Way Back Whensday: Just So You Know, I Fence

Ah look! Little me in Grade 9!My first few days in high, I was excited, nervous, terrified and feeling very grown up all at the same time. I had my English class early in the day, with a teacher named Mr. Swo. I went to a uniform school, girls wore kilts and dress shirts, while boys wore dress shirts with ties and dress pants.

On our first day, Mr. Swo did the thing that teachers do to ensure their students keep up on classes they miss. He made us get three phone numbers from our classmates. I know no one. Most people who really know me would never categorize me as shy. The truth is, to people I don’t know, I can be cripplingly shy. I didn’t know who to ask. A lot of the other students went to school with one another, so they were just using this time to socialize. I just stood there awkwardly, just waiting for something to happen.

This tall, lanky boy with dark hair and glasses walked over to me. Now, I’m pretty tall, but he was tall even by my standards (my dad is 6’6”, so I have high standards as far as tall goes… pun not intended). So he walks over to me with a confident smile. He puts one leg up on a chair beside me and leans on it. He looks at me with that smile and at this point, I’m feeling even more awkward. He reaches out his hand and says, “Hi, I’m Sean. I’m in the military and I’m an excellent fencer,”


At this point, he does a little imitation jab in the air to indicate what he means by fencing, apparently, just in case I didn’t understand what he meant. “So I was thinking that you should give me your number. You know, for class,” he says with his now creepy smile on his face.

I am now blushing and virtually unable to speak. Could this really be happening to me? On my FIRST day? If this had happened to me, say, last week instead of in high school, I would’ve just considered it par for the course. I am, as it turns out, a crazy magnet. But it didn’t happen now, it happened then and I wasn’t familiar with the crazy that surrounded me in the world. I didn’t know what to do and I felt mean saying no. Mean is such a juvenile word, but I assure you that in this context, it is extremely appropriate.

The angels of awkward new high school students must’ve been watching me though. After they had a bit of a laugh at my expense, they eased my suffering by sending me Gwen, who to this day is still one of my dearest friends. She had gone to elementary school with Sean, so she was already familiar with him and his shenanigans. She walked right up to him and told him to shove off. Gwen had also gone to school with a bunch of the other students. She set me up with her number as well as the phone numbers of two other non-creepy students.

Mr. Swo proceeded to seat us. He believed that we shouldn’t get to choose our own seats, so he put us in seats alphabetically by last name. As it turned out, Gwen’s last name was alphabetically after mine and that combined with her saving me from Sean, was the start of a beautiful friendship.