Based on my experiences, there are only four options regarding friends when it comes to high school. The first is that you have only one friend, and you are so dangerously close with that specific friend that people associate you two as one entity rather than individuals. A common way to identify this symptom is when one of the friends in the duo is way too chummy with the other’s mom. The second option is that you have three friends. No more and no less. I think the significance behind the number three is that people are generally a self-centered speck. However, most specks don’t like to be totally alone, despite their self-centeredness. Rather, they prefer to contain themselves within a tight-knit system in which they can operate. Similarly, a triangle, which has three sides, is the least number of sides needed to properly contain the representative speck. So, three friends is basically the bare minimum needed to live a “full” life. The next option is to have no friends. In this case, I think the speck simply contains themself in a circle which is basically just a bigger version of the exact same speck they are. I’ve always felt that most people who live like this do it by choice. I do not know if their choice to not make friends is driven by pure hatred of other high schoolers (which is a valid stance) or perhaps just by a much simpler desire to be alone. The next, and final, type of high schooler is the type who has enough friends that they don’t need to bother keeping a number. This number usually falls between 8 and 237, based on my statistical feelings. Nobody is locked into any of these categories, and they can constantly be changing, but I find people breaking these rules is an oddity.
I start this article with a brief stint about high school social life options mainly because I went through all four of these phases throughout my high school experience (as I’m sure many do) and now that it’s all over I’ve realized one thing: I am a failure at everything I ever loved. This is not a depressing realization, but eye-opening. Before I go on to the story of my teenage life as a failure, I feel I should set the precedent that this article doesn’t end with “it’s ok to be a failure” because by my standards it is not. Rather, it probably ends with a depressing admission that I’ll spend the rest of my life as a meaningless speck who participates in meaningless competitions for no other reason other than what could probably be defined as addiction. A sad, hopeless addiction to failing.
All that aside, high school was a pretty good time for me! Despite the fact that I was from Staten Island, I attended a semi-prestigious (my mom would simply call it prestigious but one of the values they taught was humbleness) Jesuit Catholic high school in Manhattan. This means that every morning, I began my hour and thirty minute commute to school at 5:45AM, which consisted of a train, ferry, and subway. There were also only five other freshmen at my school from Staten Island, so the friends I could make during the commute were slim pickings. I mean this in the absolute nicest way possible, but I was not compatible as a friend with any of the four freshmen I commuted with. I’m not sure if it was the fact that I was waking up aggressively early, or perhaps it was merely the combined immaturity of five incompatible fourteen year olds on public transportation, but I grew to hate three of the four of them in my freshmen year. I grew to mildly enjoy the fourth one, but calling him a friend would be a desperate definition of the word on both sides. Having not met anyone else, I walked into high school as a boy with no friends.
For the first few months I was totally fine with this. I was more obsessed with catching the earliest subway possible and getting home by 4:45PM than I was concerned with making friends. Almost every night after my race home I would race to finish my homework as quickly as possible, usually just so that I could catch episodes of Seinfeld on TBS. It seemed satisfying in the moment because I was constantly accomplishing small tasks, but really I was in a perpetual state of “what now?”
It wasn’t until I became a failure that I escaped this mindscape. It all started on a very specific Thursday, but not specific enough that I remember the date. This other freshmen brought in to the school cafeteria a Nintendo GameCube with a portable screen attached to the top of it (which doesn’t sound like a big deal to many, but the Nintendo GameCube was a system designed to stay in the home and be played on a large television, so to convert it into a portable system was pretty big news to a teenager like myself who grew up leaving his systems on his television). Along with the system, Matt brought with him two controllers and a copy of Super Smash Brothers Melee. Without going into excruciating detail, all the necessary knowledge of that game for the purposes of this article are that it’s a game in which 2-4 players are placed on a platform and try to knock each other off the platform and essentially be the last standing. I’d played the game to great extent with my brother, so when I saw Andrew playing it with his friend Brian I felt the inclination to ask if I could get a game in. I had always considered myself fairly good at the game, so I was surprised when Brian and Matt both easily defeated me every time we played. Eventually, they began telling me that they were part of the game’s “competitive scene” and they sometimes went to tournaments and, most surprisingly, that I should play the game with them more and go with them sometime.
