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The Gullible Kid, Bruce Toews
Mar. 8th, 2012 09:48 amI don't remember actually being made fun of as a kid because of my blindness, but other kids did enjoy taking advantage of it and having fun at its expense.
One thing kids really enjoyed was walking past my desk, where I was listening to a book on tape using headphones, not suspecting anything, and then flip the volume to maximum, being gone before I had a chance to figure out who'd done it. The kids found this extremely amusing. They also enjoyed pulling the headphone plug and listening to my book so they could make fun of it. One book, written by astronaut Michael Collins, described training for adverse conditions in a sauna, where they "sat naked on benches". Oh, how the kids loved that line, telling the world that I was listening to dirty books.
I think the thing I had the most trouble with was my gullibility. To me, it was beyond the realm of possibility that people claiming to be my friends would lie to me. So, if a friend told me something very unusual, or even impossible, were happening, and insisted up and down that he was telling the truth, I would stupidly believe him, because it was inconceivable that he would deliberately lie to me ... not my friend. I read a lot about this kind of gullible innocence among mentally challenged people. Flowers for Algernon comes to mind. To think that I have fallen for this same kind of thing in my past is ... it's a difficult and bitter pill to swallow. I mean, on the one hand, if you are my friend, I want to trust you, implicitly. But if this very trust makes me look like a fool, what does that say about me? What does it say about my intelligence? I'm not exactly sure. But one friend especially liked to betray my trust and then tell my fellow students about it when I wasn't around. It did little for the reputation of a kid whose reputation was already less than incredible.
I had a friend growing up, who had a very rude and offensive nickname given to him by some of our classmates. One morning, in a fit of anger, I called him by that nickname. My classmates immediately went to inform my teacher of what I'd done, during which time I cooled down and (very sincerely) apologized to my friend, who immediately forgave me. My teacher pulled me out of the classroom and into the hall and gave me a major dressing-down for my behavior. I took it meekly. I wish now that I had told her that, while I did indeed use the nickname once and deserved to be punished for it, the people who had reported me were the ones who had come up with the nickname, and they used it constantly.
I don't know what to tell today's young person. Is it better to be trusting and open yourself up to deception and ridicule, or is it better to be a synic and to miss out on the joys of the relationship in which total trust is possible? I really don't know what to advise. Thankfully, my advice isn't in high demand.
One thing kids really enjoyed was walking past my desk, where I was listening to a book on tape using headphones, not suspecting anything, and then flip the volume to maximum, being gone before I had a chance to figure out who'd done it. The kids found this extremely amusing. They also enjoyed pulling the headphone plug and listening to my book so they could make fun of it. One book, written by astronaut Michael Collins, described training for adverse conditions in a sauna, where they "sat naked on benches". Oh, how the kids loved that line, telling the world that I was listening to dirty books.
I think the thing I had the most trouble with was my gullibility. To me, it was beyond the realm of possibility that people claiming to be my friends would lie to me. So, if a friend told me something very unusual, or even impossible, were happening, and insisted up and down that he was telling the truth, I would stupidly believe him, because it was inconceivable that he would deliberately lie to me ... not my friend. I read a lot about this kind of gullible innocence among mentally challenged people. Flowers for Algernon comes to mind. To think that I have fallen for this same kind of thing in my past is ... it's a difficult and bitter pill to swallow. I mean, on the one hand, if you are my friend, I want to trust you, implicitly. But if this very trust makes me look like a fool, what does that say about me? What does it say about my intelligence? I'm not exactly sure. But one friend especially liked to betray my trust and then tell my fellow students about it when I wasn't around. It did little for the reputation of a kid whose reputation was already less than incredible.
I had a friend growing up, who had a very rude and offensive nickname given to him by some of our classmates. One morning, in a fit of anger, I called him by that nickname. My classmates immediately went to inform my teacher of what I'd done, during which time I cooled down and (very sincerely) apologized to my friend, who immediately forgave me. My teacher pulled me out of the classroom and into the hall and gave me a major dressing-down for my behavior. I took it meekly. I wish now that I had told her that, while I did indeed use the nickname once and deserved to be punished for it, the people who had reported me were the ones who had come up with the nickname, and they used it constantly.
I don't know what to tell today's young person. Is it better to be trusting and open yourself up to deception and ridicule, or is it better to be a synic and to miss out on the joys of the relationship in which total trust is possible? I really don't know what to advise. Thankfully, my advice isn't in high demand.
