Mike was a popular kid-one of those kids that everyone seemed to look up to. He was charming, gregarious, and a class clown in a way that was mistaken as witty. His family was successful, in a small town way. He always wore the latest fashions, which in 1979 Oregon was Britannia Jeans, Nike waffle shoes, and a colorful T-shirt that would now be coveted by Hipsters. His parents would take him and his friends to concerts in Portland. In hindsight might have been a bit inappropriate for fifth graders, especially dropping off unescorted ten year olds for Styx, Van Halen and AC/DC shows. They would come back with concert T-shirts, and whisper stories of sneaking in booze and smoking pot, which in hindsight was designed to make the rest of us feel childish and unsophisticated.
One time he looked at me and said “you are really smart.” Anyone overhearing it would have assumed it was a compliment. The smirk on his face belied the true intent. In that moment, we both understood that I might be smart, but it didn’t matter, because he was popular.
Unwittingly, he was practicing what what those in today’s Pick Up Artist community would call the perfect Neg. It was a Low-grade insult disguised as a compliment, meant to undermine self-confidence such that one might be more vulnerable to his advances. I later watched him do it to girls in our school, for an entirely different objective, but the intent was the same.
Occasionally he would seek me out to partner on some class assignment, or to try and get help with homework or test answers. It was a small price to pay to be included in some of those whispered conversations, and to be acknowledged, if only temporarily by him and his friends.
As time passed, I became less enamored and tolerant of his antics. It was a bipolar kind of relationship: friendly when it served a purpose, and ugly when ridiculing or shunning me would win points with his friends. I started to see his insecurity grow as my own athletic abilities began to overshadow his compulsion for sports, and as girls started to notice me. That is when the shunning and ridicule began in earnest. I was starting to infringe on his brand, and see just how fragile it was. Despite his superior ball handling skills, and my clumsiness, I was a 6’3’’ seventh grader who could run mile after mile at a seven minute pace. In hindsight, his and other boys’ efforts were amazingly effective in putting me in my place. Despite the fact that I easily could have made my father’s day by becoming a Football or Basketball star, by High School I opted for the far less popular Cross Country and Track. I was no longer a threat to Mike, and he didn’t bother with the compliments. There was an implied truce in which I could be smart, and athletic, as long as I was not popular, or pursued any of the girls he or his friends found attractive, and so I dated girls from out of town, and kept my head relatively low. I became a loner and a nerd.
Yesterday, Carrie went to the gas station, and paid at the pump, but when she tried to put gas in the car, the pump would not reset. She walked into the mini mart, and the cliché Middle Eastern attendant stated that “It should work fine now, have a nice day.” In hindsight he seemed a little smug, but she dismissed it and went out to fill the tank. One of the customers that had been in line inside came out to his car. As he passed he laughingly told her “the attendant was bragging that he purposely did not reset the pump because he wanted to get a closer look at you.” When Carrie shared this, and her disgust that some man made her waste time walking into the store when she could have been finishing putting gas in the car and been on her way, she was told she should consider it a compliment. Under different circumstances this type of unsolicited attention might be a compliment. If it came from someone Carrie would actually consider flirting with, like Brad Pitt or George Clooney, or she had gone to extraordinary lengths to dress or groom herself for a special occasion, then it might have been welcome from someone she knew and felt safe with. Under these circumstances it was just a Neg. You might be smart, accomplished, sexy and feminine, but I am a man, and I can make you have to walk into my store if I want to get a closer look.
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