I’ll skip ahead to a couple of months later to the beginning of my sophomore year. I had somehow, thanks to nothing other than Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo Gamecube, transformed from the high schooler with no friends into the one with one friend. That friend being Brian. You’re probably, and rightfully wondering, why not Matt? Is this just some ridiculous omission in order to increase the validity of the beginning paragraph? No, that is not the case. Rather, Matt simply gained interest in other video games and lost interest in the one that caused me to interact with him and Brian in the first place. Since the game was really what any friendship I had with them was built upon, when he became less invested in it, our friendship dwindled. Not to get into the politics of it all, but I also think I somewhat acted as a replacement for Matt to Brian.
Anyway, by the start of sophomore year, Brian and I had become close friends who were fiends over Super Smash Brothers Melee (SSBM). Most moments I wasn’t working on schoolwork, I was with Brian. We watched live tournaments of the game on Twitch, talked in detail about all the players, practiced against each other endlessly trying to reach the level of other top players, and most excitingly we attended local tournaments sometimes after school.
I loved attending the local tournaments. It was a room of people, all obsessed with the same niche competitive game, and going all out to try and become the best. Whether it be playing the game against random people to see their playstyle and character choices, or just sitting around drinking a soda discussing whether PPMD or Mango (actual player names) were going to win the upcoming tournament, SSBM had an overwhelming presence in my social life. Of course, everybody at the tournament became an acquaintance, because we all had that same niche, but Brian remained my only friend.
It is a good thing I had Brian with me too, because I desperately needed a friend at this time, as it was the first time in my life I realized I was truly a failure. I think before getting so heavily involved in SSBM, the thing I cared most about was schoolwork, and the goal there was more about getting it done rather than winning. With SSBM tournaments though, there was an intense drive to win each tournament match and hopefully make it to one of the final rounds of the bracket, and hopefully even win the money in the prize pool (everyone who enters pays $5-$15 depending on the tournament, and the top 3-8 players usually receive a share of it).
However, each week I went to a tournament, I would be knocked out by some player who was seemingly on a whole different plane of the game than me. Some were faster with the game’s movement, some were simply more tactical than me, and other times I was so sure I could beat somebody, but I choked under the pressure of playing in a tournament with real stakes, both in dollars and in pride. Sure, sometimes I would end up with a solid 13th place, or once even a 5th (thanks to a combination of me playing out of my mind and getting an extremely lucky bracket where the character I played had an advantage over almost every opponent I faced). Even with those scattered victories, I still couldn’t fight the thought that the people I was losing to were only good players locally. While I was struggling to beat Makashi, Makashi was struggling to beat Lucky, who was still struggling to beat Mango. I was several echelons away from even being close to the point where I felt I should be.
In a way, the game almost became like a form of homework. I was attending tournaments, watching the game, and practicing because I felt like becoming the best (even if it was just at our local venue) was something I had to get done. It’s not to say my love for the game was dead, but it had been temporarily syphoned out of me.
Right around this time was also the start of what I now refer to as my “McDonald’s years”. Brian and I were still good friends, but as both of our interests in Smash started waning away from being something we wanted to constantly talk about, we both began to branch away from each other. This odd time period of my life started right around April of my sophomore year of high school. One day, as I was in the locker room debating whether I wanted to get home early or go get 13th place at another Smash tournament, a peer by the name of Patrick approached me. He told me he was on his way to the McDonald’s three blocks from school and that I should join him. Confused and somewhat reluctantly, I decided to join him. Apparently he’d also extended these invitations unto two other people named Joshua and Wilson.
Almost as randomly and as quickly as the invitation happened, I had transitioned from a young man with one friend to three. The love of SSBM died down, and Brian became something more of a peer I saw in the locker room and talked amicably about the game as if it was a broadcast sport. Before I knew it, it had become a Thursday tradition that myself, Patrick, Joshua and Wilson would all go McDonald’s and sit inside of it eating whatever small meal we purchased. The oddest part was that we didn’t really go to the McDonald’s to eat. That was secondary to sitting inside the restaurant, sometimes doing homework, but more often than not simply distracting each other and sharing stories. Often times this would go as late as 8:00 at night, which may sound tame, but after my long commute I sometimes wouldn’t end up getting home until 10:00 on a school night, still having done none of my schoolwork.
Eventually Thursday McDonald’s transitioned into Friday as well, and then, by the time my junior year had started, it had become something of a meme across my high school that if you go there after school, you’re bound to see some combination of myself, Patrick, Joshua, and Wilson. I stopped using the library in school to do homework and would often times just walk to McDonald’s to do it there.
