The problem with being uncool...

My final class for this semester was last night, at a brewery/restaurant. It had potential to be a great time as there are a lot of interesting characters in this particular course. Unfortunately I was the second to last person to arrive so I ended up in the cheap seats, just far enough away from the good conversations to be excluded from most of them. Sadly, it seems, this is the story of my life..Always on the fringes, just close enough to see the cool kids but just far enough away to be unnoticed. I'm sure it is my fault, I'm sure it somehow goes back to some deep self loathing that keeps me in a perpetual state of exclusion. I'm also sure that the fact that most of the time I am apathetic about my social status doesn't help elevate it in any way. Never-the-less, sometimes it makes me sad.

I've never been accused of being cool. I had some glory days in late elementary because I got boobs before everyone else, but the boobs were soon followed by a ridiculous growth spurt that left me taller than all my 5th grade teachers (I was known as Paul Bunyan from that point forward).
In seventh grade I had a short lived resurgence of cool just because I switched schools and the new kid is always popular for 5 minutes. They soon caught onto me too and I was once again relegated to the ranks of social mediocrity. High school was a blur (where I was re-nicknamed Amazon woman), I spent most of it in a "relationship" (with 3 different boys, not at the same time). And even though I would never have signed an abstinence pledge, my promiscuity was more myth than reality, leaving "coolness" elusive once more.

Then there was college....still uncool. I lived in an all female co-op for 2.5 years. I got along with most of the girls in the house, at least I thought I did, until I found out after I had moved out that everyone (almost everyone, I did make a few good friends) had either hated me or seriously disliked me... Boo freakin hoo, right?

Since then I've been married and breeding, and even still, have somehow managed to procreate a group that I am still excluded from. This house is definitely a boy's club, and since I lack the necessary equipment, I can only sit on the sidelines and watch. I get to be the utility player here, the one that makes it all happen, yet I'm never invited to the secret meetings where they must discuss how to find worms, aim farts, and come up with names for their balls.

Then there is always facebook where I get to see all my friends and family socialize with each other in ways, quite frankly, they just don't with me (nor I with them).

Like I said, most of the time, I really don't care. Even last night, about halfway through my 2nd beer, I decided I didn't want to hear about treks through Peru, or adventures on The Great Wall anyway. Who cares about travels to Vienna or conversations about national education standards? I had my pizza and beer and all was well with the world, well, except for swine flu and my secret, nagging desire to be one of the cool kids.