique of rich kids that flaunted “in your face” high dollar fashion. Back in the day, every “preppy” kid shopped exclusively at The Brass Buckle (nowadays known as “the Buckle”).
My parents could never afford to take me or my siblings there to buy us clothes, and surely nobody breathed a word about shopping for clothes second-hand. If a teenager was caught dead in a place like their local Goodwill or Salvation Army Thrift shop, then they’d better prepare themselves for endless ridicule, chiding from other students and whatever else they could throw your way to make a teenager’s school life, miserable. Kids (in general) can be so mean and my generation was no different. What set me apart from my peers in the rich man’s school setting was that I was below middle class, just average at best. And I really didn’t want to imitate what all the other kids were wearing.
My parents instituted “nice shirt Mondays”, “Rock n’ Roll shirt Tuesdays” in alteration so I wouldn’t get burned out wearing the same old clothes to school day in, day out. That compromise was fair enough for me and I was content. This particular style of rock t-shirts was permissible in the public school and religious school settings as long as it was within reason and the rock band’s didn’t have any vulgar, violent or racy image/ slogan.
Like my previous segment, “Either You’re In Or You’re Out”, this peer pressure incident falls within that category. However, Sandy, who I had hung out with often had suddenly changed her attitude one day and told me (more like bragged to me) how she was able to be accepted by the most popular clique of girls at her school. I was mildly curious as to how she went from an average nobody in school to suddenly being popular literally overnight it seemed.
Well, for starters this clique of girls had an initiation right that all girls had to pass in order to be accepted into their “club”, as Sandy called it. The new girl had to prove themselves and steal three pairs of designer Guess jeans from the Brass Buckle that totaled more than $65-80 per pair of jeans. My first reaction when I heard this from Sandy was, “Don’t get caught,” and “Glad I’m not going with you.”
I was really glad that Sandy didn’t invite me to go with her to the mall, and her attitude towards me became aloof (to say the least) from that point on. I don’t know why she boasted to me like she had that day. Maybe it was to make herself feel important and to make me look insignificant. (I’m just taking a guess about her assumption). Needless to say, the friendship ended there and we never spoke to each other again.This third peer pressure incident taught me that not every kid that claims to be your friend will be genuine. They can either turn out to:
a.) admit something really stupid to a best friend not knowing it could have potentially gotten themselves in trouble.
Or…
b.) the friendship ends bitterly because the other friend knows better, makes the right decision, and severs all ties.