Now, perhaps it seems obvious to many why I would have considered myself a “failure” in this time period of my life. Between spending multiple hours a week loitering about the largest American fast-food chain, not doing schoolwork consistently, and having basically abandoned my dreams of being a top SSBM player, it might seem like I had no aspirations other than to sit with my friends in a poorly-cushioned booth. Nonetheless, none of this really bothered me or made me feel like a failure. See, I’ve had stomach problems since I was very young. I’ve always had a sensitive stomach. I always watched carefully what I ate, thanks to the discretion and supervision of my mother. However, as I had reached this stage of premature independence and was eating McDonald’s every day, these stomach problems began to arise in full force. Unfortunately, I felt like I was trapped. I couldn’t not go to McDonald’s to hang out with my friends, as that felt like second nature. I also couldn’t not eat for the several hours I spent there, as I’d grow starving. Plus, when you sit in a chain restaurant for more than 10 minutes I think it’s pretty much expected that you purchase at least one item. I recall more than one incident where I began to feel the quarrels of my bowels begin to arise on a subway. Of course, subways have no bathrooms, so I was usually just left to sit there, on the bumpy subway ride recoiling in pain from the rumbling sensations in my stomach. This painful, yet frequent experience, was growing out of hand. Finally, one night, I expressed to my mother the pains I was having (omitting the fact that it was almost certainly from the huge amounts of fast food I was consuming). My mother recommended that I begin coming with her when she goes out running.
My mother had always been a big runner. She would often go out for an hour or two around our neighborhood and just go running. When I was around 11, she completed her first half-marathon. She would go on to complete many more, but never opted to go for the full marathon. I believe she chalks it up to simply a lack of time combined with the fear that it would simply be too difficult.
I myself had brief stints with running. I had done track & field from the 6th grade all the way up to the end of my freshman year of high school. However, I despised it, so I was distant when my mother offered for me to come running one day with her. She insisted that it would help my stomach issues though, so I gave it a shot. That Saturday morning, she drove down to the beach area of Staten Island with me, and began running. Almost immediately, there was something very different about running with my mom from running with a track team. The biggest difference though, was that she didn’t run with me! Rather than having to run specific drills and remain close with the other teammates in track & field, here I was just running on my own. My own pace, my footwork, whether or not I listened to music, it was all determined by me. There was something very relaxingly solitary about doing this. I started off running only 1 or 2 miles while my mom did her 4-7 mile runs, but before I knew it, I was beginning to catch up to her in distance and pace. Even when our paces were matches though, we always retained a certain distance, both physically and mentally. I think we both innately respected the solitary nature of the exercise.
So, just as my addiction to McDonalds continued, my growing addiction to running helped make sure I was able to stay alive. As time went on and I kept running slightly longer distances, eventually my mom convinced me to train for the Brooklyn half-marathon. I would train over the course of the summer too, so my McDonald’s addiction would probably be on a temporary hold. I spent that summer, for once not distracted by a niche competitive video game scene or hindered by the urge to spend time in a greasy booth just to give a friendship a home, and instead was really doing this running thing for myself.
I specifically remember my first half-marathon, 13.1 miles, because the one thing I was shocked by was how many people were there. There were a series of corrals, labeled A through K, I believe. The “A” corral would start the race first, and was composed of the elite runners who were probably doing some kind of unfathomable 6-minute mile. I was placed in corral “H” along with my mother. Corrales “A” through “C” are composed of men and women so dedicated to running and so strong in the sport that they look more like stallions than humans around mile 7.
The race was also graphed out in this weird way that right as I, a meek member of coral “H” got to mile 6, I would be running parallel on the opposite side of the street of the runners in corrals “A” and “B” as they approached what I’d assume was mile 10 or 11. I think it’s supposed to be an inspiring route, because as you’re getting tired you see all these great athletes and it gets your adrenaline pumping again. And it does work, I’ll admit. At the same point though, there’s some kind of weird taunting nature about this that always makes me realize what a failure I am. It’s as if right as I’m finishing this really hard, really long race that I’ve trained super hard for and put in hours of work to just be able to complete, God is putting these elite runners next to me as if to say “You’re good, yeah, but you’re basically nothing compared to THIS!” It’s demeaning, yet somehow elevating.
After the half-marathon was completed and I got back to the daily days of life as a junior in high school, something had changed. I was no longer addicted to hanging out at McDonald’s constantly with the same three people. I began to sit with Brian again in the lunchroom, purely due to the coincidence that our schedules worked out. Along with him, I’d sit with a platoon of other people. After school, I no longer escaped to McDonald’s 100% of the time. Sometimes I’d go to Panera, or to Chipotle, and not with the same three people. Without even realizing it, I’d removed all of the constrictions of my friend quantity. I no longer was one of those “three friend” kids and had evolved into the type of person who just had enough friends he didn’t bother to count them. I don’t think I ever fully processed this at the time, but it really is a great confidence booster when you can walk into the lunchroom and not be scared that one of three people won’t be there. Hell, sometimes it’s relieving to know that even sitting alone is ok, whether because you’re sure someone may come to sit with you or because you just want to sit alone. Some days I’d go home to run.
