The Classmate

Being in schools with lots of kids, it was inevitable that not every classmate of mine was going to have a friendly interaction with me. But there’s one classmate in particular whose interactions I’ve had with left a long-lasting negative effective on me that I still struggle to let go of.

In sixth grade I was assigned to a social skills group consisting of several seventh graders and one of which was a boy who like all the others were honest about what they’d do in certain situations and were good to me.

In my seventh grade year I had social skills again with the boy and the other kids. He was also in my math class as well. But this year I got to see his different side that changed the way I viewed him forever. 

He was very miserable, grumbling to himself about how the kids in his other classes were making it difficult for him to concentrate and he referred to them as very nasty names. He even yelled at my math classmates for their quirks and also not very nice to me either. When I asked if I could look at his Pokemon book he had with him, he angrily responded with a no and when I told him he didn’t have to be negative about everything, he banged his arm on the desk with an angry “EXCUSE ME?!” 

Other instances include him giving me a dirty look for saying something innocent, getting upset when I was simply looking in his direction and at another similar instance angrily gestured for me to look away from him, getting upset when I laughed at his special costume unintentionally and got angry when he thought I was making a funny comment about his character illustrations. 

At one one point the two of us got into a very emotional argument because I thought that he genuinely hated me even he said that wasn’t the case. The next day, after I learned we weren’t going to be having social skills anymore, we talked it over and seemingly made peace with each other which unfortunately didn’t last too long. 

Sometime later my teacher was having trouble with her marker and I warned her to be careful with it so she’d have enough ink for the rest of class. The classmate then suddenly went “Ha, ha! It’s not funny, Blake!” Keep in mind I was actually being honest with my teacher and not even trying to be funny at all. I took a moment to control my anger before he was then assigned to give us our papers to work on and I found out he gave me the wrong one. 

Sometime later I was on my way to math class and I also had this habit of skipping in order to get to my destination faster. The classmate noticed and stopped me to let me know that he knew some meadows I could skip in, much to my embarrassment. In class I was to collect to the others’ work and when I asked the particular classmate if I could talk his work, he grunted with a sarcastic, “I don’t know Blake, can you?”

This made my teacher go, “Hey! He asked you nicely.” Then they both went out of class because I remember he had a headache. For the rest of the year I had no trouble with him and thankfully I didn’t see him during eighth grade because he was at the high school.

But I still was angry about the whole situation because I felt like it just went on in class all the time without a proper resolution and I had a dreadful feeling that we would meet again once I started high school myself.

When I finally came to high school, I saw the classmate again. I saw him almost everywhere downstairs as that’s where his classes were. I didn’t want to believe it was him at first until I kept seeing him more and more followed by seeing his name on a binder in one of my classes due him sharing a teacher was when I had no choice but to accept the truth that I was back in school with him.

The main point of day that I saw him the most that was really rough on me was when I had lunch during the middle of class and he was there in the lunchroom too. I tried to ignore him but couldn’t help it because of our past experiences and my disbelief that I was back in school. Not helping the situation was that there were many times when my friend group sat near his table  and on somedays actually sat at the same table as him. It eventually got too much on me to the point that my brother and his friend came to lunch to stay with me.

The classmate actually did try to talk to me many times but I utterly refused to do because of what happened between the two of us during my seventh grade year. 

But it wasn’t just lunch and hallways where I kept encountering him. It was also in classrooms when he was leaving there, walking into my art class because he had it at a different part of the day, going onto my optional field trip that I took to get away from him, a special gym activity center and being in close rooms during school exams.

In my second high school year I thankfully didn’t have to worry about the lunch room problem since he would be in a different lunch room as I for students during their last two high school years and I thought this year wasn’t going to be as stressful in records of being forced in close proximity as him. 

But that sadly didn’t turn out the way I hoped as during home room time, I had to go into a classroom for special assistance with other kids and I found out my classmate was supposed to be in there with me. I informed the teacher about my issues with him and she let me either stay in the sub-room for where students wanted to work privately or the next-door room. Plus I also saw he was in the same cafeteria as me in the morning while we waited for the bell to start the day despite not doing so last year for some reason. 

To avoid having to go to the special class with him, I began taking special opportunities such as going on a field trip in regards to the career & tech I signed up for, special math meetings and even a burpees exercise in the school gym. While he certainly didn’t try talking to me much this year, I can still remember the last exchange we had between each other when he went into the other room I was in during home room time was “You got any work there, bro?” I looked up at him and said, “You talking to me?” followed by him saying “Yeah I’m talking to you.” Then the bell rang and I left the room.

Then came my third year of high school and to my horror I discovered he was in the exact same gym class as me and we had lunch in the same room again. But I knew to still avoid him and chose a different exercise program from him, even if some of my friends went with him. That also wasn’t it—I then saw he was taking a computer class right next to my math class which meant I try avoid dealing with him entering and leaving class which continued to the second half of the year as he retook the class. 

I also remember how in January of that school year I had to go in one of my old classrooms for how to handle adult situations in which he was there. Then around the end of the year some of my friends and I were going on a field trip to Ponaganset high school for future career ideas that the classmate was supposed to go on but ended up not doing so because he had a meltdown that morning. 

Eventually his graduation came and he was no longer at my school for the last few weeks there, much to my relief. Sure it’s been many years since I last was with him, but I’m not sure if my emotional wounds will ever heal as I feel that I never got a proper resolution for my troubles with him, unlike all the other classmates I’ve had. 

I can remember the classmate being very fond of pugs and even having one as a pet. This has led him to come to mind whenever I come across anything regarding pugs.