Kids are cruel, and I learned that the hard way.
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My parents gave me my first cell phone when I was ten.
They said it was only for emergencies, but to a preteen in the early 2000s, it might as well have been gold. It was a shiny brick of a flip phone with raised buttons. I couldn’t wait to show it off to my friends.
I begged and pleaded with my parents to get me a phone since all my friends had one. They refused to get me one for the longest time since they said I was too young.
Most of them had the enviable Motorola RAZR. It had a slide-out keyboard you could slam back into place when you were mad at someone.
Gosh, I thought that phone was so cool.
My flip phone brick was no Motorola RAZR, but I hoped it was enough to impress my friends. I sauntered over to them and showed them my new phone, beaming with pride and excitement.
That feeling of joy lasted all of ten seconds, as they began making nasty remarks.
“Ewww, that’s the ugliest phone I’ve ever seen!”
“Why is it so big and bulky?”
“Your parents took forever to give you a phone and they gave you THAT?!”
Suddenly, that cell phone no longer looked like a shiny, new toy. It was a ruthless target, another thing that I wasn’t doing right.
They were right. It was a stupid and ugly phone. I was a stupid and ugly girl. Why couldn’t I do anything that didn’t embarrass them?
The main reason why I was friends with this group of girls was because our moms all worked together. I had known all of them since I was a toddler.
But whenever we hung out, I felt like I was walking on eggshells.
I was too babyish since I played with Barbies when they’d all outgrown them. They were having first crushes and hiking up their school uniform skirts to impress the boys.
I didn’t get any of it. I always got left behind, no matter how desperately I tried to catch up.
This phone was a chance to prove myself, and I blew it. I was belittled and, once again, felt like a fish out of water. If I could fold myself up in that moment and make myself invisible, I would.
Showing them my first cell phone sticks out so clearly in my mind because that was the first time I realized I had shitty friends.
Kids at this age are cruel, but these “friends” were ruthless. I was subject to constant criticism and never felt like I belonged.
I didn’t know then that friendship shouldn’t be conditional. Around real friends, you shouldn’t be holding your breath, trying to gauge whether your next move would subject you to ridicule.
I didn’t know then that no matter what I did, it wouldn’t be enough. Trying to be friends with them was like forcing a round peg into a square hole — it just didn’t work.
I didn’t know that my friends didn’t have to be people I’d known for years and that I could branch out and make new ones. I thought I had to stick with the ones I got, for better or for worse.
Ten years old is a strange age to be as a young girl. You’re not grown, but you see people around you acting that way and want to emulate them. You’re starting to go through puberty and notice your body changing, but you are still a child.
I was still a child, but I learned an important adult lesson about my worth that day.
It’s mind-boggling how peer pressure can sway people’s opinions of you. I wish I could go back and tell little me that she could take her time and march to the beat of her own drum.
In hindsight, all of their remarks about my phone were stupid anyway.
Big and bulky phones are back with a vengeance. The flip phone is now an iconic timestamp of 2000s nostalgia.
My flip phone even had a tiny, rotating camera. I could take proper selfies before selfies were a thing. I was ahead of the times and didn’t even know it.
Being able to dramatically flip my phone shut when I hung up on someone was way cooler than having a sliding Motorola RAZR keyboard anyway.