The first major rejection of my life was when I was 6 years old. I was in the first grade.
The first major rejection of my life was when I was 6 years old. I was in the first grade.
Photo by Annabelle Rivera
At that point in time I had no friends (not to brag or anything). What I really wanted was to hang out with this one group of guys at recess. The leader of this group was a boy named Bryce. They would play touch football everyday on the field behind our school. They were incredibly exclusive. Only the most athletic and the most tall boys in our grade got to play. I wanted in. I don’t know why. I didn’t exactly fit in with them, being short and a girl.
Photo by Annabelle Rivera
The leader of the group, Bryce, was the coolest kid in the first grade. In a group where only the tallest of boys could play football, Bryce was the tallest of them all. I made it my mission to get into the group. If I could win over Bryce, I could win over the rest. So I had a very special and very stupid plan. I would just walk up to the group while they are playing and just join in. Of course they would accept me with open arms and let me play a game that was foreign to me, right? Wrong. I walked up to them one recess and said something really convincing like “can I play?”
I swear to you, those boys couldn’t have cared less about me, but they did care when I wanted to join in on their game. They didn’t say no, but they didn’t say yes, either. They just ignored me. That fueled my fire. They didn’t turn me away! They didn’t tell me to leave because my girl cooties would get all over the ball! That meant I still had a chance!
So, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to just try to catch the ball. I was standing in the midst of the group when Bryce threw the football to somebody in my direction and I reached my arms up to try to catch it. That was a mistake. I’ll tell you why it was a mistake. Because I actually caught it. I think the thing with my decision making is that I will get really focused on doing something at the very last minute, but I don’t take a few seconds to consider the results of what I do. This was one of those occasions. I caught the ball, but I can’t throw for shit. So, I stood there, confused, ball in hand, looking around at the faces of the equally confused boys, and I tried to launch it back at Bryce. Well, it didn’t work. The football probably made it all of three feet before it hit the ground in front of Bryce. The boys just stared at me. Then, I’ll never forget it, Bryce picked up the ball and said “Girls are weak, boys rule.” Like a knife in the heart.
It’s so funny to think back on the things people said to you as a kid that bothered you and now you look at it and it’s kind of ridiculous. This is one of those moments. I mean, he was a seven year old boy and I messed up his football game. But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about how I had just been kicked out of the football group, even though I was never in it in the first place. I wish I could say that was the last time I subjected myself to that embarrassment, but I tried again and again during the next few months to join their group only to be met with the same thing: girls are weak, boys rule. Eventually I gave up. Thank God. I don’t know what I was thinking in the first place. I have continued a steady streak of rejection from various sports over the years, probably for the best. But I never forgot that experience and I never forgot how Bryce had reacted to me. That was my first ever rejection. Eventually, Bryce moved away and I never saw him again. It was in the past. What’s done is done. I have been rejected many more times since then, and I’m sure he has too. It is so silly to think about the stuff that mattered to you as a kid. None of it matters anymore. But a couple of months ago, I remembered this Bryce guy and, because I’m nosy, I decided to look him up.
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Oh. So apparently Bryce is still into sports. Can’t say the same for me though. Although, if we want to start comparing accomplishments, I did just get to 100% completion in Red Dead Redemption for the third time.
So, who’s to say who’s doing better, really?
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