I was walking past the dumpster at the soon-to-open middle school yesterday when a small white tightly folded wad of paper caught my eye. I reached down, unfolded the piece of notebook paper– the kind with shredded edges on the long side –and on it was tell-tale preteen girl handwriting. Big fat circles over the ‘I’s and all. Having probably spent the summer stuck at the bottom of the bin now being readied for the school year, it contained one sentence. Find out if he likes me.
I spent most of fifth, sixth and seventh grades passing notes during class. To those of you who are unfamiliar with this, you need not look any further than www.wikihow.com/Pass-Notes-in-Class for a good tutorial. I did well in school (except for math), but sitting still was painful. Passing notes was the only way I could sit through forty minutes of anything. I was a master. A ninja. (Ninjette?) Never, ever got caught. I was eleven and this was a heady thrill.
The challenges were daunting — most teachers were eagle-eyed pros who had seen every conceivable move. The dropped pencil, the stretch over the head, the cough and toss. We all did it. Some kids were just awful at it, and when they failed the teacher would formally address them as Mr. Brown or Miss Smith (we had no Ms. yet), then demand that they walk the dreaded perp walk to her desk. The ultimate punishment was, and probably still is, having the contents of the note read aloud in front of everyone in the class. Much laughter and blushing. Occasional tears.
Our first primitive mating dance, the notes mostly had something to do with boys, if they were written by girls, or girls, if they were written by boys. Keen and cruel observations. Breasts. Adam’s apples. Peach fuzz. Some dealt with body odor, or the unfortunate clothing choices of our classmates. This was still a time when most kids were dressed by their parents, and girls were not shopping at Victoria’s Secret by the age of ten.
Someone’s bologna sandwiches in greasy brown paper bags might be the subject of scorn, or the color of their socks. Nancy went to first base with Peter. Sally caught her mom drinking wine when she got home from school. John’s older brother had some good dirty magazines. Mike got another F on the Geography quiz, and his father was coming in to have a parent-teacher conference. Linda’s a snob. But usually there was another motivation: Find out if he likes me.
It was the beginning of feeling something new, a mysterious mental rash we broke out in when certain others walked by. It would take several more years and many tragic broken hearts to summon the courage to ask a boy or girl ourselves, in person. But then, it was the way things were done.
When I found that note today I was relieved to see that despite the iphones and the ipads, Skype, Twitter and Instagram, despite the sexting sadly next up on the middle-school curriculum, there is still some old-fashioned stuff going on. And I hope that this fall, more than one young hopeful will get the news that yes, he likes you!
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