Today, I have completed more than five half-marathons and have also finished the full Philadelphia marathon. Even though I’m incredibly proud of my running and to an extent I don’t think I could live without it, I still feel like at my core I am a failure of a runner. I will probably never be in a corral like “C”. I’ll probably reside for the rest of my days in “F” if I’m lucky and really stay dedicated.
This whole article focuses on my life through the lens of friends and through the lens of failure. I feel like ever since the half-marathon, I’ve basically stayed as that type of person who doesn’t bother counting his friends quantitatively because the number would be meaningless and it would cause a great headache to determine what exactly defines a “friend”. This isn’t supposed to be some braggart sentiment that I’m popular, because I don’t really think I am that much more popular than the average person. It’s more of just a search to find meaning in how and why I evolve as a person but I stay a failure.
Now, this is where I could get super typical and discuss how it’s okay to be a failure because everyone is. Even the guy who got first place in the Philadelphia marathon (which I probably got 3000th place or something ridiculous) probably can beat himself over about how he didn’t finish a second faster or slower. But I don’t think that’s really appropriate. Mainly because maybe everyone is a failure, but I don’t care about them. Why should their failing justify my shortcomings? They don’t.
Lately, between my job, school, and friends, I feel as if I’m burning myself out sometimes. Sometimes I spend a whole day not even feeling any emotion simply because I was too busy to bother myself with them. In an effort to find an activity that could stimulate my mind enough to feel alright, I started taking up competitive chess. I’m horrid at it. I’m actually naturally bad. I still lose to a level 2 computer after scouring YouTube videos on chess strategies for hours. Even though I know I’ll never be any real sense of good, and that even if I got good, nobody would care because the social spheres I have don’t really enjoy chess, I like to keep trying. And it means such an incredible amount of nothing.
Losing and then accepting failure is such a sobering experience. It’s just so relieving sometimes to lose a match in a tournament for a video game, or to run 8:41 miles when you KNOW you could’ve done 8:30 if you pushed yourself, or to lose a game of chess to your friend who said he “thinks he remembers the rules.” After failing, it’s nice to just say “I am such a disgusting, crippled human being who is consistently failing at everything I am doing, and I will continue to fail until I one day die and decay to nothing”. Sure, it probably sounds depressing on paper. But what’s the alternative? To succeed at everything, be the best at everything I want to, and then simply be happy all the time. Feelings don’t exist when they’re consistent. They need constant fluctuation or else they’re just the equivalent of lifetime boredom. As I stumble for an ending, I can’t help but wonder if this whole article is some desperate act to resolve my identity of failure by saying that it’s such a permanent fixture of my life that it’s never going to change so I might as well just try my best. But good God does that feel like a massive cop-out. So instead I’m going to say that failing is not OK and I am going to fight until one day I can look in the mirror and see something other than a failure. This is not the perfectionist standpoint, as the perfectionist is in the constant state of perfecting minute details in order to temporarily not be a failure.
However, this is a cyclical torture chamber, as the feeling of failure will only come back, and will again have to perfect some other aspect in order to alleviate that feeling. I am in search of a more permanent solution. I don’t know how it manifests itself. Perhaps it will come in the form of me one day winning a local SSBM tournament and proudly collecting my $40-$60. Or perhaps it will simply be the day I choose to buy kale instead of Pringles at the grocery store in an effort to get that healthy lifestyle that improves my running just a bit more. Perhaps there is no satisfaction until I become the grandmaster of chess.
Despite the immense stress this may cause, there are two things that relieve me about being a failure. The first is that somehow, in the effort to not be a failure, I became the type of person who had a lot of friends, which is something I needed. I’m not saying this is the objectively ideal way to escape failure, but for me I feel it was a necessary transformation to feel whole. I’m sure for some people the total isolationism of having no friends is what starts the path to success. The second relieving aspect about being a failure is that I’m currently too busy and way too occupied to ever carry out a suicide, so at least mental health is on my side for the moment. Perhaps one day, I will simply be hiking on a random trail and I’ll see a really meaningless blue butterfly and I’ll think it’s pretty and then for some reason I just find this resolution and I don’t feel like a failure anymore. Until then, I will continue to be absolutely disgusted by myself.
