Next Generation? See you think you're messing with me when you use your fancy Star Trek shortcut. I'm wise to you GURPS
I Skipped Prom to Watch Star Trek
Prom. The word conjures up familiar imagery: white stretch limos, pink sequined dresses, corsages (really though, what’s the purpose of a corsage? Is it a bracelet? An ornament?), twinkling lights accompanied by slow music in the gymnasium which has been converted into a quasi-ballroom of sorts. Sounds familiar, right? Well, to me, these are scenes cut from popular culture sources with
Mean Girls and
She’s All That providing most of the visual fodder, because I never went.
I skipped it and watched
Star Trek instead.
High school wasn’t easy. At some point, I was deemed “book smart” which translates to unpopular, and like a brand, if followed me throughout each grade. If you didn’t fit into a specific mold, it basically meant you were a prime target for bullying. Certain social interactions like lunch in the cafeteria, group projects, or picking team members for dodgeball, all proved terrifying for me. One could also argue that carrying around my copy of the
Star Trek Encyclopedia, and skulking off to the computer lab to work on my Borg-dedicated website weren’t exactly setting me up for popularity. But that’s the thing about being popular and accepted: it’s all about conforming. And there was something about that that didn’t quite sit right with me.